Deadlines: Appellate Court Reverses Denial Of Fee Motion Based On Failure To Adhere To 180-Day Outside Deadline

Reason Was That Multiple Interlocutory Orders And Dismissal, And Absence Of Final Judgment, Made Deadline Unclear For Moving Parties.

        What occurred in Centinela Freeman Emergency Medical Assn. v. Maxwell-Jolly, Case No. B270462 (2d Dist. Div. 3 May 17, 2018) (unpublished) is that a trial judge denied plaintiffs’ motion for attorney’s fees under the private attorney general statute based on not filing the motion within the outside 180-day period when a judgment is filed but no notice of entry is properly provided by the court or opposing side. The appellate court reversed. The reason was that there was confusion which would mislead most litigants: there were discrete interlocutory orders and a dismissal never reduced to a final judgment. The lack of the final judgment meant there was no deadline trigger for filing the appeal, with the 2/3 DCA finding Alan v. American Honda Motor Co., Inc., 40 Cal.4^th 894 (2007) instructive on resolving the appeal.