Court Opinion

ID: 9893398
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-26 20:04:21.458588+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:03:01.364167
License: Public Domain

Filed 10/26/23 Canyon View Limited v. Bank of America CA2/1
   NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions
not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion
has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

                         SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

                                        DIVISION ONE

CANYON VIEW LIMITED,                                           B312259

        Plaintiff and Appellant,                               (Los Angeles County
                                                               Super. Ct. No. PC057199)

        v.

BANK OF AMERICA, N.A., et al.,

        Defendants and Appellants.

      APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of
Los Angeles County, Stephen P. Pfahler, Judge. Affirmed in
part and reversed in part with directions.
      Greines, Martin, Stein & Richland, Robin Meadow and
Jeffrey Gurrola for Plaintiff and Appellant.
      McGlinchey Stafford and Sanford Shatz for Defendants
and Appellants.
       Plaintiff and appellant/cross-respondent Canyon
View Limited, dba Canyon View Estates (Canyon View)
owns and operates a manufactured home park, where it
leases home site lots to occupants who purchase and install
mobilehomes and other improvements on permanent foundations.
Canyon View filed a quiet title action against defendants and
respondents/cross-appellants Bank of America, N.A. (BOA) and
The Bank of New York Mellon (BONY) (collectively, the BONY
parties), alleging that they recorded documents clouding Canyon
View’s title to a mobilehome in Canyon View’s mobilehome park
that Canyon View had purchased in a public sale pursuant to
the Mobilehome Residency Law (MRL) (Civ. Code, § 798 et seq.).1
After the court entered a stipulated judgment quieting title to
the home in Canyon View’s favor, Canyon View sought attorney
fees and costs under section 798.85, the fees and costs provision
of the MRL. The court initially denied Canyon View’s fees
motion on the basis that the action did not “aris[e] out of the
[MRL].” (§ 798.85.) We reversed this denial in a partially
published opinion, holding the instant action arose out of the
MRL, because it was necessary to perfect Canyon View’s MRL-
based right to free and clear title to the home. (See Canyon View
Ltd. v. Lakeview Loan Servicing, LLC (2019) 42 Cal.App.5th 1096
(Canyon View I).) Because the trial court had not conducted a
proper lodestar analysis or calculated the amount of reasonable
attorney fees and costs to award under the MRL, we instructed
it to do so upon remand, and further to enter a fees and costs
award consistent with Canyon View I.

      1 Unless otherwise specified, all subsequent statutory
references are to the Civil Code.

                                    2
       The fees and costs award the court issued on remand
from Canyon View I is the subject of the instant appeal and
cross-appeal. Canyon View argues that the court abused
its discretion by applying an approach to calculating the fees
award that the court had applied in another action involving
Canyon View, an approach we have since determined lacks any
reasonable basis and constitutes an abuse of discretion. (See
Canyon View Limited v. Lakeview Loan Servicing, LLC (Aug. 30,
2022, B311313) [nonpub. opn.] (Canyon View II).) Canyon View
argues the approach constitutes an abuse of discretion here for
the reasons we outlined in Canyon View II, and because it is
based on evidence in that separate action, rather than evidence
in the instant action. We agree.
       The BONY parties argue that the court erred in awarding
any fees and costs under the MRL, because, for various
reasons, the action was not necessary to perfect Canyon View’s
MRL-based right to hold title free and clear of any prior liens
held by the BONY parties. We reached the opposite conclusion
on this precise issue in Canyon View I. Thus, the law of the
case doctrine prevents us from considering these arguments.
The BONY parties do not argue that an exception to the law of
the case doctrine applies, nor do we conclude any exception is
applicable.
       The BONY parties further argue that, even assuming
Canyon View is entitled to recover any fees and costs under the
MRL, the court abused its discretion by awarding fees for work
beyond what was necessary to vindicate any MRL-based rights.
We agree that whether work is necessary to vindicate an MRL-
based right is a relevant factor in assessing reasonable attorney

                                3
fees and costs under the MRL. But this consideration does not
support a reduction in the instant award.
      Finally, we find unpersuasive the BONY parties’ challenge
to the court’s award of costs, as that challenge is based on Code of
Civil Procedure sections that do not govern costs under the MRL.
      Accordingly, we affirm the court’s order awarding Canyon
View costs. We, however, reverse the award of attorney fees, and
instruct the court to award fees using a lodestar analysis based
only on the evidence presented in this case.

      FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
      A.    MRL Background
       We first summarize the provisions of the MRL most
relevant to the instant appeal.
       Article 6 of the MRL (§§ 798.55–798.62) creates procedures
whereby mobilehome park management may sell or dispose
of abandoned mobilehomes. (See § 798.61.) Specifically,
mobilehome park “management” must properly notice all owners
and lienholders of a mobilehome of management’s intention to
file a petition for declaration of abandonment. (Id., subds. (b)
& (c).) If petitioner at such a hearing makes the required
showing, the court “shall” issue a judgment of abandonment.
(Id., subd. (d)(2).) After obtaining such a judgment, management
may “dispose of ” the mobilehome (id., subd. (f)) or sell it via a
public sale (id., subd. (e)(2)), in compliance with MRL procedures.
(See id., subds. (e) & (f).) If management chooses to sell the
home, the purchaser in such a sale takes the home “free of any

                                 4
prior interest . . . or lien.”2 (§ 798.61, subd. (e)(4).) The MRL
expressly permits management to purchase a mobilehome at
such a sale, and to offset from its bids the amount management
is owed under the lease. (Id., subd. (e)(2).)
       Article 8 of the MRL (§§ 798.84–798.88) contains an
attorney fees and costs provision, which requires a court to award
reasonable attorney fees and costs to the “prevailing party” “[i]n
any action arising out of the provisions of this chapter [i.e., the
MRL].” (§ 798.85.)

      B.    Factual and Procedural Background Leading
            To Canyon View I
            1.    Abandonment of Subject Property
      In October 2005, Dominique Reese and Donna
Worthington-Reese purchased a mobilehome on lot 332 in
Canyon View Estates and entered into a long-term lease with
Canyon View on that lot. They financed the transaction by
obtaining a loan secured by a deed of trust encumbering both
the mobilehome and the leasehold interest. That deed of trust
was later assigned to BONY and serviced by BOA.
      In 2007, the Reeses breached their lease by failing to make
payments. Canyon View issued the requisite MRL notices to the
Reeses and all lienholders, and no one cured the defaults under
the lease.

      2 The one exception provided for in the MRL is a lien of the
state for nonpayment of the fees and penalties under Health and
Safety Code section 18116.1. (§ 798.61, subd. (e)(4).)

                                 5
            2.    Canyon View’s Purchase of the Property
                  and Subsequent Recordings
      In April 2009, Canyon View obtained a judgment of
abandonment to the Reeses’ mobilehome. At a public sale on
May 7, 2009, Canyon View purchased the mobilehome. Under
section 798.61, subdivision (e)(4), the sale extinguished all liens
on and interests in the mobilehome. A grant deed conveying the
mobilehome to Canyon View was recorded on February 23, 2010.3
      On March 19, 2010, the trustee of the deed of trust held
by BONY recorded a notice of default and election to sell under
the deed of trust. This notice claimed BONY held a lien on the
subject mobilehome. At a September 30, 2010 foreclosure sale,
BONY purchased the mobilehome. On October 12, 2010, the
trustee’s deed upon sale was recorded.

            3.    Canyon View’s Lawsuit Against the BONY
                  Parties and Stipulated Judgment Quieting
                  Title
       In February and March of 2016, Canyon View made
written demands of BONY and the trustee under the deed of
trust, as well as counsel for BOA, that they remove the cloud
on Canyon View’s title to the mobilehome. Communications
between the parties continued through June 2016 without
resolution.

