Second District, Division 8 Sustains Award for Winning Party After Prevailing at Pleading Stage of Case.
Who says that cases cannot resolve early, with an award of attorney’s fees to the winning party. The next one shows that this can be within the realm of possibility, even though many matters do not usually garner fee recovery at such an early stage of litigation.
In Maywood Club Tow v. City of Maywood, Case No. B220296 (2d Dist., Div. 8 Nov. 1, 2010) (unpublished), towing company finally lost an attempt to sustain a second amended complaint against City of Maywood, alleging essentially express contract or implied breach claims that stemmed from allegations that City breached an exclusivity towing term of a contract or broke promises in negotiations that towing company would have an exclusive relationship with City. The trial court sustained a demurrer without leave in favor of City. The rub was that the express contract did have a fees clause, worded to cover fees “in the even of any litigation between the parties concerning or arising from the negotiation, construction, performance, non-performance or any other aspect of this Agreement.” Pretty broad, such that the lower court awarded attorney’s fees of $30,636 in City’s favor.
Towing company appealed, but lost — with the merits and fees awards affirmed.
The fees clause was certainly broad enough to encompass the dispute as framed by the second amended complaint, mainly focused on express and implied contract claims. Civil Code section 1717 mandated a fees award.
BLOG UNDERVIEW–Many federal litigators may lament that they cannot attack pleadings in California state court as they can under federal motions to dismiss. However, there is at least one important wrinkle for state court litigators. If plaintiffs attach contracts as exhibits to complaints, and do not argue that the terms have any special meanings, trial courts can construe the facial language to determine the meaning of the contracts and can treat general allegations as mere surplusage about the legal effect of the contracts. (Barnett v. Fireman’s Fund Ins. Co., 90 Cal.App.4th 500, 505 (2001).) In Maywood Club Tow, the appellate court agreed that contractual language stating towing company was “an Official Police Garage” rather than “the Official Police Garage” showed no exclusivity had been granted to plaintiff, resulting in an adverse ruling as a matter of law. So, there are some nuances state court litigators can use to attack pleadings like their federal court counterparts.
BLOG BONUS – from Wikipedia:
“Maywood is a small working class city in Los Angeles County, California, with a population of more than 30,000. At 1.14 square miles (3.0 km2), Maywood is the third-smallest incorporated city in Los Angeles County. As of July 1, 2010, Maywood became the first municipality in California and perhaps anywhere, to dismantle its police department, lay off all city employees, except for the city manager, city attorney and elected officials, and contract with outside agencies for provision of all municipal services, historically, a move apparently unprecedented among California cities. Maywood is now billing itself as the first American city to outsource all of its city services.”