Fee Motion Properly Filed and No Allocation Between Claims Required.
Plaintiff voluntarily dismissed its contract-based/tortious interference case against one defendant without prejudice in the wake of pending pleading motions, with the trial court determining that fully requested fees of $16,926 were due to prevailing defendant.
Plaintiff’s multi-pronged attack in Oxnard Corner, LLC v. AP-Colton, Case No. E053678 (4th Dist., Div. 2 Dec. 5, 2013) (unpublished) was unavailing, in a 3-0 decision authored by Presiding Justice Ramirez.
Santisas v. Goodin, 17 Cal.4th 599 (1998) [one of our Leading Cases]
was the compass for this one. There were broadly-worded fees clauses such that the dismissal of the contract claims did not impact recoverability of fees on the dismissed tort claims. The dismissal of defendant clearly made that litigant a prevailing party.
Plaintiff did have an interesting procedural argument, contending that the dismissal meant the fee motion was premature because the case had not been resolved against other defendants. The appellate court did not find this argument persuasive, determining that the case was final (even if without prejudice) as to the moving defendant so it was irrelevant if the fee motion was made before entry of a judgment involving other parties.
There was no need to apportion fees between contractual and tortious claims, because the fees clause was broad enough to encompass both sets of claims.