Section 17203

Citation: Section 17203
Parent Document: Kraus v. Trinity Management Services, Inc., 999 P.2d 718 (2000)
Jurisdiction: California (state)
Effective Date: 2000-06-05
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1159700/kraus-v-trinity-management-serv... ↗

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When express authority to order restitution was added to section 17535 and subsequently to what became section 17203, therefore, there was no authority for an order directing disgorgement on behalf of third parties into a fluid recovery fund in a UCL action. Although the cy près concept of putting charitable trust funds to the next best use if the trust purpose can no longer be accomplished was well established and has been expressly authorized by the Legislature (Prob. Code, § 15409), the extension of that equitable concept to other areas of civil litigation is a relative recent judicial development of the law which the Legislature has approved only for use in class actions. Fluid recovery in class actions was not authorized in this state until 1981, when the Court of Appeal held in Bruno v. Superior Court, supra, 127 Cal.App.3d 120, 179 Cal.Rptr. 342, that this was a permissible means of distributing damages recovered in a state antitrust class action brought under the Cartwright Act (§ 16700 et seq.). In 1986, this court affirmed the propriety of fluid recovery in a ciass action in State of California v. Levi Strauss & Co., supra, 41 Cal.3d 460, 224 Cal.Rptr. 605, 715 P.2d 564. The Legislature responded in 1993 by enacting former section 383 of the Code of Civil Procedure, to expressly authorize fluid recovery in class actions. (Stats.1993, ch. 863, § 2, p. 4574; see now Code Civ. Proc., § 384.) The Legislature did not sanction fluid recovery orders as an equitable power available to the court in other proceedings.

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