CCP § 685.040 Post-Enforcement Judgment Fees Are Allowable for Statutory and Contractual Fee Claims.
Appealing party was probably upset that she got hit with attorney’s fees under three mandatory fee-shifting statutes after prevailing, on the whole, and obtaining a $403,872.99 payment in satisfaction of judgment from defendant after obtaining some damages from a misappropriation of likeness suit relating to her services as an infomercial actress. Defendant/judgment creditor later moved and obtained fees under these statutes: (1) Civil Code section 3344(a), mandatory for prevailing party in a likeness misappropriation case; (3) Code of Civil Procedure section 724.080, prevailing party in action/proceeding to obtain a satisfaction of judgment; and (3) Code of Civil Procedure section 685.040, a judgment creditor for fees in enforcing a judgment.
Appealing party did not get any more “satisfaction” on appeal in Matusek v. Benn, Case No. B247621 (2d Dist., Div. 3 Mar. 26, 2014) (unpublished).
The real post-worthy version involves ground (3) on post-judgment enforcement. Appealing party argued that this was not a contractually-based award, but the appellate court utilized Berti v. Santa Barbara Beach Properties, 145 Cal.App.4th 70, 76-77 (2006) to find that the “provided otherwise by law” language in section 685.040 did encompass statutory fee entitlement claims for post-judgment creditors—all to the credit of the responding party on appeal.
BLOG OBSERVATION—Actually, the result on the post-judgment enforcement issue matched very closely the conclusion of the First District, Division 1 in Rosen v. LegacyQuest, an unpublished March 21, 2014 decision discussed in our March 22, 2014 post.