Second District, Division 7 Underscores Mainstay of Appellate Practice.
In Pakravan v. Halajian, Case No. B201864 (2d Dist., Div. 7 Feb. 26, 2009) (unpublished), former dentists in a partnership got into a war over various aspects of running a Lancaster dental practice. Litigation eventually erupted, with plaintiffs winning the major part of the battle, but no compensatory damages awarded by jurors and with punitive damages stricken by the lower court based on the absence of any compensatory damages. The trial court did order dissolution of the partnership based on the jury verdicts, and awarded undisclosed (but likely substantial) attorney’s fees to plaintiffs as prevailing parties. Defendant appealed.
He lost his fee challenge on a very elementary basis: defendant cited nothing in the record to support his abuse of discretion challenge. The failure to direct the appellate court to record citations and evidence demonstrating reversible error frequently results in a waiver of challenges on appeal. (Nwosu v. Uba, 122 Cal.App.4th 1229, 1246 (2004); Mansell v. Board of Administration, 30 Cal.App.4th 539, 545-546 (1994).) “How the trial court arrived at the amount of the award is left to our speculation, since defendant does not direct our attention to anything in the record demonstrating the trial court’s reasoning.” Based on the failure to support the challenge on appeal, the appellate panel presumed the fee award was an appropriate exercise of discretion. (Ramos v. Countrywide Home Loans, Inc., 82 Cal.App.4th 615, 621 (2000).)
BLOG BONUS COVERAGE—The appellate court did sustain the lower court’s refusal to allow the jury’s prior award of $205,000 in punitive damages in the absence of actual damages. The unpublished decision has a nice discussion of how the rule in Mother Cobb’s Chicken T., Inc. v. Fox, 10 Cal.2d 203, 205-206 (1937)—that an award of exemplary damages must be accompanied by an award of compensatory damages—is still sound. (See also Cheung v. Daley, 35 Cal.App.4th 1673, 1677 (1995).)