Aggregate $20,000 Fee Award Affirmed Under CCP § 1021.9.
Here is one for our category “Trespass,” which involves Code of Civil Procedure section 1021.9, a fee-shifting statute allowing for an award of attorney’s fees to a prevailing party “[i]n any action to recover damages to personal or real property resulting from trespassing on lands either under cultivation or intended or used for the raising of livestock ....”
Mendocino Redwood Co., LLC v. Oceans Unlimited, LLC, Case No. A130208 (1st Dist., Div. 3 Sept. 13, 2011) (unpublished) involved a situation where a plaintiff won a limited prescriptive easement but the lower court determined that plaintiff trespassed on cultivation/livestock properties without permission, garnering respective awards of $805 and $1,500 in favor of the two aggrieved defendants under cross-complaints. The trial court then awarded respective fees of $15,000 and $5,000 to the two prevailing defendants under section 1021.9.
Plaintiff/cross-defendant appealed, but lost, its challenges to the fee awards.
After finding that plaintiff was indeed a trespasser, the appellate court noted that one defendant’s fee award was unassailable because it did use the land for the raising of livestock. However, the real appellate challenge was directed against the fee award to the second defendant, who used the land for commercial timber harvesting. Appellant argued that this was not land “under cultivation,” because it only applied to more traditional agricultural crop activities.
The appellate court disagreed with appellant’s proffered distinction. After noting that timberland is defined broadly under the Public Resources Code, “[w]e find no persuasive reason, in applying Code of Civil Procedure section 1021.9, to distinguish between commercial timberlands and lands devoted to other types of crops,” especially given that the statute is a remedial statute to be construed broadly.
Justice Siggins authored the decision on behalf of a 3-0 panel.
Ola, Idaho. Farm Security Administration self-help cooperative – timber resources. Lee Russell, photographer. Library of Congress.
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