      3 The MRL does not address leasehold interests of
abandoned mobilehomes, and the grant deed Canyon View
recorded following the public sale does not reference the
leasehold interest in the property. On appeal, neither party
relies on the fate of the leasehold interest, nor does it appear
relevant to the issues raised on appeal.

                                  6
       On July 22, 2016, Canyon View sued the BONY
respondents to quiet title, seeking declaratory relief and removal
of the cloud on title, and for relief under the Unfair Competition
Law (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 17200). Several months into the
litigation, in December 2016, BOA, as BONY’s agent, recorded
a notice of rescission of the trustee’s deed to BONY, noting that
the foreclosure sale resulting in the trustee’s deed was “conducted
in error.” In this document, BONY “rescind[s], cancel[s], and
withdraw[s] [the] trustee’s deed upon sale,” but notes that the
“deed of trust shall remain in force.” (Capitalization omitted.)
       Several months after that, on May 3, 2017, the parties
entered into a stipulation for judgment. The stipulated judgment
entered by the court provided that, as a result of Canyon View
purchasing the home at the public sale, Canyon View owned the
home, and the BONY parties had no lien on or interest in either
the home or the related leasehold. The judgment provided that
Canyon View had the right to seek, and the BONY parties had
the right to oppose, attorney fees and costs pursuant to the MRL,
section 798.85.

            4.    Canyon View’s Initial Efforts to Obtain
                  Attorney Fees
       The trial court denied Canyon View’s subsequent motion
for fees and costs on the ground that the lawsuit did not arise out
of the MRL, because “the MRL was not designed to cover disputes
between mobilehome park owners and third party lienholders.”
The court also noted that “[e]ven if this action did arise out of the
provisions of the MRL, the attorneys’ fees and costs requested
are not reasonable under the circumstances of this case,” and all
costs and fees should be denied on this basis as well. The court

                                 7
offered no reason why the fees and costs requested were
unreasonable.

     C.    Canyon View I Appeal
       Canyon View appealed the trial court’s denial of its fees
and costs motion. We consolidated that appeal with Canyon
View’s appeals from the denials of attorney fees and costs in
three other quiet title actions because they each involved the
issue of whether the lawsuit at issue “ar[ose] out of the [MRL].”
(§ 798.85.) These actions were against three other groups of
entities that at one time held liens on three other mobilehomes
located in Canyon View’s mobilehome park: Lakeview Loan
Servicing, LLC (Lakeview), Ocwen Loan Servicing, LLC and
Power Default Services, Inc. (Ocwen), and Household Finance
Corporation of California and HSBC Mortgage Services Inc.
(Household). We shall refer to these other actions consolidated
in Canyon View I as the Lakeview action, the Ocwen action, and
the Household action.4 Like the defendants in this case, the
defendant entities in these three actions recorded documents that
asserted liens on and/or security interests in the properties at
issue after Canyon View had purchased them via MRL-regulated

     4 We previously granted the BONY parties’ motion to
augment the record to include: (1) the record from Canyon
View I; (2) the record from the Lakeview action; (3) the record
in a currently pending appeal regarding another case brought
by Canyon View (not consolidated in Canyon View I), case
No. B312642; and (4) certain documents from the proceedings
in the Household action on remand from Canyon View I, presided
over by a different bench officer than the officer presiding over
the instant action and Lakeview action.

