Judge Michael Small, Case Number: 19STCV43706, Date: 2024-04-02 Tentative Ruling

Judge: Michael Small, Case: 19STCV43706, Date: 2024-04-02 Tentative Ruling

Inform the clerk if you submit on the tentative ruling. If moving and opposing parties submit, no appearance is necessary.

Case Number: 19STCV43706 Hearing Date: April 2, 2024 Dept: 57

Pending before the Court is Plaintiff's motion for attorney's fees in the amount of $96,470. For the reasons stated below, the Court is denying the motion without prejudice.

Following an uncontested bench trial, the Court found that Plaintiff prevailed on its claim against Defendants Longnan Jin and Wenjie Guo for breach of a nondisclosure agreement ("the NDA"). In pertinent part, the NDA provided that "[i]n the event that any action, suit, or other proceeding is instituted to remedy, prevent or obtain relief from a breach of this Agreement, or arising out of a breach of this Agreement, the substantially prevailing party shall recover all of such party’s attorneys’ fees incurred in each and every such action, suit or other proceeding, including any and all appeals or petitions therefrom.” Because the NDA authorizes an award of attorney's fees to the party that prevailed in an action on the NDA, and because the Court determined that Plaintiff prevailed on its action for breach of the NDA, Plaintiff is entitled under Civil Code 1717(a) to reasonable attorney's fees it incurred to enforce to the NDA. (Section 1717(a) [“In any action on a contract, where the contract specifically provides that attorneys’ fees and costs, which are incurred to enforce that contract, shall be awarded either to one of the parties or to the prevailing party, then the party who is determined to be the party prevailing on the contract, whether he or she is the party specified in the contract or not, shall be entitled to reasonable attorney’s fees in addition to other costs."].)

Plaintiff also prevailed after trial on a host of other claims against the Defendants. These were tort and other non-contractual claims for which an award of attorney's fees is not authorized by Section 1717 or any other statute.

As a general rule, when a claim based on a contract providing for an award of attorney fees to the party that prevailed on an action to enforce the contract is joined with tort or other claims for which an award of attorney’s fees is not authorized by statute, attorney’s fees are recoverable by the prevailing party only as they relate to the contract claim; therefore, the trial court must apportion the fees incurred by the prevailing party between the contract claim and the other claims on which that party prevailed. (Reynolds Metals Co. v. Alperson (1979) 25 Cal.3d 124, 129. This rule gives away, however, when the contract claim is so intertwined with the other claims that it is impracticable to apportion attorney time between work for which an award of fees is authorized and work for which it is not. (Calvo Fisher & Jacob LLP v. Lujan (2015), 234 Cal.App.4th 608, 625-626; Bell v. Vista Unified School Dist. (2000) 82 Cal.App.4th 672, 687.

It is unclear from the Plaintiff’s motion whether the amount of attorney’s fees that Plaintiff seeks, $ 96,470, is attributable just to the work done in connection with the Plaintiff’s successful claim for breach of the NDA (for which an award of attorney’s fees is authorized under Section 1717(a)) or whether that amount also reflects work done in connection with Plaintiff’s other successful claims (for which an award of attorney’s fees is not authorized under Section 1717(a) or any other statute.) If the former, it would appear that the amount of fees that Plaintiff is seeking is unreasonably high, given that the claim for breach of the NDA was just one of many claims. If the latter, Plaintiff has failed in the motion to articulate why the general rule of apportionment between contract claims, on the one hand, and non-contract claims, on the other hand, should not apply here. In other words, Plaintiff has failed to show that the work on the non-contract claims is so intertwined with the work on the contract claim that apportionment is impractical.

The Court is denying the motion without prejudice. This will give the Plaintiff an opportunity to resubmit an amended motion for attorney’s fees that conforms to the principles set forth in this ruling.