Judge to Decide If Peloza Should Pay District’s Legal Costs

Attorneys for the Capistrano Unified School District and high school teacher John Peloza presented oral arguments on Monday to a federal judge who will rule on whether Peloza should pay more than $30,000 in court costs and expenses the district incurred fighting his lawsuit.

Peloza, a born-again Christian who teaches at Capistrano Valley High School, claimed in his federal lawsuit that the district violated his First Amendment rights by forcing him to teach what he called “the religion” of evolution.

The lawsuit was dismissed in January by U.S. District Judge David W. Williams, who agreed with the district’s position that Peloza improperly violated state-mandated science curricula by teaching creationist theory.

During a 20-minute hearing, Williams heard arguments on the issue of legal fees from Peloza’s attorney, Cyrus Zal, and Jeffrey Wertheimer, an attorney representing the district. Wertheimer asked that the district be reimbursed for $30,884 in attorney fees and $1,719 in incidental expenses such as copier costs and for computer research.

Williams was inundated with telephone calls and letters from Peloza’s supporters last week after a local religious radio program urged listeners to contact the judge to “put in their vote” for Peloza. Dozens of his supporters also demonstrated outside the courthouse on Monday before the hearing.

“I was very pleased with the support and the general support of the people,” said Peloza, who attended the morning hearing. “I think people are starting to realize how significant this case is.”

Capistrano Unified spokeswoman Jaqueline Price said the district is basing its claim on a federal law that allows a party to attempt to recover legal fees when “a plaintiff’s action is found to be frivolous, unreasonable or without foundation.

“Because the district was the prevailing defendant in this case, we were entitled to recover our attorneys’ fees,” Price said. “We view Mr. Peloza’s legal actions as frivolous and therefore represented a motion to the judge to recover those expenses.”

Zal, who has filed an appeal of Williams’ January ruling with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, argued that the district should not be awarded attorneys’ fees because Peloza’s case was “well-grounded.”

“They’re saying our complaint is frivolous and groundless, but we didn’t get our case judged based on the complaint we filed,” Zal said. “The court accepted the defendant’s version of the facts.”

Williams, who took the case under submission, is expected to render a decision within two weeks.

Two weeks after Peloza lost his bid to sue the school district, he was reassigned from teaching biology classes at Capistrano Valley High to physical education classes.