A federal judge ordered California on Monday to pay $4.52 million in attorneys’ fees to the parents and teachers who defeated the state’s policy of hiding students’ gender transitions from their families, a bill that landed on taxpayers after state officials fought the case at every turn and lost.
U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez issued the fee order in Mirabelli v. Bonta, the class action lawsuit that challenged California’s practice of allowing public schools to socially transition children and keep parents in the dark. The case reached the Supreme Court in March, where the justices ruled 6-3 that the policy likely violated both the Free Exercise Clause and parents’ due process rights.
The size of the award, more than $4.5 million, reflects what Benitez described as California’s “litigation intransigence.” The judge found that attorneys for the plaintiffs were forced to spend extraordinary time and resources overcoming what he called “the defendants’ litigation strategy of resisting at all junctures.” The Thomas More Society, the conservative public-interest law firm that represented the families, called the fee enhancement “rare.”
The lawsuit began in 2023, when two Christian teachers in California filed the class action challenge. By 2024, several parents whose families had been directly affected by the secrecy policies joined the case. Among them were plaintiffs identified as “John” and “Jane Poe,” devout Catholic parents who alleged their junior-high daughter had been treated as male at school for almost a year, without anyone telling them.
That allegation sits at the heart of what made this case resonate beyond a single courtroom. The state’s position, in effect, was that school officials could facilitate a child’s social gender transition and deliberately exclude the child’s own parents from the process. The parents said their religious beliefs obligated them to raise their children in accordance with their faith. California’s policy made that impossible.
On December 22, 2025, Judge Benitez issued a class-wide permanent injunction blocking the policies statewide. But the state refused to accept the loss. On January 5, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit stayed the injunction, allowing the secrecy policies to resume in California public schools while litigation continued.
That forced the Thomas More Society to file an emergency application with the Supreme Court. The justices responded decisively.
In March, the Supreme Court reinstated Benitez’s injunction in a 6-3 emergency order. The majority opinion left little doubt about where the constitutional lines fall. As Breitbart News reported, the Court wrote:
“We conclude that the parents who seek religious exemptions are likely to succeed on the merits of their Free Exercise Clause claim. California’s policies likely trigger strict scrutiny under that provision because they substantially interfere with the right of parents to guide the religious development of their children.”
The majority went further, drawing a direct comparison to its June 2025 decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, a case involving a Maryland school board that refused to let K-5 children opt out of LGBTQ+ curriculum. The Court noted that the intrusion on parental rights in the California case was even greater than what it had already found unacceptable in Mahmoud.
“The parents who assert a free exercise claim have sincere religious beliefs about sex and gender, and they feel a religious obligation to raise their children in accordance with those beliefs. California’s policies violate those beliefs and impose the kind of burden on religious exercise that Yoder found unacceptable. Indeed, the intrusion on parents’ free exercise rights here, unconsented facilitation of a child’s gender transition, is greater than the introduction of LGBTQ storybooks we considered sufficient to trigger strict scrutiny in Mahmoud.”
On the question of narrow tailoring, the justices were equally direct. California argued its policies served a compelling interest in student safety and privacy. The Court was unconvinced.
“California’s policies also appear to fail the narrow-tailoring requirement. The State’s interest in safety could be served by a policy that allows religious exemptions while precluding gender-identity disclosure to parents who would engage in abuse.”
And the majority addressed due process with language that should concern any state government attempting a similar policy. As the Washington Examiner reported, the Court stated plainly:
“The right protected by these precedents includes the right not to be shut out of participation in decisions regarding their children’s mental health.”
What makes the $4.52 million fee award remarkable is not just its size but what it says about how California litigated the case. Judge Benitez did not simply calculate standard billable hours. He applied what the Thomas More Society described as a rare enhancement, multiplying the fee award significantly, because of the state’s conduct throughout the proceedings.
The New York Post reported that Benitez cited repeated motions to dismiss, premature appeals, and withdrawn arguments as factors driving the unusually large award. The judge wrote that the case involved “a very important subject” concerning families’ religious free exercise rights and parents’ authority over their children’s health and well-being, as Newsmax noted.
Even now, the fight is not over. Benitez observed in his fee ruling that California has filed a recent motion to change the very injunction the Supreme Court reinstated in March. The state, in other words, lost at summary judgment, lost at the Supreme Court, and is still pressing forward.
Just The News reported that Benitez wrote: “To this day, the Defendants continue to fight about the merits based on the thinnest of arguments.”
Peter Breen, Executive Vice President and Head of Litigation at the Thomas More Society, framed the outcome in terms California’s political leaders will have trouble ignoring:
“A $4.5 million fee award sends an unmistakable message to state governments and school districts across the country: if you trample the constitutional rights of parents, you will pay for it, literally.”
Breen added:
“California threw everything it had at this case. It lost at summary judgment, lost at the Supreme Court and now Californians will foot the bill for their government officials’ refusal to respect the fundamental rights of families.”
The precise dollar figure, $4,526,888, as the fee order specifies, will come from California’s state coffers. That means taxpayers in the Golden State are covering the cost of their own government’s decision to fight for the right to keep secrets from parents about their own children.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office did not respond to a request for comment before publication. That silence is worth noting. Bonta’s office led the defense of the secrecy policy through every stage of litigation, from district court to the Ninth Circuit to the Supreme Court, and now faces a seven-figure bill for the effort.
The Supreme Court’s March ruling reinstated the statewide injunction, meaning the secrecy policies are currently blocked. But the underlying appeal continues, and California’s recent motion to modify the injunction signals the state has no intention of conceding. The Ninth Circuit’s earlier willingness to stay Benitez’s injunction suggests the appellate fight could drag on.
Still, the Supreme Court’s 6-3 language is difficult to read as anything other than a strong signal. The majority found that parents asserting free exercise claims are “likely to succeed on the merits.” It found the same for parents raising due process objections. It found that California’s asserted interest in student safety failed the narrow-tailoring test. And it reaffirmed a principle that should not require reaffirmation: “parents, not the State, have primary authority with respect to the upbringing and education of children.”
The families at the center of this case are not political activists. They are parents, including “John” and “Jane Poe,” who discovered their daughter had been living under a different identity at school for nearly a year without their knowledge. They are the kind of people who expect that when they send a child to a public school, the school will not conspire to hide fundamental information about that child’s wellbeing.
California bet that courts would side with a policy that treated parents as obstacles rather than partners. The state lost that bet at summary judgment. It lost at the Supreme Court. And now it owes $4.52 million for the privilege of having fought so hard to lose.
The questions that remain, how long California will keep litigating, whether other states will attempt similar policies, and whether the Ninth Circuit will find new ways to slow-walk the injunction, are open. But the trajectory is clear. Six justices said the Constitution protects parents’ right to know what is happening with their children. A federal judge said the state must pay for pretending otherwise.
When the government decides it knows better than parents about a child’s identity, mental health, and daily life at school, it should expect to be told no. And when it spends years refusing to accept that answer, it should expect the bill.
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