Published Decision Only Decided Plaintiff Had To Be Registered With State Bar, But It Did Not Adjudicate A Key Unclean Hands Defense.
In LegalMatch.com v. Jackson, Case No. A169115 (1st Dist., Div. 4 Sept. 26, 2024) (unpublished), defendant defended a suit by plaintiff LegalMatch.com after defendant did not pay subscription fees for connecting clients to lawyers, also filing a putative class action cross-complaint against LegalMatch.com. In a prior appeal, the appellate court concluded LegalMatch.com was a referral service which had to register with the State Bar under Business and Professions Code section 6155, but it remanded the case for the lower court to evaluate whether defendant was barred by unclean hands because defendants violated the same B&P provision by obtaining clients through LegalMatch’s service. On remand, the lower court denied defendant/cross-complainant’s class certification motion, with the parties voluntarily dismissing their claims against each other.
This was not the end of the matter. Mr. Jackson claimed success for purposes of obtaining an entitlement to private attorney general fees against LegalMatch.com in the sum of $940,000. The lower court denied the fee request, a determination affirmed on appeal.
Here were the problems which justified denial of the fee request because Mr. Jackson was not a successful party: (1) Mr. Jackson never obtained any judicial relief with respect to a monetary recovery or an injunction; (2) the unclean hands defense had not been adjudicated and acknowledged as important in the prior appellate opinion; and (3) Mr. Jackson did not achieve his litigation objectives of obtaining $14 million in class damages or an injunction ceasing LegalMatch.com’s operations altogether (versus Mr. Jackson’s defeat of LegalMatch’s $3,000 claim for unpaid subscription fees).
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