Numerous Challenges Rebuffed on Review.
Defendants, after SLAPPing plaintiffs’ Complaint (even though plaintiffs noticed a preliminary injunction hearing for the same day as the SLAPP motions), moved to recover attorney’s fees/other expenses totaling $115,601.38 ($105,237.52 of which comprised fees). Over opposition, the lower court awarded defendants $96,404.70 (with the $90,000 bulk being fees). Plaintiff appealed.
The appellate court sustained both the merits of the SLAPP ruling and the reasonableness of the fee award in Vaughn v. Barnett, Case No. B226108 (2d Dist., Div. 1 March 2, 2011) (unpublished).
There was an initial procedural hiccup, because plaintiffs did not appeal from the actual award liquidating the fees, but did appeal the prior order in which fee entitlement was allowed. This sufficed. (R.P. Richards, Inc. v. Chartered Const. Corp., 83 Cal.App.4th 146, 158 (2000).)
Plaintiffs argued that the SLAPP fee award included work on matters unrelated to the anti-SLAPP motion, citing to Lafayette Morehouse, Inc. v. Chronicle Publishing Co., 39 Cal.App.4th 1379, 1383 (1995) as a basis for reversal for including such work. However, like many other appellate courts facing this issue in both published and unpublished decisions, the Vaughn court concluded that the Legislature amended the SLAPP provision to liberalize its reach to work “performed in connection with” an anti-SLAPP motion. (Rosenaur v. Scherer, 88 Cal.App.4th 260, 285-286 (2001).) Here, however, plaintiffs themselves actually put the preliminary injunction papers at issue, so the “in connection with” requirement was amply satisified. (Put another way, “be careful what you do and then ask for.”)
Plaintiffs then griped about 3 San Francisco lawyers traveling to Los Angeles for the SLAPP hearing. However, they neglected to highlight the fact that both the SLAPP and preliminary injunction hearings were set at the same time, so no real inefficiency given what was at stake. SLAPP fee award affirmed.