Huntington Beach must foot roughly $1 million in legal bills for restricting minors’ access to certain books at the city’s library, an Orange County judge ordered this week.
In a tentative ruling Monday, April 27, Orange County Judge Lindsey Martinez said the city needs to pay $960,000 to attorneys from four legal organizations, who billed more than 1,300 hours of work on the high-profile lawsuit against the city’s book restriction policy.
Erin Spivey, a former librarian and plaintiff in the case, said she’s gratified by the ruling, but exasperated by what she argues is the city’s continued waste of taxpayer money.
“As a resident of Huntington Beach, it’s incredibly frustrating to know we’re losing another $1 million that could have been solved by just putting 10 books back where they belong,” Spivey said. “It just shows that the City Council is not interested in listening to what residents have to say.”
Martinez had ruled in September that the city’s book restriction policy — which barred children from accessing books with sexual content at the Huntington Beach Central Library without parent consent — violated the state’s Freedom to Read Act and cannot be enforced. The books were moved out of the children’s section to another part of the library.
Spivey and two Huntington Beach teenagers, alongside local nonprofit Alianza Translatinx, filed their lawsuit in February 2024.
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