Trope Rule Dictated the Result.
In Legaspi v. Spivak, Case No. B240274 (2d Dist., Div. 4 July 30, 2013) (unpublished), a lower court denied attorney’s fees to winning SLAPP defendants (all attorneys or law firms) based on theTrope rule barring self-represented lawyers from recovering fees.
The fee denial was affirmed on appeal.
The reviewing panel found persuasive two prior cases: (1) Carpenter & Zuckerman, LLP v. Cohen, 195 Cal.App.4th 373, 386 (2011) [examined in our May 11, 2011 post]; and (2) Sands & Associates v. Juknavorian, 209 Cal.App.4th 1263, 1272-1273 (2012) [examined in our October 10, 2012 post]. In Carpenter & Zuckerman, fees were denied in a SLAPP context where the “representing” attorney was an associate and only defended attorneys who had no distinct exposure except as law firm constituents, which applied to at least one of the attorneys trying to recoup SLAPP fees. Juknavorian found, in a Civil Code section 1717 context where fees were sought contractually, that “of counsel” attorneys are not distinct from the law firm for Trope purposes, which also applied to two of the other attorneys seeking to get a SLAPP fee recovery by close analogy.