Business & Professions Code Section 17200 Reform Proposals, Past And Future

One of the striking things about Business & Professions Code §17200 is the number and variety of proposals that have been made to amend the statute over the years. As election day 2004 approaches, and voters have to decide whether to adopt this year's reform proposal, Proposition 64, they may ask themselves not only whether §17200 needs fixing, but also whether the current ballot initiative is the best solution. Reform proposals from prior years provide a useful point of comparison. In addition, to the extent Proposition 64 is not successful, efforts to reform the statute will almost certainly continue. The proposals made in prior years provide an inventory of useful ideas from which reform proponents are sure to draw after November.

Judicial Concern Over Due Process

The need for reform of §17200 can be traced to due process and policy concerns expressed in prior judicial opinions. In Bronco Wine v. Logoluso Farms¹ the court of appeal overturned a §17200 judgment awarding restitution to non-parties in a representative action. The court was bothered by the fact that, absent the use of normal class action procedures, a judgment awarding restitution to absent parties would not be binding on those non-parties. Moreover, it would raise serious due process concerns insofar as those persons would not necessarily have received notice of the proceedings or, if they did receive it, they may have preferred not to participate.² Variations on those concerns continued to be a theme in subsequent §17200 reform efforts.

The first legislative reform effort after Bronco Wine extended the reach of the statute rather than contracting it. In 1992 the legislature re-defined unfair competition as “any unlawful act or practice,” which clarified that claims could be asserted for a single, completed act.³ Ironically, the amendment originated as an effort by the California Retailers Association to stop prosecutors from claiming that a single advertisement constituted multiple violations because it was seen or heard by many people.⁴ The CRA sought an amendment establishing that a publication or broadcast constitutes a single act, meriting a single civil penalty. What they got, instead, is the language currently in §17206(b), which provides a multi-factor test to guide the court in determining how many violations exist for purposes of computing civil penalties, and the change in §17200 specifying that a violation can result from a single completed act.⁵ The amendment lives on as proof of the law of unintended consequences as applied to §17200 reform.

That year also brought the case of People v. Thomas Shelton Powers,⁶ in which the court validated the use of the “disgorgement” remedy, under which a defendant may be forced to turn over all the profits earned as a result of illegal activity even though they cannot be traced to money or proceeds obtained from any particular injured party. The plaintiffs' bar was quick to appreciate the potential of this development. The concept of disgorgement, combined with the fact that under §17200 a person can sue who has not even been injured, turned §17200 into a potent weapon against the business community.

The California Law Revision Commission Proposal

The above developments prompted a legislative reaction. In 1996 the California Law Revision Commission issued a lengthy report recommending that §17200 be amended, and published a proposed bill.⁷ The Commission was advised by Robert C. Fellmeth, a law professor at the University of San Diego, whose articles the previous two years analyzing the flaws in §17200 raised many of the same concerns and contained many of the same recommendations.⁸

The Commission's recommendations principally addressed the problem of “sellouts,” i.e., plaintiffs who add a §17200 claim to their lawsuit to leverage up its settlement value, but who are willing to be “bought off” by defendant. To weed out such plaintiffs the Commission proposed that courts be given the power to dismiss a representative action if the plaintiff was not an “adequate” representative or had a conflict of interest. The Commission went further, however, and specifically identified the attorney general as the preferred §17200 plaintiff; if he or another public prosecutor filed an action, representative actions by private parties would be stayed. Provision was made for fee sharing with private plaintiffs if their case was stayed. This treated private §17200 plaintiffs somewhat like whistleblowers under the California False Claims Act.⁹ The Commission also proposed that court approval of settlements be required, based on a “fair and reasonable” standard. This proposed reform is at the heart of most subsequent proposals as well.

One of the major “due process” concerns of Bronco Wine was also addressed by the Commission. It proposed that any judgment in a representative action would be res judicata as to later 17200 representative actions. This was a compromise position, constituting less than the full res judicata effect applicable to class actions. Only subsequent representative actions would be barred, not individual actions. Unrepresented parties with substantial individual claims would still be free to pursue their own cases, however defendants would essentially obtain “final peace” as to small value claims where individual litigation would be very unlikely.

