In Bouvia v. County of Los Angeles (1987) 195 Cal. App. 3d 1075, the court determined plaintiff was entitled to attorney fees under section 1021.5 for an action in which she sought removal of her feeding tube. The court found plaintiff's suit helped to clarify the rights of all who receive medical treatment and expanded on existing law to declare the right to refuse medical treatment exists independent of the motivation for exercising that right. ( Id. at pp. 1084-1086.) The benefit to the public of plaintiff's suit, therefore, lay primarily in its precedential effect in other cases where someone sought to refuse medical treatment.