Also, Plaintiff In One Matter Was Not Entitled to Fees For Frivolous SLAPP Motion Where Defendant Partially Prevailed By Knocking Out Allegations.
1. Spencer v. Sinclair, Case No. C082485 (3d Dist. Dec. 23, 2019) (unpublished): One defendant won a SLAPP motion, requesting $51,196 in mandatory attorney’s fees (with reasonableness of the amount requested being at issue). The trial judge awarded $40,200 (inclusive of $60 in costs). Plaintiff argued that no fee recovery was allowable because the attorney was representing himself; however, the record showed that although that was true for some defendants, one of the defendants independently retained the attorney such that there was the requisite separate attorney-client relationship under SLAPP jurisprudence.
2. Drevaleva v. Dept. of Industrial Relations, Case No. A155165 et al. (1st Dist., Div. 4 Dec. 23, 2019) (unpublished): Defendant was partially successful on a SLAPP motion, knocking out a libel claim and successful/unsuccessful in knocking out some negligence allegations. The trial court awarded defendant $5,250 in attorney’s fees, representing 21 hours at $250/hour. The appellate court concluded this was reasonable, not to mention that under Baral (a recent state supreme court case) a lodestar analysis should be used when some allegations are stricken but others are not. Because the time spent on the successful work overlapped with the unsuccessful work, the fee award was proper. With respect to plaintiff’s argument that fees were warranted because defendant’s motion was frivolous (since the trial judge denied plaintiff’s fee request), this did not resonate because partially prevailing for a defendant is not equivalent to frivolous given that defendant did knock out some allegations.
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