The Commission was concerned about the risk of overlapping or repetitive actions brought by multiple plaintiffs, including injured parties, public interest groups, and the attorney general. The above “preferred plaintiff” concept, and the res judicata rule, both addressed that concern. To further address it the Commission recommended that plaintiffs be required to give notice regarding their representative action to interested parties, including the attorney general and parties in parallel actions; notice would also be required for proposed settlements or judgments. This would allow such parties to band together to defend the actions or be heard with respect to any settlement.

The Commission's philosophy toward §17200 representative actions could be summed up as, “let the best plaintiff do it once and do it right.” As such the Commission's proposal was not an attack on §17200 so much as an attempt to make the statute work better. Notably, the Commission did not propose to reverse the key pro-plaintiff provisions of the statute, i.e. the disgorgement/restitution remedy, non-injured plaintiff standing, or the non-class representative action. Several bills were introduced in 1997 tracking the Commission's recommendations, including one by Senator Quentin Kopp, SB 143, introduced in January 1997, but none of them was enacted.

Judicial Efforts To Reform The Statute In The Absence Of Legislative Action

In the absence of legislative action the courts were left to consider whether they already have the tools to remedy some of the problems with the statute. In her dissent in Stop Youth Addiction v. Lucky Stores,¹⁰ Justice Brown suggested that the separation of powers principle inherent in the state constitution could justify imposing a rule that only injured persons or public law enforcement officials would have standing to bring UCL actions. In Kraus v. Trinity Management,¹¹ Justice Baxter wrote for the majority that a trial court has the inherent power to refuse to permit a representative action if the plaintiff is not “adequate.” Subsequent cases refused to allow representative actions to proceed where issues unique to each injured person predominate over common issues of law and fact.¹² Others have noted the court's general power to decline to permit representative actions where it seems clear the wrong plaintiff is pursuing the case, as in Rosenblulth Int'l v. Superior Court,¹³ in which a private citizen was denied standing to bring a §17200 case to vindicate the rights of Fortune 1000 companies allegedly treated unfairly by a travel agent.

The §17200 Crisis Of 2002-2003 And Legislative Reform Efforts

Despite court-driven reform efforts, not much had changed by 2002, when the latest wave of §17200 reform broke in the legislature. In the fall of that year controversy erupted over the use of §17200 by certain plaintiffs lawyers, notably the “Trevor Law Group” of Beverly Hills, to bring repetitive suits against large numbers of small businesses. The named plaintiff in many of the suits was a for-profit organization linked to the Trevor group called “Consumer Enforcement Watch Corporation.”¹⁴ The suits were seen as illegitimate in the business community because they were based on technical violations of regulatory statutes which had not caused measurable economic harm to any identifiable person. Identical form complaints or threats to sue were sent to dozens or even hundreds of businesses at a time, further highlighting the lack of connection between the attorneys bringing the action and any actual injured plaintiff.¹⁵ Proceeding in this manner appeared to some to be little more than a tactic to prompt a quick cash settlement; it was difficult to see what public interest was being served by this use of the statute. Finally, it appeared to some observers that the lawyers were targeting business with the least sophistication as to their legal rights, including small businesses with non-English speaking owners, which gave the entire controversy a civil rights overtone.¹⁶

Attorney General Bill Lockyer accused the lawyers of using §17200 to “shake down” small business. In December 2002 he asked the State Bar to investigate the Trevor Law Group.¹⁷ He then brought his own §17200 action against the Trevor Law Group, alleging that their use of the statute was itself an unfair business practice. A State Bar judge temporarily suspended three Trevor Law Group attorneys on May 21, 2003.¹⁸

