Fourth District, Division 2 Finds Winning Litigant Properly Allocated Fees.
In Bohl v. Pryke, Case No. E045405 (4th Dist., Div. 2 Apr. 1, 2009) (unpublished), a defendant in a “reporter’s shield law” case refused to reveal sources. However, he also apparently refused to answer legitimate discovery, drawing the lower court’s ire. The trial court struck his answer, resulting in a default and eventual default judgment against defendant. The appellate court reversed and reinstated defendant’s answer, but remanded to see if other sanctions were warranted.
On remand, the lower court awarded plaintiff attorney’s fees of $29,180 (out of a requested $70,815) as a discovery sanction. Defendant appealed again.
He lost the second time around. His main argument was that the lower court awarded plaintiff fees for work in the prior appeal, although plaintiff lost that contest. Not so, said the Fourth District, Division 2. The appellate panel reviewed the fee request breakdown by plaintiff, seeing no proof that fees were being claimed for work on the prior appeal. That being the case, the fee award was affirmed—with the lesson being that prudent fee substantiation means apportioning out fees that will be challenged as suspect or unrecoverable because of limited success or past losses in discrete proceedings.
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