Plaintiff Real Estate Developer Failed To Provide The 4th District With Any Evidence That The Award Was Excessive Or Biased.
In SCPB Holdings v. Taggett, Case No. D074991 (4th Dist., Div. 1 October 25, 2019) (unpublished), plaintiff real estate developer sued defendant and others for contractual interference and defamation, among other claims, after a home buyer canceled his contract with it to purchase a residential property in San Diego.
Defendant followed in the steps of two of her co-defendants and successfully SLAPPed back – upheld in unpublished May 24, 2019 opinion. She then moved for attorney fees/costs of $32,360.82 for which the trial court awarded $26,828.41 after deduction for 10 hours work spent researching and drafting the anti-SLAPP motion, noting that “counsel was able to benefit from the [codefendants’] motion.”
On appeal, plaintiff argued that the fees/costs award was excessive because defendant’s motion was copied from the co-defendants’ motion, yet provided no evidence that the motions were duplicative. The Fourth District found this argument unpersuasive as anti-SLAPP motions filed in the same action would be necessarily similar, and the trial court had deducted 10 hours from the requested award for this reason. Plaintiff also argued that the fees/costs award was motivated by bias, but provided no evidence to support this claim.
As the Fourth District put it, “[Plaintiff] simply disagrees with the trial court’s decision, which is manifestly not a basis to overturn an award of attorney fees and costs.”
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