Meanwhile, on the legislative front, Assemblyman Lou Correa introduced AB 69 in December 2002, targeted directly at the kinds of abuses alleged against the Trevor Law Group, i.e., large numbers of form complaints served on unsophisticated defendants in an apparent attempt to prompt early settlement. His bill contained the novel requirement that all §17200 complaints be served with a “statement of defendants' rights,” to be prepared by the State Bar, which would specifically warn defendants regarding abusive litigation and settlement practices.¹⁹ Otherwise his bill was largely parallel to the 1996 Law Review Commission proposal. It specified that the court should use traditional class action standards in determining whether the representative plaintiff has a conflict of interest, or if plaintiff's counsel is “adequate”; required court approval of settlements as “fair, reasonable, non-collusive, and adequate to protect interest of the general public”; and a court finding that any attorney's fee provision in a settlement “complies with applicable law.”²⁰ The Correa bill would have provided for broader res judicata effect than the 1996 proposal; res judicata would apply to all subsequent 17200 actions, not just representative actions.²¹

Unlike the 1996 effort, Correa's bill did not identify the attorney general as a preferred plaintiff, or provide for the stay of private actions in favor of actions brought by him. Like the 1996 proposal, it left the unique features at the heart of §17200 intact: non-injured plaintiff standing, restitution, and the representative action.

Anti-§17200 interests supported a bill introduced by Assemblymen Robert Pacheco and Tom Harman, AB 102. Their bill introduced for the first time the concept of a “cure” letter.²² Any representative action would have to be preceded by a written notice giving defendant 90 days to cure the violation. Defendants would be allowed to introduce evidence of cure in mitigation of any penalty or restitution order. That reform alone could eliminate much of the risk posed by §17200 with respect to de minimis regulatory violations and other “victimless” conduct, and undercut the economic basis for many frivolous suits. However the Pacheco/Harman bill also proposed to perform more drastic surgery on the statute. It would have required representative plaintiffs to suffer an actual injury, eliminating a central feature of statute.²³ It would also have eliminated duplicative suits by barring any later filed §17200 representative action once an action has been filed based on the same facts by the attorney general, or a representative action was filed by an (injured) private party.²⁴ It also included certain limits on discovery.

Neither the tailored fix proposed by Correa nor the more radical surgery proposed by Pacheco and Harman made it out of committee. Instead, the §17200 reform effort was quickly taken over by forces in the legislature more sympathetic to expanding §17200 than contracting it. The legislation that made it to the floor consisted of tied companion bills introduced by Senator Martha Escutia (SB 122) and Assemblywoman Ellen M. Corbett (AB 95). Taken together they would have strengthened, not weakened, the statute by adding back the pure “disgorgement” remedy²⁵ that had been read out of the statute by the Supreme Court in Kraus,²⁶Cortez v. Purolator Air Filtration Products,²⁷ and Korea Supply v. Lockheed Martin.²⁸ In a nod toward curbing §17200 abuse, Corbett's Assembly bill would also have required each complaint to be served with a notice of defendants rights, similar to the Correa proposal.

The Corbett bill also provided that plaintiffs may not join multiple defendants in a single §17200 case merely because they operate in the same industry and are alleged to have violated the same law or regulation.²⁹ It is worth noting that this anti-joinder “reform” was at odds with the approach taken in the Commission's 1996 proposal which saw coordination and consolidation of multiple related actions as a way to curb §17200 abuse.

The 2004 Ballot Initiative And Legislative Proposals

On October 22, 2003, shortly after the legislative session ended without the passage of any §17200 legislation, a ballot initiative was announced proposing a much more radical reform of §17200.³⁰ That initiative has qualified for the November 2004 election. It abandons any pretense of fine tuning and goes straight for the jugular: First, it would wipe out standing to bring cases by “private attorneys general”; only persons who have suffered an “injury in fact” and have “lost money or property as a result of such unfair competition” would be allowed to sue.³¹ (The standing requirement appears to be written in the conjunctive; both requirements would have to be met.) The days of suits by for-profit consumer organizations linked to plaintiff law firms would be over. However, opponents note, well-established public advocacy organizations with familiar names, such as the Sierra Club, would also be barred in many cases.

