California ordered to pay $4.5 million in fees after losing transgender rule case

March 31, 2026

By JOSH FRIEDMAN

A federal court on Monday ordered California to pay $4.53 million in attorney’s fees to lawyers who successfully challenged the state’s prohibition against public schools informing parents of their child’s transgender status.

The U.S. District Court of the Southern District of California awarded the fees to Thomas More Society attorneys. The Thomas More Society is a conservative Catholic public-interest law firm that represented the plaintiffs in a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of parents who argued a California law violated their religion and due process rights.

In 2023, two Southern California school teachers sued their school district seeking an exemption from the district’s policies regarding informing parents of transition status and pronouns. They were later joined by a group of Christian parents whose children had identified as transgender at school. 

The district court ruled in favor of the teachers and parents. However, an appeals court put that order on hold while the state appealed.

In a mixed ruling earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court majority ruled in favor of the parents’ arguments that they are the “primary protectors” of their children and that they have a right to “guide the religious development of their children.”

However, California is still fighting the case. The state recently filed a motion to change the injunction blocking the state’s prohibition on schools informing parents of their child’s gender status.

In deciding to award the plaintiffs’ attorneys more than $4.5 million, Judge Roger T. Benitez said California engaged in “litigation intransigence” in the case.

California filed repeated motions to dismiss the case, filed appeals before rulings and withdrew arguments multiple times. Attorneys for the plaintiffs had to spend more than an unusual amount of time on countering these measures, the judge said.

“In short, if Plaintiffs’ counsel spent time on the case that would normally be considered unnecessary, it was time most likely required to overcome the defendants’ litigation strategy of resisting at all junctures,” Benitez wrote in his order on attorneys’ fees.