To This Court, Unified In Interest Doctrine Alive And Well.
Interesting to see jurisprudence to evolve, even in unpublished decisions.
In Bedi v. Dhaliwal, Case Nos. A135784/A137061 (1st Dist., Div. 5 Jan. 27, 2014) (unpublished), the reviewing court had to discuss the “unified in interest” exception to awarding routine costs, with one line of cases following Wakefield v. Bohlin, 145 Cal.App.4th 963, 984 (2006) [holding that the exception was alive and well and allowed trial judges discretion to grant or deny costs to “prevailing parties” but dependent on how they were unified in interest in fashioning the ultimate result] and with a more recent case doubt casting doubt on the viability of this exception altogether (see Zintel Holdings, LLC v. McLean, 209 Cal.App.4th 431, 440-443 [criticizing Wakefield]). Although not published, Bedi did not feel Wakefield was “incorrect,” meaning the lower court was not out of bounds from discretionarily denying routine costs based on the “unified in interest” exception. This issue is bound to our state supreme court, whether in this decision or something to come in the future.