Second, the initiative provides that even an economically injured plaintiff who meets the above standing requirement would not be allowed to bring a representative action to vindicate the rights of others without obtaining full class action certification.³² As a result, the days of the “representative action” would be over as well. Under the initiative only the attorney general, district attorneys or similar law enforcement entities would be allowed to pursue representative actions.³³

Thus, the 2004 ballot initiative attacks the two main features of the statute that render it unique in California law, and the law of consumer protection generally. As reported in the press, the initiative is supported by business entities who have found themselves on the wrong side of §17200 in the past. Its principal sponsors include the California Motor Car Dealer's Association, and it is supported financially by a number of large business entities.³⁴ Public opposition has been registered by environmental organizations and consumer groups.

The pending ballot initiative was not the only §17200 reform measure on the table in 2004. Assemblyman Correa introduced a new bill, AB 2369, which largely repeated the provisions of his 2003 bill, but with a few significant changes. Under the new bill the court could dismiss a §17200 case if a regulatory board has already imposed a “final enforcement remedy” on defendant for the same conduct, although there is an “out” if the regulatory board action was not an “effective redress of the unfair competition” or the “interests of justice” require otherwise.³⁵ This provision revisited, after a fashion, the concept of the “preferred plaintiff” first advanced in the Commission's 1996 proposal, but this time in favor of regulatory agencies, rather than the attorney general.

It provided that settlements, stipulations and associated agreements are public documents, an obvious effort to discourage collusive or inadequate secret settlements.³⁶ Any judgment in a representative action would be given full res judicata effect; all further actions based on the same facts and theories of liability would be barred.³⁷ This would be broader than some prior proposals which provided only that later filed representative actions would be barred. His 2004 bill also specifically authorized courts to sanction a plaintiff who files a frivolous §17200 action.³⁸ In addition, any plaintiff filing §17200 actions against 20 or more defendants for the same misconduct would be required to notify the defendants of that fact (who presumably may band together), and the court, which shall consider certifying a defendant class (assisting defendants in banding together) and notify the judicial counsel (which shall consider consolidation, achieving largely the same effect).³⁹ Thus the Correa bill saw coordination and consolidation of related cases as part of the cure, not the disease.

The difference in approach between Proposition 64 and the Correa bill is striking. The initiative attempts to cut out the two unique and powerful aspects of §17200 in all cases. The Correa bill was aimed almost exclusively the perceived evil of counsel who file large numbers of identical cases against small business to coerce settlements. It sought to impose substantial burdens on such “shakedown” litigants, yet it left largely untouched the ability of more traditional public interest plaintiffs to bring representative actions.

Assemblyman Pacheco also introduced another anti-§17200 bill, AB 2604, once again proposing that only plaintiffs suffering an actual injury be allowed to pursue claims.⁴⁰ It also took a different tack, however, in attempting to limit the subject matter covered by the statute, rather than merely focusing on procedure. It would have limited the substantive application of §17200 to acts committed in California.⁴¹ It also provided that, to constitute “unfair competition,” defendant's conduct must constitute a violation of an existing state or federal law.⁴² On the procedural side, it would require compliance with California Code of Civil Procedure §382, meaning it would require full class action certification, putting an end to the representative action once and for all.⁴³

The environmental and consumer bar attempted to forestall support for Proposition 64, or the more radical legislative proposals, by supporting a bill introduced by Senators Escutia and Sher, SB 185, which proposed a much milder reform. Under the Escutia/Sher proposal, settlements (whether pre or post filing) would have required court approval, including provisions for payment of attorneys fees.⁴⁴ Any interested party could object to a proposed settlement. Private plaintiffs were required to inform the attorney general of any new action, or proposed settlement.⁴⁵ Any party “asserting a claim” under §17200 (whether or not a formal complaint) would be required to serve a statement of defendants' rights informing the recipient that it has no obligation to settle, and that any agreement to pay attorneys fees will not be valid until court approval is obtained.⁴⁶

Finally, any individual filing an unfair competition claim seeking restitution would have been required to show injury in fact, unless the plaintiff was a recognized non-profit organization under IRS Code §501(c), thereby allowing the established public interest bar to continue to use the statute.⁴⁷ The above provisions would also not apply to labor unions or legal services corporations. However, this olive branch by the environmental and consumer bar was apparently rejected by the proponents of Proposition 64 as too little, too late.⁴⁸

The 2003-04 session ended with no legislative “fix” for §17200, leaving the voters with the stark choice between the major surgery represented by Proposition 64, and no reform at all.

