Plaintiff Prevailed On Practical Level, Although Trial Judge Found It “Was Close.”
This next one recalls to mind the quote “close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.”
Although finding the prevailing party issue to be closed, the prevailing party prevailed enough to garner $104,718.80 in attorney’s fees and additional costs in a neighborhood dispute involved in Hooker v. Rodgers, Case No. D065888 (4th Dist., Div. 1 June 16, 2015) (unpublished).
There, plaintiff sued several neighbors got involved in a CC&R imbroglio concerning easement rights to use of a dock built for the use of waterfront residential properties in Coronado Cays, mainly stemming from one defendant’s replacement dock construction. Plaintiff largely prevailed, although the trial judge observed it was a “close call” on the prevailing party determination (given plaintiff won a small amount of damages and had to reimburse the main defendant for construction costs even though winning on many of the easement/equitable claims), but not close enough to prevent awarding substantial fees/costs to plaintiff and against the main defendants.
The appellate court affirmed the appeal of the postjudgment appeals ruling, finding the trial judge properly found the “gist” of the complaint/cross-claims were to enforce provisions of the governing documents on equitable theories such that plaintiff prevailed and was entitled to fees under Civil Code section 1354(c). The amount of fees was reasonable given that the lower court reduced the requested fees by 40% to eliminate an award to plaintiff on unsuccessful claims.
BLOG UNDERVIEW—For you appellate practitioners out there, the decision has an interesting discussion of the “separately appealable order” issue in the context of modified judgments/clerical versus judicial corrections for appealability purposes—surveying the various tests and nuances in this somewhat arcane area. It also rejected plaintiff’s request to sanction defendants for a frivolous appeal, even though defendants had flip flopped on whether they were just appealing the postjudgment fee order versus the merits after obtaining a stay of execution due to initially representing that only the fee order was being challenged.