Appellate Court Did State that Prevailing Party Could Renew Fee and/or Costs Request.
Carrick v. County of Santa Cruz, Case No. H035841 (6th Dist. Apr. 18, 2011) (unpublished) is an interesting illustration of our POOF! principle.
There, a homeowner embroiled with a County for maintaining unpermitted structures on his property was hit with an adverse fee award of $16,500 and adverse code enforcement costs award of $2,310. The only problem was that the appellate court reversed the prior merits judgment in favor of County, which meant the fees/costs award also fell with the reversal. (Gillian v. City of San Marino, 147 Cal.App.4th 1033, 1053 (2007).) However, now the twist–the appellate court did not rule out that someone might have prevailed and could present a renewed fee/costs request before the lower court under Code of Civil Procedure section 1032. Maybe more to blog on with respect to this one in the future!
![[Two children wearing sailor outfits are playing with a balloon tethered to a Russian battleship, the balloon has burst revealing the head of a Russian admiral or czar and the battleship has been sunk, the Russian child, standing, pointing to the balloon, is crying, the Japanese child, sitting, is joyfully clapping]](http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/pnp/jpd/00900/00982r.jpg)