Scenario Involves Tenant Suing Landlord, Landlord Filing Unlawful Detainer Action, And Tenant Filing Anti-SLAPP Motion.
We are not going to even try to guess who feels better – or worse – about the outcome of the appeal in Olive Properties v. Coolwaters Enterprises, Inc., B261105 (2/3 Oct. 30, 2015) (Edmon, Aldrich, Jones) (published). The Court helpfully explains that this opinion is published “to address the potential for abuse of the anti-SLAPP statute in unlawful detainer litigation.”
The heart of the published part of the opinion is this:
“A nonpaying tenant should not be permitted to frustrate an unlawful detainer proceeding by initiating litigation against the landlord in order to bring a special motion to strike the landlord’s subsequently filed unlawful detainer complaint, on the asserted ground that the unlawful detainer action arose out of the tenant’s protected activity in filing the initial lawsuit.”
The trial court’s order denying the special motion to strike and awarding attorney fees to the landlord is affirmed.
In the unpublished part of the opinion, the Court addresses the landlord’s request for $73,352.50 in appellate sanctions, bearing in mind that, at the trial court level, the landlord sought and obtained an award of $3,392.50 for the expense of opposing the tenant’s anti-SLAPP motion.
The Court thought it was unreasonable to request more than 21 times the trial court expenses, denying the request on the request on the ground that an excessive demand “is subject to denial on that basis alone.” The Court relied on Serrano v. Unruh, 32 Cal.3d 621, 635 (1982):
“’If . . . the Court were required to award a reasonable fee when an outrageously unreasonable one has been asked for, claimants would be encouraged to make unreasonable demands, knowing that the only unfavorable consequence of such misconduct would be reduction of their fee to what they should have asked for in the first place.’”
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