First District, Division Five Decision is a Law Professor’s Dream on Judgment Enforcement/Acknowledgment Issues.
By now you know (if you have followed our blog or will soon know) that defendant winners of SLAPP motions are entitled to a mandatory award of reasonable attorney’s fees. See our category “SLAPP” to see other catalogued decisions on this topic.
The next case is a law professor’s dream and one that we will just summarize in short fashion, because it involves a maze of judgment enforcement/acknowledgment issues with respect to payment of SLAPP fee awards. The decision is Lucky United Properties Investment, Inc. v. Lee, Case No. A124965 (1st Dist., Div. 5 May 28, 2010) (certified for full publication).
Basically, the decision revolves around a SLAPP loser’s attempts to obtain a satisfaction of judgment in paying various SLAPP fee awards, all awarded by the trial court but many for earlier appeals won by a successful cross-defendant. If we read the decision correctly, the travesty is that the matter seems to revolve around a couple of thousands of dollars at most. Oh well, such disputes will inspire jurisprudence under our system.
The “Preliminary Principles” section of the decision (Slip Opn., pp. 9-13) is must reading for practitioners engaging in post-judgment enforcement, because it discusses how postjudgment awards are treated. For example, the opinion reminds us that (1) the amount of a costs award is incorporated into the judgment; (2) interest ordinarily begins to accrue on the prejudgment cost and attorney’s fees portion of the judgment as of the same time it begins to accrue on all other monetary portions of the judgment—upon entry of judgment; (3) allowable postjudgment enforcement costs become part of the principal amount of the judgment; (4) appellate costs are not added to the trial court judgment, but constitute a separate judgment; and (5) it is unclear whether attorney’s fees for prevailing on appeal should be incorporated into the original judgment or constitute an independent judgment (a question not resolved by the Court of Appeal here).
The decision also talks about the amount required to satisfy a money judgment, which is the total amount of the judgment, plus costs added after judgment (including attorney’s fees), plus accrued interest on the judgment, less credit for any payments or amounts no longer enforceable. (Code Civ. Proc., § 695.210.) There is a two-year deadline to move to seek postjudgment enforcement fees and costs. (Code Civ. Proc., § 685.080(a).)
Judgment debtor mainly failed to show satisfaction of the SLAPP fee/costs judgments because it failed to pay all of the different costs and fee orders that had been incorporated into the underlying judgment as a matter of law. (See Slip Opn., pp. 18-19.)
Judgment debtor also tried to defend on the basis that there was an accord and satisfaction when judgment creditor cashed one check accompanied by a satisfaction of judgment. However, judgment debtor failed to prove accord and satisfaction because it did not show the amount of the claim was unliquidated or subject to a bona fide dispute. (Com. Code, § 3311.)
Judgment debtor finally argued that it had tried to target satisfaction of the judgment by directing the creditor pay off the principal portion of the judgment rather than interest. Although Civil Code section 1479 does allow allocation of payments as directed by the debtor, it does not trump the special postjudgment enforcement provisions of section 695.220 requiring that judgment satisfaction payments are credited first toward accrued postjudgment interest and then to the principal.
In the end, there was a reversal of trial court determinations and a remand with complicated instructions that a law professor would love to hear, whether for class presentations or for end-of-the-term exams. (Congratulations to all of you law student graduates or other students on break during the summer. Also, co-contributor Mike sends congratulations to co-contributor Marc’s daughter, Charlotte Lynn, who just graduated with her undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley.)
Sather Tower [The Campanile] on the Berkeley campus.