Second District, Division 7 Finds No Basis to Reduce Fee Award to Anti-SLAPP Victor Any Further.
If you are going to challenge the award of a mandatory fee to an anti-SLAPP victor, the message from the next case is to make sure that you have an appealable fee order and that you provide substantiated authority for a further reduction from any reduced amount already made by the trial court.
In Aragon v. Lazo, Case No. B204981 (2d Dist., Div. 7 Jan. 14, 2009) (unpublished) defendant gained a partial strike of a plaintiff’s complaint through an anti-SLAPP motion, although a defamation count survived. The trial court awarded defendant fees in the amount of $18,263.33, two-thirds of the total fees sought. Plaintiff appealed across the board, although defendant did not appeal the anti-SLAPP denial of the defamation claim.
Plaintiff lost on the merits as well any challenge to the fee award.
Two reasons supported the denial of plaintiff’s request that the fee award be reduced to under $10,000. First, the anti-SLAPP fee award under Code of Civil Procedure 425.16 generally is appealable only from the final judgment in the action, which especially would be the case where only partial victories were achieved through the anti-SLAPP motion. (See Doe v. Luster, 145 Cal.App.4th 139, 146-150 (2006); see also the discussion in Melbostad v. Fisher, 165 Cal.App.4th 987 (2008) [one of our 2008 “Top 10” Cases listed in our December 30, 2008 post].) Second, plaintiff waived the argument by not providing any argument or legal authority to demonstrate why the one-third reduced fee award rendered was erroneous in nature.