                                8
proceedings. Despite the similarities in the general fact pattern
and legal issues involved across all four actions, the facts of
each matter were distinct—different loans by different banks
to different defaulting mobilehome owners. The actions were
separate at the trial court level, and divided between two trial
judges (although the same judge presided over the Lakeview
action and the instant action).
        In a partially published opinion, Canyon View I, we
reversed the courts’ denials of attorney fees in the Household
action, the Lakeview action, and the instant action. (Canyon
View I, supra, 42 Cal.App.5th at p. 1118.) In so doing, we
held in the published portion of the opinion that (1) “an action
need not involve the mobilehome park management-resident
relationship or landlord-tenant issues in order for it to ‘arise out
of ’ the MRL[,]” and (2) when litigation is “necessary to perfect
[a plaintiff ’s] right to free and clear title under the MRL, [that
action] ar[ises] out of the MRL, and . . . the prevailing party [in
such an action], is entitled to recover its reasonable attorney fees
and costs.” (Id. at p. 1100.) As to the latter point, we explained:
“The MRL creates the right of a purchaser at an abandonment
or warehouse lien sale to take title ‘free of any prior interest,
including any security interest or lien.’ [Citations.] Canyon
View was ‘required’ to sue to ‘perfect’ that right on the facts of
the Lakeview, BONY, and Household actions [citation], because
the defendants in those actions refused to sufficiently correct
recorded documents asserting a security interest in the subject
mobilehomes after Canyon View purchased the homes via
MRL abandonment or warehouse lien sale proceedings. Such
documents are directly at odds with the right the MRL granted
Canyon View to take title free of any security interests or

                                 9
liens. Thus, the ‘foundation’ of each of these cases [that is,
the Lakeview action, the Household action, and the instant
action] is that the defendant lienholders continued to assert,
via documents they refused to cancel or clarify before Canyon
View filed suit, security interests the MRL had extinguished.
[Citation.] . . . [Citations.] . . . The defendants in [these actions]
recorded documents that nevertheless continued to assert
such interests. Canyon View’s actions to remove the cloud
such documents created thus ‘aris[e] out of ’ the MRL.” (Canyon
View I, supra, at p. 1114.)
       In the unpublished portion of Canyon View I, we reached
a different conclusion with respect to the Ocwen action. Because
“[p]rior to Canyon View filing the Ocwen action, the Ocwen
[parties] offered to file a full reconveyance and quitclaim deed,”
and because “[s]uch documents would have cleared all clouds
based on any interest the Ocwen [parties] held or appeared to
hold,” Canyon View did not need “to sue the Ocwen [parties] to
‘perfect’ any rights Canyon View may have had under the MRL,”
unlike in the other three cases.
       Canyon View I also considered whether Canyon View
had established the second requirement for the MRL attorney
fees and costs provision to apply: that Canyon View was the
“prevailing party” in each respective action, as defined by the
MRL.5 (§ 798.85.) We concluded that Canyon View was the

      5 Because we concluded that, in the Ocwen action,
Canyon View had not established the other requirement for
MRL attorney fees and costs to be recoverable—namely, that the
action arose out of the MRL—we did not need to reach the issue
of whether Canyon View was the prevailing party in the Ocwen
action.

                                  10
“prevailing party” in the instant action against BONY,
the Lakeview action, and the Household action, because the
stipulated judgments in these cases “were clearly in Canyon
View’s favor.” (Canyon View I, supra, 42 Cal.App.5th at p. 1118;
see § 798.85 [party is the prevailing party for the purposes of
MRL attorney fees and costs “if the judgment is rendered in
his or her favor or where the litigation is dismissed in his or
her favor prior to or during the trial,” absent an agreement
to the contrary].) In so doing, we rejected the BONY parties’
argument that “Canyon View [was] not the prevailing party
because Canyon View did not receive a ‘net economic recovery,’
or because the BONY [parties] never attempted to enforce the
rights the judgment extinguished.” (Canyon View I, supra,
at p. 1118.) Accordingly, we reversed the trial court’s denial
of attorney fees under the MRL in the instant action and the
Household and Lakeview actions, but affirmed the denial of
fees in the Ocwen action. (Ibid.)
       We also reversed the trial court’s order granting the
BONY parties’ motion to strike costs, because the court
premised this order on the erroneous conclusion that the fees
and costs provision of the MRL did not apply in the instant
action. (Canyon View I, supra, 42 Cal.App.5th at pp. 1118–1119.)
       In the Canyon View I disposition, we instructed the trial
court to “determine, in a manner consistent with [the Canyon
View I] opinion, the amount of reasonable attorney fees and costs
to award Canyon View in each of these three actions.” (Canyon
View I, supra, 42 Cal.App.5th at p. 1119.) In the unpublished
portion of the opinion, we observed that, “[a]lthough a trial court
enjoys broad discretion in calculating what amount of fees and
costs is reasonable under the circumstances, this discretion does

