Defendant’s Fee Award Reversed Because Plaintiff’s Pleadings Based on Statutory Corporations Code Duty, Not a Contract With a Fees Clause. Tabibian v. Waldman, Case No. B220760 (2d Dist., Div. 7 Feb. 9, 2011) (unpublished) is a case where plaintiff sued for breach of fiduciary duty/loyalty under Corporations Code section 309 even though there was […]
Trial Court Found Prevailing Party Based On Costs Recovery Standard, One That Diverges From the Apt One for Fee Award. The next decision illustrates an important distinction often times glossed over or mistakenly ignored with respect to a determination of the prevailing party. The distinction is this: there is a difference between prevailing party
Second District, Division 2 Finds Silence In Fee Shifting Statute Does Not Translate Into Legislative Intent to Impose Fees and Costs on Counsel. We have seen a recent surge in cases where appellate courts have reversed trial court decisions imposing fees and costs against a party’s counsel under certain fee shifting or sanction
Losing Party Unsuccessfully Sought to Regulate Deposition Conduct of Opposing Counsel. Civil litigators have seen it often–an opposing attorney who overuses privilege objections, instructs deponents not to answer based on nonprivileged grounds, coaches the witness through speaking objections or interruptive conferences outside of the deposition, or insults counsel taking the depositions. Apparently, plaintiff
Family Judge Does Not Have To Expressly State Whether Consideration Was Given to Financial Burdens. An ex-wife in In re Marriage of Loumena, Case Nos. H032608/H033027 (6th Dist. Feb. 8, 2011) (unpublished) was hit with a sanctions award of $100,000 (out of a requested $355,000, $250,000 of which comprised attorney’s fees)
Lower Court’s Double Multiplier For Defense Litigation Tactics Sustained on Appeal. Martin v. Taylor, Case No. H034649 (6th Dist. Feb. 8, 2011) (unpublished) goes to show you that there is no proportionality principle for awarding attorney’s fees under Civil Code section 1717. In fact, courts will often apply a multiplier if an opponent’s
Defendant Was Victor Both Below and On Appeal. In our March 25, 2009 post, we explored Krug v. Maschmeier, 172 Cal.App.4th 796 (2009), which held that a winning defendant in a civil harassment proceeding could be awarded attorney’s fees in the discretion of the lower court. Now, an appellate decision has applied this
Settlement Will Be the Subject of an Upcoming Hearing. As reported by Wendy Fry in a February 3, 2011 post in the online version of The San Diego Union-Tribune, the City of San Diego has agreed to settle a lawsuit over emergency dredging in the Tijuana River Valley by the nonprofit group San Diegans
Chief Judge Kozinski, on behalf of Ninth Circuit, Clarifies IDEA Fee Recovery Provision As to Defendants. R.P. v. Prescott Unified School Dist., Case Nos. 09-15651/09-16786 (9th Cir. Feb. 4, 2011) (for publication) involved a situation where a district court affirmed an ALJ’s determinations in a parent-commenced suit on behalf of a child claiming child
Winner Apparently Waived Attorney’s Fees But City Agreed to Pay for Storm Drain Improvement. [Above: Storm Drain Improvement. Two men pour liquor into storm drain. 1921. Library of Congress.] In our October 3, 2010 post, we summarized the results of a lawsuit eventually concluding in a substantial compensatory damages judgment and attorney’s fees
