Wild Landlord-Tenant Dispute Gives Rise to Reversal of $212,685 Fee Award Against Both Signing and Nonsigning Defendants.
Robertson v. Sapir, Case No. B224458 (2d Dist., Div. 3 May 24, 2011) (unpublished) was a “wild” landlord-tenant dispute including reported accusations of landlord’s brother (a tenant in a boarding room type of arrangement) bothering a nearby female plaintiff tenant, calling her a “French bitch”, smearing feces on a car windshield of another tenant, and chasing another tenant’s boyfriend on a couple of occasions at least. This behavior did reap plaintiff tenants respective favorable jury verdicts ranging from $3,900-$8,000 against various of the defendants on divergent tort and inhabitability claims. However, to show you how fees are the tail that wag the litigation dog, the lower court awarded plaintiffs’ counsel postjudgment attorney’s fees of $212,685 (100% of the requests) as against a lease signatory defendant and signatory’s father, with father as agent signing the lease on behalf of the named signatory. Both appealed the fee award.
The appellate court reversed on several grounds. First, the record showed that father signed the lease on behalf of the signatory, who was bound as a principal for fee exposure based on a broadly worded fees clause encompassing both tort and contract claims. However, the agent himself--even if his conduct was wrongful--could only be liable for tort rather than contractually-based exposure. That meant that father was off the hook for the fee award. Second, with respect to the principal signatory, fees needed to be apportioned because a lot of the work related to the brother’s actions rather than signatory’s conduct, making a substantial fee award for all work an unfair “hit” for the signatory alone. Also, there were 998 offers that needed to be reevaluated after the reversal. Finally, the award to counsel for plaintiffs was unwarranted because the attorneys were not parties to the lease, with the appellate court unaware of any authority for making such an award pursuant to Civil Code section 1717.
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