                                11
not permit a court to summarily determine, without engaging
in an explicit analysis of the specific work performed or fees
requested, that no attorney fees or costs are appropriate under
a mandatory attorney fee[s] provision.” We noted that we
also “share[d] the trial court’s concerns that the proceedings
may have been more extensive than necessary, given that,
for example, proceedings in the Lakeview action continued
for several months after Lakeview filed a post-litigation
reconveyance and quitclaim deed.” We instructed the trial court
that, “in order to properly assess the reasonableness of the fee
amounts requested in light of these concerns, the court needed
to examine the specific work described, determine which work
was unnecessary or unreasonable, and decline to award fees and
costs for that specific work. (See Robertson v. Fleetwood Travel
Trailers of California, Inc. (2006) 144 Cal.App.4th 785, 818–819,
citing Ketchum v. Moses (2001) 24 Cal.4th 1122, 1135–1136
[(Ketchum)][“ ‘[o]ur Supreme Court has held that the lodestar
adjustment method is the prevailing rule for statutory attorney
fee awards to be applied in the absence of clear legislative
intent to the contrary’ ”].)

      D.    Canyon View’s Second Round of Fees
            Motions Post-Canyon View I
      On remand from Canyon View I, Canyon View filed a
motion for attorney fees and costs in both the instant litigation
and the Lakeview action.6 Because the Lakeview and BONY

      6 Canyon View later changed counsel and the new counsel
filed a notice of errata for the motion and a supporting request
for judicial notice, correcting various errors.

                                12
actions were only consolidated for the purposes of the Canyon
View I appeal, these two cases proceeded separately on remand,
albeit before the same trial judge. Thus, the same trial judge
separately considered each of the second fees motions in the two
separate actions.
       Canyon View’s argument on appeal relates to the
relationship between the court’s approaches to calculating
the fees award in response to the second fees motions in the
Lakeview action and this action.

           1.    Second Fees Motion in Instant Action
       Canyon View’s second fees motion in the instant action
sought the same prejudgment fees and costs that the trial court
had previously denied, plus fees and costs incurred in connection
with the Canyon View I appeal and fees and costs incurred in
connection with Canyon View’s second fees motion.
       The fees Canyon View sought related to work performed
by two firms: Norminton, Wiita & Fuster (NWF), trial counsel
of record for Canyon View in the BONY action and the Law
Offices of Edward A. Hoffman, associate appellate counsel who
became lead counsel when NWF ceased operations while Canyon
View I was pending. To support its request for fees, Canyon View
submitted declarations of Thomas M. Norminton of NWF, NWF
billing records, and a declaration of Edward Hoffman.
       The Norminton declaration explained that NWF handled
several other matters for Canyon View, including the three
actions involved in the consolidated Canyon View I appeal. It
addressed how Canyon View had isolated the fees associated
with work on only the instant action, as opposed to the Lakeview,
Ocwen, or Household actions. Specifically, Norminton explained
that before August 2016, fees incurred in the instant case were

