“No attorney sues under the state’s main environmental quality law more than him.

“These lawsuits all tend to follow a formula: A local City Council approves a big-box development, like a Wal-Mart. A nonprofit with a watchdoggy name sues, with Briggs as its attorney. The developer settles the case and pays Briggs for his trouble. It’s often unclear who is against the project other than Briggs himself.

“To Briggs, a 45-year-old who grew up in San Bernardino County, this relentless string of court cases has made countless developments in California better for the environment. Solar panels gleam from the roofs of Wal-Marts and hundreds of new trees have been planted because of his lawsuits. …

“Briggs’ $1.25 million home sits near the top of a hill in Sunset Cliffs. In the front, it has a big garden with a wide view of the Pacific Ocean. Briggs’ friends jokingly refer to the place as ‘The House That Wal-Mart Built.'”

The hunt for a proper plaintiff

The article dispassionately lays out how Briggs operates. I think most people will consider his approach to be’ fundamentally corrupt:

“The nonprofits Briggs has represented over the years share some striking similarities. First, take their names. His clients have included: Smart Growth Adelanto, Build Barstow Smart, Grow Victorville Smart, Concerned Citizens of Vista, Murrietans for Smart Growth, Blythe Citizens for Smart Growth, Indio Citizens for Smart Growth, Menifee Citizens for Smart Growth, Riverside Citizens for Smart Growth, Rialto Citizens for Responsible Growth and Redlands Good Neighbor Coalition.

“Then there’s how the organizations are set up. The groups aren’t what you typically think of when you hear the word nonprofit.

“Most don’t receive donations. If they did, the money wouldn’t be tax-exempt because the organizations haven’t filed anything with the IRS. Those that have sent tax returns to the state attorney general’s office often don’t list any income, assets or expenses. Many are currently facing fines for not completing proper paperwork. All registered with the state through Briggs’ law office in the Inland Empire.”

There oughta be a law

How Consumer Watchdog-y. How Bill Lerach-y. It’s amazing that there aren’t state laws against being a legal remora.

But Briggs does have his good points. He was a sharp critic of then-San Diego Mayor Bob Filner’s 2013 attempt to condition permit approvals on donations to Filner’s causes.

There’s a right way and a wrong way, you see, to take money from developers.

“Lawyers are pitching state attorneys general in 16 states with a radical idea: make the food industry pay for soaring obesity-related health care costs.

“It’s a move straight from the playbook of the Big Tobacco takedown of the 1990s, which ended in a $246 billion settlement with 46 states, a ban on cigarette marketing to young people and the Food and Drug Administration stepping in to regulate.

“There are plenty of naysayers, just as there were in 1994 when Mike Moore, Mississippi’s attorney general, famously suggested suing the tobacco industry. But a number of nutrition and legal experts think a similar strategy could be applied on the food front — especially as obesity-related diseases have surpassed smoking as a major driver of health care costs.

“’I believe that this is the most promising strategy to lighten the economic burden of obesity on states and taxpayers and to negotiate broader public health policy objectives,’ said Paul McDonald, a partner at Valorem Law Group in Chicago, who is leading the charge.

“McDonald’s firm has sent proposals to AGs from California to Mississippi explaining how suing ‘big food’ could help their states close budget gaps as billions in Medicaid expenditures eat a growing share of tax revenues.”

Sadly, many Dems will love the ‘twofer’

This is like a mini-greatest hits of everything that people who believe in liberty should hate.

Private firms that make legal products facing shakedowns not just from trial lawyers but potentially from state attorney generals who are supposed to stand for justice.

What’s really appalling is that Kamala Harris just might get on the bandwagon. Democratic voters have a lot of enthusiasm for the nanny state. They want to tell other people how to live. When they can act in this vein while bullying and legally extorting evil corporations, well, that’s a twofer!

What surprises me is that the trial-lawyer remoras haven’t gone after booze or beer makers. They seem way more vulnerable to legal blackmail than food companies. Former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr wrote about the possibility a decade ago.