california civil-law us-constitution attorney-fees fourteenth-amendment
Any extreme circumstance when a substantially probably prevailing party can ask for some immediate injunction that they be provided attorney&#39;s fees?
<p>Let's say, in California, a Forbes 500 multi-billionaire wrongdoer has engaged and continues to engage in such fraudulent and/or malicious <strong>and</strong> oppressive conduct that has made plaintiff and continues to make plaintiff entirely disabled from, impossible or extremely difficult to (i) earn as it is sufficient for the basic necessaries of life and (ii) to afford even housing let alone an attorney, if for the purposes of pre-trial discovery or otherwise, the plaintiff shows that it is substantially probable that they will prevail in a certain cause of action, can that be used enjoined with a Four-Teenth Amendment argument to request reasonable attorney's fees to be provided for such cause of action to be brought before the court or be amended properly as otherwise it is impossible for plaintiff and plaintiff is disable to present his case in equity under Amendment Four-Teen?</p>
<p>If so, is there any close or remotely close authority?</p>

<p>This is not a thing that can happen.</p>
<p>If the case is in federal court, <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/1915" rel="nofollow noreferrer">28 U.S. Code § 1915</a> permits the court to appoint counsel to represent an indigent plaintiff. In state courts, my understanding is that California law only permits the court to appoint plaintiff's counsel in certain family-law matters.</p>
<p>If the defendant's case to avoid liability is frivolous, you can seek sanctions at basically any stage in the litigation, but you would be limited to collecting your legal fees up to that point; you would not be permitted to force the opposing party to fund your case in advance.</p>

<p>Absent a divorce or termination of parental rights case (and certain cases of a probate/trust character), this would almost never happen.</p>
<p>In divorce, probate and trust cases, the party may have an equitable interest in property controlled by another which justifies a pre-merits determination award out of property that is really their's not due to the merits outcome.</p>
<p>In termination of parents rights cases, the right to fees in this litigation with the state is by analogy to the right to a state paid attorney in criminal matters established in the <em>Gideon</em> case.</p>
