Given The Enormous Successful By The Defense On The SLAPP Motion, No Need To Reverse The Fees Award On Appeal.
Many practitioners are familiar with the general principle that the reversal of a merits judgment many times will result in reversal of a fees award, because the degree of success needs to be figured into the new calculus on who prevailed or succeeded. But not always so, as the circumstances in Wang v. Plaza Bonita, LLC, Case No. B321484 (2d Dist., Div. 2 Jan. 30, 2025) (unpublished) demonstrated.
There, defendant was granted a complete SLAPP grant, winning substantially all the issues and narrowing the issues to a large degree. The lower court awarded the defense mandatory SLAPP fees of $57,681.23. On the merits appeal, the appellate court granted some modest reversals. Based on the reversal, plaintiff argued that the fee award had to be reversed and remanded. The 2/1 DCA disagreed. Based on the substantial win by the defense, the fee award was warranted and compensated defendant for its SLAPP efforts in obtaining overwhelming success.
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