SLAPP: Individual Attorney, Claiming To Be In-House With Other Defendant Firms But Protecting His Interest in Other Firms, Not Entitled To Fee Recovery Under SLAPP Fee-Shifting Statute

Second District, Division 4 Agrees that Attorney Representing His Own Interests Cannot Recoup SLAPP Fees.

     Attorneys representing themselves in successful anti-SLAPP motions are not entitled to recover attorney’s fees because there are no attorney-client relationships that lead to the attorney paying or becoming liable to pay in consideration for the legal representation. (Taheri Law Group v. Evans, 160 Cal.App.4^th 482, 495 (2008); Ramona Unified School Dist. v. Tsiknas, 135 Cal.App.4^th 510, 524 (2005).) However, what happens when the winning attorney claims to have acted in an in-house capacity for two affiliated defendant firms in which he is a member?

     The Second District, Division 4, in Bergeron v. Dion-Kindem, Case No. B210384 (2d Dist., Div. 4 Feb. 25, 2010) (unpublished), did not accept this distinction as getting around the general rules discussed above.

     Although attorney’s fees can be awarded to in-house counsel under some situations, the individual attorney in the case before it was representing his own personal interests such that it was unclear that one of the affililated firm was liable to attorney for services actually rendered. Because another of the defendant affiliated firms had been sued and the individual attorney was a member of that affiliate, the general rule prevailed rather than a different rule that might apply if other attorneys having no stake in the firm rendered the services. (Witte v. Kaufman, 141 Cal.App.4^th 1201, 1207 (2006); Gilbert v. Master Washer & Stamping Co., 87 Cal.App.4^th 212 (2001).) The lower court correctly refused to even decide the fee requests by the winning attorney.