Reversal for Leave to Assert Statutory Trade Secret Claims Means Trial Court Award Goes Away . . . For Now.
When a judgment is reversed on appeal, an attorney’s fees award often gets reversed as premature until further proceedings decides who wins or whether a party eventually wins on a fee entitled basis.
That lesson was demonstrated well in FLF, Inc. v. Barney & Barney, LLC, Case Nos. A131131/A132329 (1st Dist., Div. 2 Oct. 16, 2012) (unpublished). There, even though a party won $63,960.30 in attorney’s fees based on a defense of a breach of contract and promissory estoppel claims, the appellate court reversed after finding that a party should be allowed to amend to state a statutory trade secrets claim (which itself has a fee-shifting clause) and affirmed the promissory estoppel result (which the trial court found could be found to have arisen out of the contractual agreement). However, as a result of the reversal, the $63,960.30 award went POOF!