Appellate Court Followed Maughan’s “Bright Line” Test on Appeal.
In this one, the appellate court had to review whether a party truly prevailed on appeal in a prior appellate proceeding involving a SLAPP determination. The lower court said the party did, but the appellate court reversed.
White and Yellow Cab, Inc. v. Orange County Board of Supervisors, Case No. G047250 (4th Dist., Div. 3 Oct. 9, 2013) (unpublished), authored by Justice Ikola on behalf of a 3-0 panel, confronted this situation: Board had won the merits of a prior appeal but lost its cross-appeal regarding the amount of attorney’s fees/costs awarded in a SLAPP proceeding. The lower court awarded the Board $18,000 in fees out of a requested $21,338.50.
Plaintiff appealed and won in a reversal of the fee award.
The reason is that a “split decision” on appeal of the type here did not entitle defendant Board to recover attorney’s fees incurred on appeal. Specifically, plaintiff lost an appeal of a SLAPP grant but Board lost a cross-appeal on the amount of SLAPP fees awarded to it. Maughan v. Google Technology, Inc., 143 Cal.App.4th 1242, 1253-1254 (2006) was dispositive in a “split decision” context, announcing a “bright line” rule that such a “split decision” did not make the Board a prevailing party as a matter of law–with Maughan being found persuasive by the 4/3 appellate court. “Maughan did not carefully parse the relative importance of the results achieved on appeal by each of the parties. The absence of such textured analysis suggests that the Maughan court did not consider its holding to be an exercise of discretion, but rather considered it clear as a matter of law that the defendant had not prevailed on appeal. We agree with this interpretation ….” (Slip Opn, p. 6.)