                               13
billed to a general matter number, but all entries related to
the instant action were explicitly identified in the description as
pertaining to the BONY parties or the lot at issue in the instant
action. Norminton declared that this allowed NWF to identify
entries pertaining to the instant action, and that all entries
relating to cases other than BONY were excised from the billing
records submitted to the court, based on which Canyon View
calculated the amount of fees it requested for work before
August 2016: “Those entries [unrelated to the BONY action]
have been redacted . . . and the associated fees and costs have
been deducted from the total [fee amount requested].”
       Beginning August 2016, Canyon View’s attorneys
maintained a separate case file for the instant action and billed
all related work to that matter. Entries billed to this matter
formed the basis for Canyon View’s fees request amount for NWF
work starting in August 2016.
       The declaration further recognized that some work
performed in connection with Canyon View I related to all four
cases consolidated in that appeal. The declaration explained
that “[f]or this reason, [Norminton] instructed the attorneys
and paralegals in the firm to apportion their time among the
four appeals for tasks on common issues and separately bill
their time to one case on matters not in common with the other
three cases.” To preserve the separateness of the four cases,
“[a]fter the consolidation [of the four appeals], separate monthly
fee[s] and cost[s] statements were prepared for Canyon View
on each of the four consolidated appeals, just as these fee[s]
and cost[s] statements had been prepared separately for each
case in the litigation prior to the consolidation.” (Capitalization
omitted.) The Norminton declaration thus attested to the billing

                                14
records submitted in support of the fees request reflecting work
specific to, or apportioned to, the instant action, and excluding
any work on the related Ocwen, Lakeview, or Household actions.
       Attached to the Norminton Declaration in support of
Canyon View’s fees motion were NWF invoices from February
2016 to the time the motion was filed. As described in the
Norminton declaration, these invoices identified hours and fees
as associated with the instant action against the BONY parties
either by referencing the applicable lot name and/or the BONY
parties and/or a billing number specifically assigned to the BONY
action.
       The total amount requested for NWF fees based on these
records and the Norminton declaration was $153,730.09, later
reduced to $153,596.84. This reduction of $133.25 resulted
from Canyon View removing a .25 hour entry from its supporting
billing records that the BONY parties had identified in an
attorney declaration supporting their opposition as being
unrelated to the BONY action, which Canyon View counsel then
admitted on reply had been “mistakenly recorded for another
case.” Canyon View counsel further indicated he was “not aware
of other such erroneous billings,” and the BONY parties “[did] not
identify any other mistaken billings.”7

      7 In their opposition to the second fees motion, the BONY
parties submitted a declaration of their counsel indicating he
had reviewed the billing records and deemed them unnecessarily
vague, such that he could not determine whether entries were
erroneous, save the one .25 hour entry identified above and
corrected by Canyon View.

                               15
      Canyon View also requested $20,812.50 billed by attorney
Hoffman. The Hoffman declaration supporting this request
indicated that Hoffman had “not yet prepared an invoice for
Canyon View,” in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic work
disruptions, and Canyon View did not submit billing records for
Hoffman’s work in support of its fees motion. Instead, Hoffman’s
declaration described his work on the Canyon View I appeal,
which totaled 46 hours, and indicated that “[m]uch of the work
applied to all four cases. The portions that were case-specific
were spread quite evenly among the four cases, so [Hoffman]
apportion[ed] 11.5 of these 46 hours to the . . . BONY case.” The
Hoffman declaration also described the total amount Hoffman
expected to bill for his work on the second fees motion following
the appeal, which totaled 22 hours. Finally, Hoffman outlined
work he performed as a result of the BONY parties’ petition for
rehearing and request for publication.
      Although the BONY parties raised numerous arguments
in opposing Canyon View’s fees and costs request, aside from
the single entry for .25 hours noted above, they did not raise
any concerns about specific work reflected in the billing records
being for other cases or for other clients—for example, Lakeview,
Ocwen, or Household.

           2.    Second Fees Motion in Lakeview Action
       The same two firms, NWF and the Hoffman firm,
performed the work for which Canyon View sought attorney
fees in the Lakeview action, and Norminton and Hoffman each
submitted a declaration to support the second fees motion in the
Lakeview action. Norminton’s Lakeview declaration described
the exact same approach to calculating the fees requested that
Norminton described in his declaration in the instant action.

