Judgment Creditor Seeking 15 Times Increase In Fee Judgment From $21,000 to Over $300,000 Should Have to Justify Requested Increase Through Judicially-Scrutinized Notice of Motion for Fees.
Although we are a little surprised that this decision was not published, Karnazes v. Hartford, Case No. A136400 (1st Dist., Div. 2 Feb. 10, 2014) (unpublished) is an interesting decision in the post-judgment enforcement area where a judgment creditor tried to resist having judicial scrutiny of a fee judgment that swelled from a little over $21,000 to more than $300,000 in an ensuing third-one month period.
Here is the backdrop for this as described by the appellate court: “At all relevant time, Elizabeth Karnazes and John Hartford were attorneys, and for a considerable number of years appear to have practiced together. Their parting of the ways was in no sense amicable. The courts became their battleground, and the judges of San Mateo County the most unwilling observers of their repeated campaigns of scorched earth litigation tactics. This appeal deals with the aftermath of one of those many actions.”
Defendant Hartford won a SLAPP motion and was awarded fees/costs of $21,143.37. Then, within 31 months afterwards, he filed two Memoranda of Costs After Judgment seeking to increase the $21,143.37 award to $307,667.12. However, the lower court requested that Mr. Hartford file a requested fee motion for these additional amounts pursuant to CCP § 685.080. Mr. Hartford appealed, concluding he was entitled to obtain these additional costs through the simple cost memoranda filing procedure of CCP § 685.070(b), with it only optional that he file a noticed motion under section 685.080 (something he declined to do).
The lower court’s ruling was affirmed on appeal. Like the trial judge, the appellate court was concerned that a judgment creditor could “merely wave through” a burgeoning claim for fees/costs through a clerk-filed cost memorandum procedure rather than have judicial scrutiny of additional fees, given that SLAPP fees must be causally related to SLAPP activities and must be reasonable in nature also.
Although noting that the costs memoranda procedure might be acceptable for contractual fee awards, it found that section 685.070(b) did not apply to the statutory SLAPP fee award. (The reviewing court seemed to be disturbed by the fact that an un-reviewed costs memo procedure could pass muster for contractual fees.) The appellate court then provided an eloquent discussion of a trial judge’s “gatekeeping” function—in discovery, evidentiary, and reasonable fee adjudicatory areas. It found nothing wrong with the lower court’s reasoning in requiring a judgment creditor to justify an additional fee request of this nature, especially so given the 15 times increase being requested. “We certainly cannot say [the lower court] abused his discretion in giving himself the opportunity to consider whether $307,667.12 was both reasonable and necessary to enforcing collection of a judgment for $21,143.14.” (Slip Opn., p. 12.)
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