Issues For Future §17200 Reform Proposals

If the voters adopt Proposition 64 most of the uniqueness of California's Unfair Competition Law will be eliminated, and the debate over reform of the statute will be over, for all practical purposes. If it does not pass, reform efforts are certain to continue. The debate in future legislative sessions, as in years past, will revolve around proposals that run the gamut from blunt to subtle, procedural to substantive, minor improvements to virtual eradications. We can expect that certain issues will stand out, as they have in the past.

The need to make sure private plaintiffs bringing representative actions are qualified, motivated, and free of conflicts of interest, will remain on the agenda. The tools to address those concerns include court approval of representative plaintiffs, and various notice provisions to ensure that all competing plaintiffs, and potential plaintiffs, are aware of the existence of each other's cases.

Coordination among overlapping §17200 cases will remain an issue, which may be addressed, once again, by requiring notice to interested parties, involvement of the attorney general as a “clearinghouse” for information on §17200 filings, and directives to the courts to consolidate or coordinate the overlapping cases, or consider handling them as defendant class actions. Rules regarding joinder (pro, or con) will also figure in this debate.

Protection of small, unsophisticated defendants will remain on the agenda, resulting in the consideration of three sorts of remedies. First, procedures will be proposed to encourage or assist defendants in banding together to defend cases, or treat them as defendant class actions. Second, we can expect reformers once again to demand that all complaints be served with a “defendants bill of rights” warning potential defendants against paying an early settlement. Third, rules may be put in place limiting the ability to settle a representative claim pre-filing without court approval, to prevent shakedowns through letters threatening to sue.

Attempts to undermine the economic incentive to bring actions of marginal public utility will continue, with a range of tools from which to choose. The most obvious measures involve transparency and court approval. Transparency can be increased by requiring that notice of settlement terms be given to interested parties, including plaintiffs and defendants in related cases, the attorney general, and relevant regulatory entities. Court approval can apply to the terms of the settlement itself and to any award of attorneys fees, whether or not such fees are taken out of a common fund created by the litigation. The concept of giving defendants a chance before litigation is filed to “cure” de minimis violations seems worth looking at as well.

The potential overlap between parallel §17200 actions arising out of related facts or violations of the same statute or rule may also be addressed by creating procedures under which a “preferred plaintiff” is identified. Under such rules the preferred plaintiff's case would go forward while other plaintiffs take a back seat, their cases being stayed or consolidated with the preferred plaintiff's case. Various constituencies may have differing opinions as to who should serve as the preferred plaintiff: the attorney general, local law enforcement, regulatory agencies, well established public interest groups, legal services corporations, unions, for-profit “consumer” organizations, injured parties, and uninjured individuals acting as private attorneys general.

The application of res judicata rules and the need to avoid repeat litigation will also have to be considered once again. Reformers can choose among various options, including giving res judicata effect to judgments in representative actions which bar any future action by an injured party, or barring only later representative actions. In addition, variations may be introduced, such as the proposal that representative actions should be barred if the violation in question has already been addressed by regulatory or law enforcement action.

Related to res judicata effect is the need to ensure that absent parties whose rights are adjudicated in a representative action have some due process protection. The obvious tool for this purpose is to require full class action certification, however the expense of those procedures may undermine the utility of the statute in certain circumstances, especially where very small claims are involved. Measures short of this may be suggested, along the lines of the procedures already in place in the Consumer Legal Remedies Act,⁴⁹ or provisions requiring a party obtaining a restitutionary recovery to release any claims.

