‘I don’t think this is the right thing to do’: Bid for new consumer-protection unit prompts turf war with DA

If Board of Supervisors Chair Terra Lawson-Remer has her way, San Diego County could tap a more than $200 million pool of money to set up a new team of lawyers to take on consumer litigation.

District Attorney Summer Stephan has different ideas.

A turf war has broken out between the two elected officials over the prudence of creating a new consumer protection unit, with the district attorney arguing her office’s own ongoing efforts need support, not competition.

At issue in the dispute is what should be done with a growing pile of money the district attorney’s lawyers have won.

Largely through the work of the district attorney’s office, the county has amassed a fund worth hundreds of millions of dollars via settlements and judgments won from suing companies big and small for violations of consumer protection law.

From 2023 to 2025, that fund grew from $186 million to $224 million, according to county financial reports. But under state law, that money can only be spent on enforcing consumer protection laws.

“I would love to hear a reason why (Lawson-Remer) wants to grab at this hard-earned money,” Stephan said in an interview. “She has not given one reason why it’s needed to duplicate the work, or to fill a gap that I’m unable to fill.”

“I don’t think this is the right thing to do,” she added.

In the last decade, the Economic Crimes and Consumer Protection division of the District Attorney’s Office has won $134 million in penalties, including nearly $14 million last year, according to the office.

Those dollars have been won through cases the district attorney has joined against major corporations, including price-gouging lawsuits against Walmart and Lowe’s, an environmental lawsuit against Tesla and a case alleging deceptive business practices by HelloFresh, a meal-kit subscription company.

The unit has sued local companies too. It won a $500,000 judgment last year against a local jeweler for deceptive lending practices.

Some of those dollars get reinvested into the unit, helping pay the salaries of its 15 prosecutors and 10 investigators. But due to the restrictions in state law, the rest of it is piling up in reserves.

The district attorney’s unit has a current budget of $5.3 million, said Tanya Sierra, a spokesperson for the office. But Stephan said it’s hard to predict how much money will be added every year to the now nine-figure fund, and she anticipates expanding the unit.

Under a 2023 plan backed by supervisors, the unit within Stephan’s office has the authority to hire outside investigators and forensic experts, which would add to its existing budget, for cases involving cybercrime, elder abuse, environmental protections and more. New in-house staff could be hired as well.

In an interview, Lawson-Remer asserted the board’s authority to control the county’s finances and budget. “That’s what we do,” she said. “That’s our job.”

To Lawson-Remer, there’s more than enough work for two units to coexist.

Her proposed budget for a unit — for which she wants 20 people, including 10 attorneys — is comparable to that of the district attorney’s unit. And as the DA’s has done, Lawson-Remer sees a new unit winning cases within a few years and directing its own settlements and judgements into the consumer protection fund.

She said such a unit would already have cases it could start working on, namely lawsuits the county counsel’s office has filed against a ghost-gun manufacturer and social media companies over their products’ impact on the mental health of children.

“It’s a little bananas. Summer’s saying they’re doing all this work — and they’re doing great work. It’s awesome. But they’re not doing all of it,” Lawson-Remer said.

Other offices that handle consumer protection cases appeared to welcome having new company.

“There’s more than enough work to go around,” said San Diego City Attorney Heather Ferbert, whose office has a consumer protection unit. “We welcome collaboration with County Counsel — added capacity means more accountability and better outcomes across the region.”

The California Attorney General’s Office, which has the state’s largest team of consumer protection litigators in the state, said in a statement it was “proud to partner with local government partners including district and city attorneys, county counsels, and other investigative and enforcement agencies in these efforts.”

Lawson-Remer’s proposal relies on a 2022 state law that gave counties more authority to create consumer-protection units housed in county counsel’s offices, not district attorney’s offices, that can file civil litigation.

With AB 2766, the state Legislature gave some counties subpoena power and other pre-litigation investigative tools under the state’s unfair competition law, which governs illegal business practices.

“It was very intentional and explicit on the part of the state that this was a gap that they wanted the county to fill,” Lawson-Remer said.

The law only extends to counties with a population above 750,000, and since then, county counsel’s offices in Los Angeles and Santa Clara counties have begun to more aggressively pursue consumer protection enforcement.

Since being formed, LA County’s unit has won $29 million in civil penalties in addition to dozens of permanent and preliminary injunctions, its website says.

Stephan downplays comparisons to other counties.

“They might have different needs,” she said. “My office does the primary consumer protection work because of the resources and the expertise. It’s a pride and joy for San Diego County that I’ve kept up and expanded, so that’s different than county counsels.”

Stephan says she worries it could take up to five years to staff a new unit and train litigators to the degree needed for a specialized consumer protection unit. Lawson-Remer called such a timeline “crazy” and hyperbolic.

Hiring for any new unit, if created, would be an early priority for Damon Brown, who is now a top adviser to Attorney General Rob Bonta and who supervisors have tapped for the new county counsel.

They are set to vote on whether to confirm him on Tuesday.