$172,546 Costs/Expert Fee Award Against Plaintiff Affirmed On Appeal. In Zamora v. Textron, Inc., Case Nos. A124923/124992 (1st Dist., Div. 3 Feb. 18, 2011) (unpublished), plaintiff lost to one defendant in a case where she claimed injuries when the brakes failed in her “Haulster” three-wheeled vehicle. Prior to trial (where plaintiff eventually won almost […]
Fourth District, Division 3 Reverses Paring of Fees from $62,400 to $20,000. Just to show you that a litigant’s failure to cooperate and the resultant expenses to a plaintiff will often come back to haunt that noncooperative litigant, we discuss Liu v. Wolfe, Case No. G043254 (4th Dist., Div. 3 Feb. 18, 2011) (unpublished)
Appellate Sanctions For Frivolous Appeal Denied For Lack of Separate Motion and More. In Lahoti v. Vericheck, Inc., Case No. 10-35388 (9th Cir. Feb. 16, 2011) (for publication), the district court determined that a litigant had acted in bad faith so that $78,109.95 in attorney’s feees and costs should be assessed against him
Second District, Division 1 Dismisses a Plethora of Challenges. In Erwin v. Maxwell, Case No. B217200 (2d Dist., Div. 1 Feb. 17, 2011) (unpublished), plaintiff’s malicious prosecution action against her opponent and opponent’s attorney was SLAPPed, with the lower court eventually awarding defense counsel a total of $71,006.00 in attorney’s fees and costs
Employments Issues Made Up Over Half the Cases. In an interesting article in the February 16, 2011 edition of The Sacramento Bee, Brad Branan reports that Sacramento County saw its legal costs rise 28% to $14 million in the last fiscal year. The reason for this climb was higher claim payments, with
Requested 2.0 Multiplier Scaled Back to 1.4. Just to show you how class action fee awards can often be larger than the damages awards in protracted, contentious cases, we now digest Alcoser v. Thomas, Case Nos. A124848 et al. (1st Dist., Div. 1 Feb. 16, 2011) (unpublished). There, a tenant successfully won
First District, Division 5 Finds Cross-Complaint Not Properly SLAPPed Because It Did Not Arise From Free Speech or Petitioning Activity. For those of you that follow our blog, you know we have the POOF! principle. This principle manifests itself when there is a merits reversal of a substantive order that gave rise to
Second District, Division 6 Follows Up Wilson Decision With Another Reversal In Unpublished Decision. Yesterday, we did a post on Wilson, where the Second District, Division 6 (sitting in Ventura) reversed a portion of a private attorney general fee denial decision, determining that a portion of the work should be compensable. Some of that
Appellate Court Remands Total Fee Denial Decision, Finding One Aspect of Case Meets Standards for Private Attorney General Fee Recovery. Wilson v. San Luis Obispo County Democratic Central Comm., Case No. B224269 (2d Dist., Div. 6 Feb. 14, 2011) (certified for publication) is an interesting allocation decision in the private attorney general statute (Code
L.A. Superior Court Judge Orders Opponent to Return Substantial Fees/Costs He Had Paid Before Appellate Court Reversal. In our September 9, 2010 post on Cussler v. Crusader Entertainment, we described the litigation saga between Alhambra-born adventure writer Clive Cussler and Crusader Entertainment (now Bristol Bay Productions) over the 2005 movie flop “Sahara.” The Second
