Issues@Hand

AFA initiatives, Christian activism, news briefs

August 2019 – On April 10, 2019, in Yvette Felarca v. Berkeley Unified School District, California District Judge Vince Chhabria ordered three Antifa activists to pay $26,000 in legal fees and litigation costs incurred by Judicial Watch while defending their client, BUSD. Judicial Watch is a conservative educational foundation.

After an October ruling that plaintiffs Yvette Felarca, Lori Nixon, and Larry Stef could not stop BUSD from releasing documents referencing their participation in Antifa or other activist groups, Judicial Watch petitioned for court costs.

Judge Chhabria believed Felarca, in particular, made herself a topic of public discourse by appearing on television news shows. Consequently, Judicial Watch was entitled to the fees due to the entirely frivolous nature of the lawsuit and the plaintiffs’ unreasonable litigation conduct.

“Moreover, the plaintiffs’ First Amendment claims were premised on the obviously baseless assumption,” wrote Chhabria, “that the First Amendment condemns the ‘alt-right’ while condoning the ideological missions of their own organizations.”

dailycal.org, 4/11/19; cnsnews.com, 5/21/19