Form Of The Action Was Important—Absence Of An Abatement Order Was Crucial To Determination That No Further Fees Were Required.
Fratus v. County of Contra Costa, Case No. A157397 (1st Dist., Div. 1 June 10, 2021) (unpublished) is one of those cases were prevailing parties, in the overall sense, should have been entitled to additional fees, but they simply did not satisfy the legal requirements for the same. Without proper legal entitlement, additional fees were not warranted.
This was a decades-old battle between real estate owners on Dutch Slough Road in Oakley and Contra Costa County relating to County wanting corrections to certain building and zoning code violations, mainly relating to the propriety of permitting residence occupancy for two separate properties. We will say that property owners did prevail in earlier rounds such that they obtained $7,500 in fees against County under Government Code section 800 (a capped fee statute). But owners wanted more, arguing they should recover fees under Government Code section 25845 [a prevailing party, under a particular ordinance, shall obtain attorney’s fees “in any action, administrative proceeding, or special proceeding to abate a nuisance”] and Contra Costa Ordinance section 114-6.426(a) [attorney’s fees may be recovered by a prevailing party under abatement proceedings where county, at the initiation of the proceeding, seeks to recover its own fees]. Property owners’ request for additional fees was denied, an order affirmed by the 1/1 DCA.
Owners’ primary problem was that no abatement order was ever issued so as to trigger fee entitlement under the Government Code or Contra Costa Ordinance. County’s pursuit of administrative fines did not depend on commencement or resolution of an abatement proceeding—note the distinction, administrative fees versus abatement remedies. Because no ultimate order arose under the abatement ordinance, no further fees were justified. In this area, form did prevail over substance!
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