Fee Clause Interpretation, Section 1717: Post-Arbitration Fee Request Denied Because Contract For Which Entitlement Sought Was Never Submitted For Judicial Review

Myriads Of Other Bases For Fee Entitlement, First Introduced On Appeal, Rejected.

            If you are going to seek fee recovery, make sure you put forth all of your bases for fee entitlement at the trial court level. The fee claimant in Glass v. Veros Credit, LLC, Case No. G055257 (4^th Dist., Div. 3 April 30, 2019) (unpublished) learned this lesson the hard way.

           After winning an auto installment contract dispute in an arbitration and gaining a $170,294.50 fee recovery, the winning party sought post-arbitration fees of $17,204.50 for confirming the arbitration award. However, the winner only sought fees based on a contract, never providing it in lower court fee hearings. Both the trial and appellate courts rejected the fee request. Pure and simple, the failure to provide the contract was dispositive. Although winner had a lot of additional fee entitlement bases on appeal, the appellate court thought it unfair to resolve alternate theories never advanced below and to make the appellate court engage in “new” adjudications on appeal. Justice Goethals was the author of the 3-0 opinion.