Author name: Marc Alexander

Rent Stabilization Ordinance: East Palo Alto Ordinance Does Not Allow For Fee Recovery in Actions Between Landlord And The City

Cases: Special Fee Shifting Statutes

Appellate Court Reverses Fee Award in Favor of Landlord.      Woodland Park Mgt., LLC v. City of East Palo Alto Rent Stabilization Bd., Case No. A124154 (1st Dist., Div. 5 Feb. 1, 2010) (certified for publication) involved “prevailing party” fee recovery language in East Palo Alto’s Rent Stabilization and Eviction for Good Cause Ordinance (RSO) […]

In The News . . . . Spammer Gets Whacked With Attorney’s Fees And O.C. Treasurer-Tax Collector Chriss Street Has Spent A Lot of Fees In Pending Bankruptcy Litigation Case

In The News

Tagged.com Wins Large Default Judgment Against Spammer, Plus Attorney’s Fees.      Social networker Tagged.com has won a $151,975 default judgment against Erik Vogeler, who is alleged to have spammed thousands of Tagged members with unsolicited links to an adult dating website. A district judge in the Northern District of California ordered the default judgment, as

Section 998: $78,107.37 Costs Award Affirmed In Personal Injury Action

Cases: Section 998

Plaintiff Possessed the Same Knowledge About Her Physical Condition, Such that Suppression of Defense Video Surveillance Did Not Nullify Prior 998 Offers as Being Made in “Bad Faith.”      Courts do tend to review Code of Civil Procedure section 998 offers in a pragmatic fashion . . . as the next personal injury case illustrates.

Arbitration: Homeowner Association’s Failure to Show it Requested Homeowner to Arbitrate Under CC&R Provision and that Homeowner Refused to Arbitrate Results in Denial of Petition to Arbitrate and Overturning of Fees Award.

Cases: Arbitration, Cases: Homeowner Associations, Cases: POOF!

Code of Civil Procedure Section 1281.2 Is Interpreted to Require a Party Seeking to Compel Arbitration to Plead and Prove a Prior Demand for Arbitration Under the Parties’ Arbitration Agreement and a Refusal to Arbitrate Thereunder. In the next case, Homeowner Association successfully petitioned to arbitrate a dispute with a homeowner, only to have the

Indemnity And Apportionment: $402,596.40 Fee Award Affirmed In Refusal To Defend Dispute

Cases: Allocation, Cases: Discovery, Cases: Indemnity, Cases: Prevailing Party, Cases: Substantiation of Reasonableness of Fees

Sixth District Found Opposing Party Forfeited Challenge to Billing Record Objections When It Failed to Attack Omissions Through Discovery Motion.      In the next case, the Sixth District—in UDC-Universal Development, L.P. v. CH2M Hill, Case No. H033862 (6th Dist. Jan. 22, 2010) (unpublished)—affirmed a $402,596.40 fee award under a contractual provision when sustaining a trial

Partition: Trial Court Did Not Err In Awarding $95,267.41 In Attorney’s Fees To Plaintiff In Partition Action, Where Incurred For A “Common Benefit”

Cases: Equity, Cases: Special Fee Shifting Statutes

Plaintiff Sought $415,458.75 In Fees, But Trial Court Reductions and Apportionments Lowered Actual Award to $95,267.41.      In partition actions, Code of Civil Procedure section 874.010(a) authorizes an award of costs to include reasonable attorney’s fees that have been “incurred or paid by a party for the common benefit.” When you get into this area

In The News . . . . January 2010 Issue Of The Orange County Lawyer Does Cover Some Fees Issues.

In The News

     The Orange County Bar Association’s Professionalism and Ethics Committee has, in the January 2010 issue of the Orange County Lawyer, published its “2009 Ethics Round-Up” that explores the following fee issues: Fee arbitration provisions in attorney-client retainer letters, discussing Schatz v. Allen Matkins Leck Gamble & Mallory LLP, 45 Cal.4th 557 (2009) [contractual arbitration

Choice Of Law: California’s Civil Code Section 1717 “Reciprocity” Policy Trumped Wisconsin Unilateral Fee Clause Choice Of Law To The Contrary

Cases: Choice of Law

Court of Appeal Also Discusses Grove Properties and Berglass Conflict of Law Decisions.      Way back in one of our “youngster” posts on June 11, 2008, we discussed two interesting choice of law decisions, ABF Capital Corp. v. Grove Properties Co., 126 Cal.App.4th 204 (2005) and ABF Capital Corp. v. Berglass, 130 Cal.App.4th 825 (2005),

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