$80,806.50 Fee Award Affirmed Where $11,642.10 Compensatory Damages And Cancellation Of Car Loan Was The End Result.
Replica of first car made and sold by Toyota: the 1936 Toyota Standard Sedan AA. Photo: Bertel Schmitt. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
In Valencia v. Hooman Toyota of Long Beach, Case No. B268046 (2d Dist., Div. 3 April 25, 2017) (unpublished), plaintiffs sued, among other things, to extinguish a written auto installment sales contract based on fraud (no registrable title could be delivered to them). They won a compensatory award of $11,642.10 plus cancellation of the auto loan. They then moved for attorney’s fees under Civil Code section 1717 based on a one-sided contractual fees clause in favor of the auto seller, with the trial court awarding $80,806.50 to plaintiffs (out of a requested $143,147.48). Defendants’ appeal of the fee award did not change the result. The appellate court determined that rescission based on fraud is “on the contract” under section 1717 and that the one-sided contract in favor of seller was reciprocal under section 1717.