On July 5, 2011 the Orange County Superior Court granted the application of Silver, Hadden, Silver, Wexler + Levine on behalf of the Costa Mesa City Employees' Association for a Preliminary Injunction prohibiting the City of Costa Mesa from contracting out municipal services that can be satisfactorily performed by current employees to private entities and from implementing layoffs of Costa Mesa employees as the consequence of such outsourcing pending a trial on the legality of that proposed conduct. 

In March 2011 the City Council for the City of Costa Mesa reached a decision to outsource nearly all of the City services (except Police) to public and/or private entities for the asserted purpose of cost savings. The City then proceeded to issue Layoff Notices to approximately two hundred City employees to be effective on September 30, 2011 if the City was able to outsource those services to private contractors. This extraordinary action that the City Council sought to accomplish under the guise of "fiscal responsibility"  has frequently been characterized in the media as the "ground-zero" for future similar actions by other public agencies in California.

The lawsuit filed by the Association contended that, unless enjoined by the Court, the City of Costa Mesa, as a general law city, would be acting in violation of  California Government Code ''37103 and 53060 by contracting with private entities for municipal services which could not be considered "special services" within the meaning of those statutes, where such services were being satisfactorily performed by City of Costa Mesa employees. Pursuant to law, such "special services" are restricted to specified public services involving financial, economic, accounting, engineering, legal or administrative matters. Moreover, it must be established by the agency that the contemplated outsourcing involves specialized skills, expertise, or training not otherwise possessed by the public employees sought to be displaced.