Nothing Showed The Jury Earlier Had Awarded Fees As Damages, With The Prevailing Party’s Section 1717 Fee Request Being Incident To Prevailing Party’s Principal Cause Of Action.
In 2540 Main Street Plaza, LLC v. Jiu-Jitsu Corp., Case No. G065859 (4th Dist., Div. 3 May 27, 2026) (unpublished), landlord prevailed against tenants in a commercial lease dispute through a jury verdict. Later, the trial judge awarded landlord post-judgment fees of $89,950 under Civil Code section 1717. Tenants’ appeal of the fee award was unsuccessful (as well as not prevailing on an appeal of the merits judgment). Tenant argued that the fee award was duplicative of fees awarded by the jury, but the record belied that was the case because (1) nothing in the jury verdict talked about fees, and (2) no jury instructions were given on any fee issues. Tenant tried to argue that fees were damages, but the appellate court—in a 3-0 opinion authored by Justice Delaney—rejected this argument because the section 1717 request was incident to landlord’s lease breach claims, with an earlier judgment having to be reached before a prevailing party could move for fees under section 1717.