Plaintiff’s Federal Claim Did Not Preempt SLAPP Fee Award Which Trial Court Reduced From Requested $516,548.13 After Considering Hours Reasonably Expended And Duplicative Efforts, And Plaintiff Demonstrated No Abuse Of Discretion.
In AWI Builders v. Alliant Consulting, Case Nos. B294662, B297189, B298699 and B300834 (2d Dist., Div. 4 October 22, 2021) (unpublished), a public works construction company sued five separate groups of defendants – with one group being the State of California and Maria Sandoval, an investigator for the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement – after being investigated for labor compliance and removed from a project rehabbing a Public Defender’s building by Riverside County. All five groups of defendants SLAPPed back (Code Civ. Proc., § 425.16) – with the trial court granting in full the anti-SLAPP motions brought by four groups of defendants and dismissing all claims against them. As to the State defendants, the trial court granted their anti-SLAPP motion in part and dismissed all claims against State, but denied their motion as to plaintiff’s claim of violation of civil rights (42 U.S. Code § 1983) against Maria Sandoval. Afterward, all five groups separately moved for attorneys’ fees under § 425.16 – seeking a combined total of $516,548.13 (plus one group of defendants requested fees on fees of $15,475 for fees incurred to bring their fees motion). Through five orders, after reductions to each fees request, the trial court awarded a combined total of $280,098.15. Plaintiff appealed.
As to the fee awards, plaintiff argued that: section 425.16(c)’s mandatory fee provision is preempted by federal law when applied to a § 1983 cause of action; the trial court failed to determine whether defendants sought fees reflecting duplicative legal arguments in several of the anti-SLAPP motions; and the hours spent by one group of defendants reviewing the files on the district attorney’s investigation of plaintiff should not be awarded because that review was not necessary to the anti-SLAPP motion.
The 2/4 DCA affirmed – concluding the trial court conducted the proper legal analysis of the fee motions and did not abuse its discretion. The panel found plaintiff’s federal preemption argument ignored that defendants were awarded fees for prevailing on an anti-SLAPP motion, not because they prevailed on a § 1983 claim – with the purpose of § 425.16(c) being to provide relief to persons victimized by meritless, retaliatory SLAPP lawsuits because of their protected activity. (Ketchum v. Moses, 24 Cal.4th 1122, 1131(2001); Liu v. Moore, 69 Cal.App.4th 745, 750 (1999).) The trial court reduced the requested fees from each group of defendants and noted in each order that it was required to award fees only for hours reasonably expended and reduce for duplication. Finally, the trial court addressed the investigative records review issue in its order awarding fees to that group of defendants – finding defendant group’s claim that the review and analysis of the investigative records was “inextricably intertwined” with the anti-SLAPP motion credible, and the billing reasonable – and plaintiff failed to show that the trial court’s decision was arbitrary or irrational.
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