Appellate Court Rejected Various Arguments that Fees Should Have Been Apportioned.
Plaintiff landlord won prevailing party fees under Civil Code section 1717, pursuant to a lease fees clause, against tenant Bank after plaintiff won compensatory damages of $1,016,812.50 after a two-phased trial (with the compensatory damages component subsequently settled out). Although initially requesting $2,051,555.67, plaintiff lowered its fee request to $1,069,302.96. The trial court liked this better, awarding plaintiff $1,047,250 in fees and costs ($994,795.10 fees/$52,455.39), after cutting certain trial work by plaintiff’s attorneys and eliminating virtually all of their travel time during the 7-year litigation.
Bank’s appeal of the fee award was affirmed in Ramos-Lovato v. Community Bank, Case No. E055920 (4th Dist., Div. 2 Feb. 26, 2015) (unpublished).
Bank primarily argued that the trial judge failed to apportion fees between certain noncompensable (negligence) versus compensable (breach of lease) claims. The appellate court disagreed, after determining that the trial judge’s use of “arose out of” and “but for” language in the statement of decision meant he found the fees were inextricably intertwined so that apportionment was not called for under the circumstances—no abuse of discretion here.
BLOG UNDERVIEW—We will note that the Bank prevailed on a conversion claim brought by plaintiff, with plaintiff’s appeal unsuccessful in getting this result reversed. Our friend Ben Shatz of Manatt Phelps was one of the attorneys representing Bank on appeal.