Next Slate of SLAPP Decisions Illustrates the Principle.
Our category “SLAPP” will certainly give you readers a wealth of information on when SLAPP winners are happy or sad. Winning defendants are entitled to an award of reasonable attorney’s fees for winning these motions, although the reasonableness caveat and need to sustain the result on appeal can frequently be obstacles for achieving a complete victory. Our category “POOF!” shows that fee awards can evaporate once there is an appellate reversal of an underlying judgment that included a fee award. Hang with us, because we demonstrate in the next triad of unpublished decisions.
WRA Property Mgt., Inc. v. Jones, Case No. B210563 (2d Dist., Div. 1 Aug. 21,
2009) (unpublished)
In this one, cross-defendants’ anti-SLAPP motion was granted and attorney’s fees of an undescribed nature were awarded against the cross-complainant successor landlord. The problem is that cross-complainant appealed and won, because the activity attacked was not insulated by the Civil Code section 47 litigation privilege. That meant the fee award went POOF! (Giles v. Horn, 100 Cal.App.4th 206, 241 (2002) [order awarding fees falls with reversal of judgment on which it is based].)
Brooks v. Jarvis, Case No. B211841 (2d Dist., Div. 4 Aug. 21, 2009) (unpublished)
Plaintiff lost an anti-SLAPP motion, with the trial court awarding the defense full fees of $6,000 for winning. Plaintiff appealed and again was able to POOF! the fee award when the appellate court determined the dispute involved no overarching public interest.
Cabral v. Martins, Case No. A120657/A121731 (1st Dist., Div. 4 Aug. 21, 2009)
(unpublished)
Well, finally, three sets of defendants brought an anti-SLAPP motion, were awarded a total of $58,400 in fees for winning, and were then successful in sustaining the result on appeal.
Although unpublished, the case has an interesting discussion of whether the litigation privilege is “trumped” by child support evasion statutes creating an exception to the general immunity. It decided the evasion statutes did not create such an exception.
That brought the appellate panel to scrutiny of the fee awards themselves. The lodestar method was appropriately used, and the trial court was not shown to have abused its discretion in granting the full amounts requested under the circumstances.