                               16
Hoffman’s Lakeview declaration likewise described the exact
same approach to apportioning his work on Canyon View I as
between the four consolidated actions that he had described
in his declaration in the BONY action. Hoffman declared that
he spent the same amount of time on the Lakeview portion of
Canyon View I that he had declared spending on the BONY
portion of that appeal. He also estimated he would spend
22 hours working on the second fees motion in the Lakeview
action, the same number of hours he had anticipated in his
BONY declaration he would spend on the second fees motion
in the BONY action.
       The NWF billing records Canyon View submitted to
support the fees request in the Lakeview action—unlike those
submitted in the instant action—included numerous “entries
that, although . . . identified as associated with the Lakeview
action, did not appear to be related to work on the Lakeview
action. For example, the billing records reflected fees for tasks
involving JPMorgan Chase Bank, Kondaur Capital, Ocwen, and
California Reconveyance Company, and none of these entities
is related to the Lakeview action.” Lakeview raised this issue
in opposing Canyon View’s fees request, and the court shared
Lakeview’s concerns “that this ‘ “excessive” billing undermine[d]
the overall “credibility” of the requested fees.’ ” “ The court
[ultimately] determined it needed additional information to
address Lakeview’s argument” and requested supplemental
briefing regarding these apparently erroneous entries. In its
supplemental briefing, Canyon View included a supplemental
Norminton declaration, in which Norminton acknowledged that
he had erroneously identified several entries as reflecting work
on the Lakeview action, when in fact the work billed was for

                                17
other matters. Canyon View submitted updated billing records
that removed these erroneous entries, which totaled $2,116.45,
and adjusted the amount of fees requested in the second fees
motion accordingly.

      E.    Rulings on Second Fees Motion
            1.     Ruling in the Lakeview Action
       In its order on the second fees motion in Lakeview,
the court “acknowledged that Canyon View’s supplemental
submissions ‘provide[d] further clarification of the submitted
billing entries for the litigation leading to judgment, appeal
and current motion to recover fees.’ As to fees associated
with the Canyon View I appeal, however, the court noted that
‘[w]hile counsel admits that not all fees were incurred equally
given the uniqueness of the four defendants, the court finds
the substantially overlapping arguments [on appeal] renders
precise determination impractical. The court therefore splits
the appellate fees four ways,’ awarding $19,589.27, a quarter
of the NWF fees associated with Canyon View I. [¶] As to
fees for prejudgment work, ‘the court cite[d] to the prior raised
concerns’ . . . [about] ‘ “superfluous entries” ’ and concerns about
duplicative recovery of fees across the four actions. The court
concluded that ‘[e]ven with better clarification [via Canyon View’s
supplemental submissions], the court still finds the requested
[prejudgment work] fees excessive. While some of the discovery
and demurrer work expressly applie[d] to the Lakeview . . .
[action], the court remains unable to determine how much
crossover work actually applied to the other defendants. Given
the similarities of the four actions and the inability to sufficiently
parse out the required, unique work, the court divides the

                                 18
previously represented balance . . . [of fees requested for
prejudgment work] into quarters thereby reducing potential
duplicative recovery on potential subsequent motions against
the remaining three defendants as well. The division also
reduces the questionable entries raised in the prior order . . .
by [Lakeview].’ ”
       Applying this approach, the court awarded (1) what it
described as a quarter of the NWF fees Norminton had declared
attributable to prejudgment work in the Lakeview action
($19,870.94), (2) what it described as a quarter of the NWF fees
Norminton had declared attributable to the Lakeview action
portion of Canyon View I ($19,745.66), (3) $18,000 for work on
the first fees motion, and (4) $6,241.38 for work on the second
fees motion. Lakeview did not contest Canyon View’s request
for costs in the Lakeview action, and the court awarded those
as requested.
       Because the court’s award of fees associated with the
Canyon View I work was based solely on this quartering of
the amounts reflected in NWF bills, the court appears to have
awarded no separate amount in the Lakeview action based
on Hoffman’s work on Canyon View I. The court did approve
Hoffman’s hourly rate.