Finally, there is the relatively unexplored terrain of imposing subject matter limits on §17200. Proposals may be considered to carve out securities transactions, or other specific subject matters, from the statute, as was suggested in the recent court of appeals case, Bowen v. Ziasun Technologies.⁵⁰ Other substantive reforms could limit the statute to consumer claims, smaller value claims, claims based only on the violation of any existing statute or regulation (as opposed to mere “unfair” conduct), or claims based only on the violation of specified statutes and regulations.

Conclusions

If the past is any guide, we will still be talking about §17200 reform after the November 2004 election. If the voters choose not to adopt Proposition 64, next year's reformers will have to go back to the drawing board to draft a new set of proposals to amend the statute. Luckily, there will many useful ideas from which to choose in fashioning those new reform proposals.

ENDNOTES

1. 214 Cal.App.3d 699, 262 Cal.Rptr. 899 (Ct. App. 1989).
   
   
2. Id. 214 Cal.App.3d at 719. Bronco Wine involved a grape grower suing a buyer and seeking a recovery on behalf of other growers as well through a representative action, although it appeared some of those other growers had decided not to assert claims against their customer.
   
   
3. Stats. 1992, Ch. 4430, SB 1586.
   
   
4. See, e.g., People v. Superior Court (Forest E. Olson) 96 Cal.App.3d 181, 157 Cal.Rptr. 628 (Ct. App. 1979) (court allowed to take into account circulation of paper in computing number of separate violations).
   
   
5. California v. Texaco, 46 Cal.3d 1147, 1169-70, 252 Cal.Rptr. 221 (1988) (single completed corporate merger not an unfair “practice” within the meaning of the UCL).
   
   
6. People v. Thomas Shelton Powers, M.D., 2 Cal.App.4th 330, 3 Cal.Rptr.2d 34 (Ct. App. 1992).
   
   
7. California Law Review Commissioner Recommendation: Unfair Competition Litigation (November 1996, California Law Review Commission).
   
   
8. See, e.g., Robert C. Fellmeth, Unfair Competition Enforcement by Agencies, Prosecutors, and Private Litigants, Who's on First?, 15-WTR Cal.Reg. L.Rep. 1 (Winter 1995).
   
   
9. California Government Code § 12650 et. seq.
   
   
10. 17 Cal.4th 553, 586-87, 71 Cal.Rptr.2d 731 (1998).
    
    
11. 23 Cal.4th 116, 138, 96 Cal.Rptr.2d 485 (2000).
    
    
12. Lazard v. Trans Union LLC, 195 F.R.D. 665 (C.D. Cal. 2000); Marshall v. Standard Ins. Co., 214 F.Supp.2d 1062, 1070-71 (C.D. Cal. 2000). These cases also rely on the earlier case of Fletcher v. Security Pacific National Bank, 23 Cal.3d 442, 454, 153 Cal.Rptr. 28 (1979) (court has discretion to require case under false advertising law to proceed as class action rather than representative action). The court's right to engraft what are essentially class action standards onto § 17200 representative actions has not gone unchallenged, however. See Rosales v. Citibank Federal Savings Bank, 133 F.Supp.2d 1177, 1182-83 (N.D. Cal. 2001).
    
    
13. 101 Cal.App.4th 1073, 124 Cal. Rptr. 2d 844 (Ct. App. 2002) (the companies involved were not the “general public” on whose behalf a non-injured person could maintain a representative action).
    
    
14. Decision and Order of Involuntary Inactive Enrollment, In the matter of Damian S. Trevor, et al., State Bar Court, Case No. 03-TE-00998-RAH, filed May 21, 2003, p. 13.
    
    
15. The Trevor Law Group was accused of serving up to 4500 defendants with §17200 complaints for minor regulatory violations. “State Bar Guns for Trevor Trio; LA Attorneys at Center of 17200 debate Could Lose Their Bar Cards,” Jeff Chorney, The Recorder, March 14, 2003, p.1.
    
