Appealability: Where Judgment Reserved Fee Entitlement Decision For A Later Noticed Motion, Eventual Losing Party’s Appeal Of Just The Judgment Rather Than Subsequent Fee Award Meant Appellate Court Could Not Entertain Appeal On Fee Issue Down The Line

No Entitlement Determination Made In Judgment, So Separate Appeal Of Later Fee Order Required.

            We do not want to drum a theme we have stressed before, which is to separately appeal fee determinations. We are in the Holidays, so – pa rum pum pum (ala Drummer’s Boy lyrics on a Holiday song) – we again stress to separately appeal fees orders, even if you think they might be subsumed by the judgment. As Fontaine v. Hoult, Case No. G054072 (4^th Dist., Div. 3 Dec. 4, 2018) (unpublished) shows, it pays to appeal from the latter fee order.

            What happened here is that plaintiff appealed from a fee award in favor of insurance company under the interpleader statute, CCP § 386.6, to the tune of $212,270. However, the appeal was dismissed. The reason was that plaintiff did not appeal from a subsequent fee order, but from an earlier judgment. That created a jurisdictional hurdle which could not be overcome. The judgment did not determine fee entitlement (which some judgments do) such that the subsequent fee order liquidating the amount of fees could not be swept into the judgment for appealability purposes. So, that distinguished other situations such that the failure to appeal the subsequent order translated into the appellate court having no jurisdiction to entertain the fee appeal. The appeal on the fee issue was dismissed accordingly.

            Justice Ikola authored the 3-0 opinion.