Lower Court’s Denial Of Post-Judgment Vacatur Fees To Prevailing Plaintiff/Employee Was Justified.
In Fishman v. Advisors LLP, Case No. B334179 (2d Dist., Div. 7 Jan. 15, 2026) (unpublished), a couple of former lawyers/nonequity partners sued their former law firm for compensation and over the validity of a non-compete clause. There were various proceedings; however, one of the plaintiffs did recover fees under Labor Code section 218.5 after an arbitration award where there was an acceptance of a CCP § 998 offer, but its silence meant that the fees were at issue. The superior court confirmed the arbitration award, but rejected awarding the winning plaintiff’s request of $155,071.14 in fees for successfully opposing a superior court postarbitration-vacatur motion brought by the defense.
The Court of Appeal affirmed. Moncharsh took care of the arbitration fee award. With respect to the denial of the vacatur opposition efforts by the winning plaintiff, those were properly denied because of decisions (or analogous ones in similar areas) showing that Labor Code section 218.5 did not extend statutory fee recovery to special, vacatur-like proceedings. (Ling v. P.F. Chang’s Chino Bistro, Inc., 215 Cal.App.4th 1242, 1263 (2016) [reversed on other grounds later]; cf. Villinger/Nicholls Development Co. v. Meleyco, 31 Cal.App.4th 321, 327-328 (1995).)