$116,275 in Requested Fees Was the Resultant Loss.
Milette v. Vaughns, Case No. A134468 (1st Dist., Div. 5 Apr. 22, 2013) (unpublished) teaches all settling parties an important lesson: if you want to recover fees after a settlement, make sure the settlement or ensuing judgment pursuant to the settlement has a fees clause or incorporates a document having one.
Unfortunately for plaintiff, who settled during trial, her settlement and stipulated judgment did not have an unequivocal fees clause. Instead, there were ambiguous incorporations of reference, but no incorporation of an underlying purchase agreement having a fees clause. Given this uncertainty, both the lower and appellate courts sided with defendants, finding that there was no basis for fee recovery under the settlement documents or Civil Code section 1717. The upshot is that plaintiff lost her request to recoup $116,275 in fees, an especially tough result when one considers that the underlying settlement was for $152,000.