Assignment: Court Of Appeal Found No Assignment Of Claims To Cross-Defendant, Simply Lien Claim, For Fee Exposure Analysis--No Go, So To Speak

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     Tri Valley Land Development, Inc. v. Turner Ranch Family Dairy, Case No. F061515 (5th Dist. Sept. 25, 2012) (unpublished) is a situation where fee exposure turned on whether an assignment of claims was made to a certain cross-defendant. This case carefully tells attorneys to carefully review assignment/lien documents, because the appellate court ultimately found that claims (including fee recovery) were not assigned to a particular cross-defendant; rather, instead, only a lien was given on proceeds from the claims, not an assignment. In this instance, this important substantive difference did prevent one cross-defendant from obtaining fee recovery under the “non-assignment” arrangement.