Judge: Colin Leis, Case: 23STCV24167, Date: 2024-06-13 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 23STCV24167    Hearing Date: June 13, 2024    Dept: 74

Henn v. Ehrlich, et al.

Defendants Matt Ehrlich and NAI Capital Commercial, Inc.’s Motion to Reclassify Matter to Limited Jurisdiction.

The court denies defendants’ “Walker” motion because they have not correctly accounted for the over $9,000 in attorneys’ fees plaintiff incurred in plaintiff’s underlying efforts to recover his escrow funds. (See Mtn p. 4 fn. 2.) Code of Civil Procedure section 85 upon which defendants rely states that attorneys’ fees (and interest and costs) incurred in this action (were self-represented plaintiff to hire an attorney to pursue plaintiff’s lawsuit against defendants) do not count toward calculating the $35,000 jurisdictional threshold. But attorneys’ fees plaintiff paid the law firm Gaines & Stacey LLP in the underlying action are potentially recoverable as a separate element of damages under the principle of “tort of another.” The “expense of previous litigation, including attorneys’ fees, may be recovered.” In fact, “[a] person who through the tort of another has been required to act in the protection of his interests by bringing or defending an action against a third person is entitled to recover compensation for the reasonably necessary loss of time, attorney’s fees, and other expenditures thereby suffered or incurred.” (Prentice v. N. Am. Title Guar. Corp., Alameda Div. (1963) 59 Cal.2d 618, 620; see also 6 Witkin, Summary of Cal. Law (11th ed. 2024) Torts § 1832.) Based on the foregoing incompleteness of defendants’ analysis, the court denies their motion.

            The court leaves for another day defendants’ claim- and issue-preclusion arguments because those arguments are not properly before the court in defendants’ motion.

            Defendants shall give notice.