Court of Appeal Followed Logic of Hinerfeld-Ward Decision.
In Center Circle Constr. Corp. v. 652 Chautauqua, LLC, Case No. B226279 (2d Dist., Div. 3 Feb. 22, 2012) (unpublished), contractor prevailed at trial, but did not prevail on a prompt payment statute violation that payments were wrongfully withheld. The trial court determined that contractor’s billings were confusing, and refused to award requested attorney’s fees as a statutory penalty under Civil Code section 3260.1.
Fee denial affirmed. Although admitting that the legislative history of section 3260.1 discloses that both interest and attorney’s fees are awardable as penalties under the prompt payment statute (even though fees usually do not fall within the common definition of a penalty), the appellate court nonetheless found fees were not justified because contractor failed to prevail on its prompt payment violation claim. In finding that interest and fees were both statutorily-prescribed, the Second District followed the reasoning in Hinerfeld-Ward, Inc. v. Lipian, 188 Cal.App.4th 86, 98-99 (2010) [discussed in our September 2, 2010 post], which was subsequently followed by the Fourth District, Division 3 in its unpublished opinion in Pacifica West General Contracting (discussed in our March 12, 2011 post).