No Apportionment Needed, Fourth District, Division 3 Rules.
In the next case, there was a broad attorney’s fees clause that awarded fees to the prevailing party in any action “founded in tort, contract, or equity that in any way [relates to] the contract or is brought because of an alleged dispute in connection with any contract provision.” The breadth of this language sufficed to justify a substantial fee award.
The Fourth District, Division 3, in a 3-0 opinion by Justice Ikola in Brea Imperial, Inc. v. Automotive Wheels, Inc., Case Nos. G041926/G042148 (4th Dist., Div. 3 Feb. 10,, 2011) (unpublished), confronted a losing defendant’s challenge to a postjudgment order assessing attorney’s fees aggregating $834,868.30 against it pursuant to the broad fees clause synopsized earlier.
Defendant’s challenges were not persuasive on appeal.
Even though the appellate court had done a partial reversal of compensatory awards to plaintiff in an earlier appeal, this did not necessitate a reversal of the fees award. That happened to be the case because the reversal was very limited, only striking duplicative damages.
The principal contention on appeal was that the fee recovery should not have been allowed as to the tort claims won by plaintiff. Because the fees clause was broad and expressly covered tort claims, this argument did not succeed on the merits. Fee award affirmed. (Santisas v. Goodin, 17 Cal.4th 599, 608 (1998) [one of our Leading Cases] (parties may validly agree to fee recovery between themselves, whether the litigation sounds in tort or in contract).)