On July 6, 2005, Sacramento-based attorney David Llewellyn filed, on behalf of his clients, the California Family Bioethics Council, a "reverse validation action" complaint against the "California Institute for Regenerative Medicine ('CIRM'); the State of California; the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Finance Committee (Doe1); and "All Persons Interested in the Matter of the Legality of Proposition 71 and Validity of Actions, Bonds, and Financing of CIRM (as required for a validation action).
The purpose of this lawsuit was to prevent the Independent Citizens' Oversight Committee (ICOC) set up by Proposition 71, and the State of California acting on its behalf, from issuing all or any part of the $3 billion in state general obligation revenue bonds (repayable with at least $6 billion in taxpayer funds) authorized by that initiative to be spent on embryonic stem cell research.
You can read more about that "reverse validation action" at
"California Family Bioethics Council files 'reverse validation action' to shut down Proposition 71 and all its progeny."
the Alameda County Superior Court consolidates a validation action and a suit for injunctive relief into a single validation action and takes over the consolidated case
In various rulings on August 3, 2005, August 4, 2005, and August 22, 2005, the Alameda County Superior Court ruled that the case being brought by Mr. Llewellyn was to be consolidated with a case being brought by attorney Dana Cody on behalf of People's Advocate and National Tax Limitation Foundation as "a taxpayer action for declaratory and injunctive relief to enjoin the existence and operation of the ICOC" and that the consolidated case was to be heard in Alameda County Superior Court.
You can read about the first of these decisions by the Alameda County Superior Court at
"Motion to consolidate two stem cell cases is granted." You can read comments on the consolidation by Ms. Cody at
"Dana Cody comments on the consolidated law suit against Proposition 71's off-spring."
attorney for California Family Bioethics Council asks the Court of Appeals to move the consolidated case to Sacramento County Superior Court
Now Mr. Llewellyn is asking the California Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, to move the consolidated case out of Alameda County Superior Court and transfer it to Sacramento County Superior Court. He's also asking "that pending review and orders of this Court all further proceedings in respondent [Alameda County Superior Court] be stayed."
The basis of Mr. Llewellyn's argument is that California law requires the hearing of validation actions, such as the consolidated case against the ICOC/CIRM, to be heard in Sacramento County and nowhere else.
In his brief, Mr. Llewellyn says to the Appeals Court:
"The State despises this lawsuit and scorns it in its pleadings. So be it. But the dislike of the State for the challenges this lawsuit requires the State to answer cannot justify the State in taking advantage of a private plaintiff, the Petitioner, by making the private plaintiff bear the excessive costs in time and travel to try this case for the convenience of the State and the Attorney General in a county and a court over 100 miles away from the offices of plaintiff's counsel and from the courts of Sacramento County where validation actions are supposed to be heard."
You can read a complete version of the brief filled by Mr. Llewellyn with the Appeal Court in support of his requests on behalf of his client by clicking
here.
explore the backstory by reading and listening to Stem Cell Wars, Volume 1
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