    
16. “Lockyer Asked to Probe Use of 17200,” The Recorder, July 12, 2002, p. 7 (citing complaint that “ethnic grocery stores throughout the state” are being targeted).
    
    
17. “Lockyer Says Lawyers Used 17200 as Shakedown Guise,” The Recorder, December 18, 2002, p.2.
    
    
18. Jeff Chorney, “State Bar Judge Suspends Licenses of 17200 Trio,” The Recorder, May 22, 2003.
    
    
19. A.B. 69, 2003-04 Regular Session, Sec. 6 (adding Bus.& Prof. Code §17305).
    
    
20. Id. (adding Bus. & Prof. Code §17307).
    
    
21. Id. (adding Bus. & Prof. Code §17311).
    
    
22. A.B. 102, 2003-04 Regular Session, Sec. 3 (adding Bus. & Prof. Code §17303).
    
    
23. Id. (adding Bus. & Prof. Code §17300).
    
    
24. Id.
    
    
25. S.B. 122, 2003-04 Regular Session, Sec. 1.
    
    
26. See n. 11, supra.
    
    
27. 23 Cal.4th 163, 96 Cal.Rptr. 2d 518 (2000).
    
    
28. 29 Cal.4th 1134, 131 Cal.Rptr.2d 29 (2003).
    
    
29. AB 95, 2003-04 Regular Session, Sec. 2.
    
    
30. Ballot Initiative to Reform California's Unfair Competition Law (Business & Professions Code 17200) Filed October 22, 2003, for Qualification for the November 2004 Election.
    
    
31. Id., § 3 (amending Bus. & Prof. Code §17204).
    
    
32. Id., § 2 (amending Bus. & Prof. Code §17203 to require compliance with Code of Civil Procedure §382).
    
    
33. Id.
    
    
34. Evan Halper and Marc Lifsher, “Initiative Seeks Curbs on Consumer Lawsuits,” Los Angeles Times, July 6, 2004, p. 1 (listing thirteen large corporate donors to Proposition 64 effort including the California Motor Dealers Assn, California Association of Realtors, and various software companies, insurers, banks, and HMOs).
    
    
35. A.B. 2369, 2003-04 Regular Session, Ch. 6 (adding Bus. & Prof. Code §17307).
    
    
36. Id., Ch. 6 (adding Bus. & Prof. Code §17311).
    
    
37. Id., Ch. 6 (adding Bus. & Prof. Code §17313).
    
    
38. Id., Ch. 6 (adding Bus. & Prof. Code §17316).
    
    
39. Id., Ch. 6 (adding Bus. & Prof. Code §17308).
    
    
40. A.B. 2604, 2003-04 Regular Session, Sec. 2 (amending Bus. & Prof. Code §17204).
    
    
41. Id., Sec. 1 (amending Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200).
    
    
42. Id.
    
    
43. Id., Sec. 1 (amending Bus. & Prof. Code § 17204).
    
    
44. S.B. 185, 2003-04 Regular Session, as amended as of August 26, 2004, Sec. 1 (adding Bus. & Prof. Code §17203.6).
    
    
45. Id., Sec. 2 (adding Bus. & Prof. Code §17203.7).
    
    
46. Id., Sec. 3 (adding Bus. & Prof. Code §17203.74).
    
    
47. Id., Sec. 4 (adding Bus. & Prof. Code §17204.3).
    
    
48. Jill Duman, “Talks on 17200 end with no deal, but hopes remain,” The Recorder, August 27, 2004, p. 1.
    
    
49. California Civil Code §1781.
    
    
50. 116 Cal.App.4th 777, 11 Cal.Rptr.3d 522 (Ct. App. 2004) (certified for partial publication; various requests for depublication are pending as of the date of this article). See also, Karl D. Belgum, “The Application of Business & Professions Code §17200 to Securities Transactions — Will Bowen v. Ziasun Technologies Survive?,” Mealey's California Section 17200 Report, Vol. 2 no.10, June 2004.