Prevailing Party, Reasonableness Of Fees, Section 1717: $200,000 Fee Award To Prevailing Defendant Affirmed Because Tort Claims Allowed For Recovery, Post-Dismissal, Under Santisas

Settlement With Other Parties Did Not Impact Analysis Of Fee Reasonableness As To The Prevailing Defendant.

            Carp Property, LLC v. Corona, Case No. B316354 (2d Dist., Div. 6 Nov. 17, 2022) (unpublished) was a situation where plaintiff litigated a matter for two years where there was a contractual fees clause in an operative agreement, suing for over $2.1 million.  Plaintiff settled with some defendants for a total of $90,000 and then dismissed the prevailing defendant after that party rejected a “walkaway” settlement in exchange for a waiver of costs.  Prevailing defendant moved for $228,000 in Civil Code section 1717 fees, but the lower court awarded $200,000 after trimming the request for block billing and for higher-level attorneys performing lower level tasks.

            The appellate court affirmed the fee award.  Plaintiff dismissed both contract and tort claims, but the dismissed tort claims were inextricably intertwined with the contract claims and the broadly worded attorney’s fees provision allowed for tort claim recovery, an exception to the Santisas v. Goodin, 17 Cal.4^th 599, 621 (1998) “general rule” relating to dismissal of contractual claims.  It then found that the $90,000 settlement with some defendants did determine fee reasonableness as far as the work done by the other prevailing defendant here.  The trial court also trimmed about $28,000 from the fee request, such that some of plaintiff’s arguments for a reduction were credited—meaning the fee award was no abuse of discretion and did not shock the conscience.