Second District, Division 6 Affirms $210,697.50 Fee Award.
Judges, as much as anyone, do try to be pragmatic in awarding fees, which are frequently based on equitable considerations. Here is one illustrating that principle, even though the breadth of the fees clause and intertwinement of issues well supported the result legally.
In Zuiderweg v. Hoffman, Case No. B214083 (2d Dist., Div. 6 Dec. 8, 2010) (unpublished), property owner Hoffman, who was subject to several easements favoring dominant tenements owned by respondents, lost a jury trial to respondents, who were awarded $390,250 in compensatory damages. Also, the lower court later awarded one of the respondents $210,697.50 in attorney’s fees based on a fees clause in a stipulated prior judgment that bound the parties. Losing property owner appealed.
The Second District, Division 6, in a 3-0 decision authored by Justice Perren, found that the fees clause in the stipulated judgment was broad in nature. Although only triggered by initiated litigation, it did allow the lower court to consider “all the circumstances” in awarding fees “result[ing] from the act of removing an obstruction of the access roadway . . . .” Not only did this clause allow consideration of broad equitable considerations, the lower court correctly determined that the obstruction issues were intertwined with the other issues in the litigation so apportionment was not required. The lower court’s full award of the requested fees was no abuse of discretion here.