Fourth District, Division 3 Agrees With Trial Court—“This Is An Easy One.”
It is not that often that an appellate court agrees with a trial court’s assessment that “this is an easy one.” Well, you have that end result in the next case we review.
In Golden Rain Foundation v. Lyon, Case No. G042358 (4th Dist., Div. 3 May 20, 2010) (unpublished), defendant won an attorney’s fees award of $105,000 under the Davis-Stirling Act and private attorney general statute (out of more than $250,000 in requested fees). However, losing plaintiff got in a beef with defendant about when it had to pay interest on the fee award. Plaintiff paid interest on the fee award accruing from the date of the fee award, whereas defendant insisted upon an additional payment of interest running from the date of the underlying merits judgment. Finding this an “easy one,” the trial court found that plaintiff owed nothing more, with interest only accruing from the date of the fee award.
Defendant appealed. The appellate court liked with the trial court’s analysis.
Justice Ikola, writing on behalf of a 3-0 panel, agreed that the fee award was not certain until the trial court ruled on the motion. Hence, interest did not run until the date of the fee award. This result occurred both under Civil Code section 3287(a) (prejudgment interest liquidated statute) and Code of Civil Procedure section 685.020(a) (interest accrues on a separate judgment, with the fee award being a separate judgment).
Easy as pie, the Court of Appeal ruled in affirming the case involving denial of more interest to the winning defendant on a “paid” fee award.