            2.    Ruling in the Instant Action
      In ruling on Canyon View’s second fees motion, the court
rejected the BONY parties’ argument that the action did not
arise out of the MRL. The court correctly concluded that Canyon
View I had decided the applicability of the MRL fees and costs
provision in Canyon View’s favor, and identified the lodestar
method as the appropriate analytical framework for assessing

                               19
the amount of reasonable fees and costs to award Canyon View
under section 798.85.
       The court set forth the basic principles of a lodestar
analysis. “ ‘[T]he lodestar is the basic fee for comparable
legal services in the community,’ ” a function of the reasonable
amount of hours needed for legal work and a reasonable hourly
rate for comparable attorneys in the relevant area. (Graciano v.
Robinson Ford Sales, Inc. (2006) 144 Cal.App.4th 140, 154; see
Ketchum, supra, 24 Cal.4th at p. 1132.) In a lodestar analysis,
this lodestar fee “ ‘may be adjusted by the court based on’ ” a
number of factors. (Graciano, supra, at p. 154; see Ketchum,
supra, at p. 1132.)
       The court found NWF and Hoffman’s hourly rates were
reasonable. It did not, however, determine the fees award based
on any calculation involving the hourly rates or number of hours
of work reflected in Canyon View’s supporting documentation,
but rather on the court’s award of fees and costs in the Lakeview
action. Specifically, the court’s order provides as follows:
“As addressed in [the] Lakeview [action], the court noted the
deficiencies raised in the initial motion [in the Lakeview action],
and the clarifications provided in the supplemental briefing [in
the Lakeview action]. The court did not order supplemental
briefing in the instant action, due to the parallels of the actions
and prior clarification. The court therefore will award fees
consistent with the prior order, but will reduce[ ] the amount
awarded in that no additional fees were incurred by the parties
in the instant hearing for supplemental briefing.” “Consistent
with the prior order [in the] Lakeview [action] . . . , the court
finds the pro rata share of the appellate fees, $19,589.27”—the
exact same amount the court awarded for Canyon View I work

                                20
in the Lakeview action—“reasonable” and “therefore award[ed]
this amount for the appellate work in the instant action.”
Because this is the exact same amount of fees for appellate
work that the court awarded in the Lakeview action despite
Canyon View having requested different amounts for this work
in the two actions, the “pro rata share of the appellate fees” to
which the court’s order in the instant action refers is a quarter
of the appellate fees Canyon View requested in the Lakeview
action—not in the instant action.
       As to fees for prejudgment work, Canyon View had
“requested fees of $79,483.76 [in its initial fees and costs motion
in the Lakeview action]. “Consistent with the prior order [in
the Lakeview action], the court awards the pro rata share of
$19,870.94”—that is, a quarter of the total amount requested in
the Lakeview action for prejudgment work, and the same amount
awarded under the court’s quartering approach to the second fees
motion in the Lakeview action.8 This aspect of the award was
thus also based on the amount of fees Canyon View requested
in the Lakeview action, not the instant action. “As with the
Lakeview motion, the court award[ed] an additional $18,000 in
total motion fees” for work on the first fees motion. Finally, the
court calculated fees for work on the second fees motion in the
instant action based on a general comparison with work on the

      8 The order actually refers to the amount requested in
the “first motion” and does not specify whether it is referring
to Canyon View’s first fees motion in the Lakeview action or the
BONY action. A review of the first fees motions in both of these
cases reveals that the requested amount the court cited matches
the total amount of fees (and costs) Canyon View requested for
prejudgment work in the Lakeview action.

                                21
second fees motion in the Lakeview action, noting that “given less
supplemental briefing [in the instant action] and the prior work
[in the Lakeview action], the court reduces fees incurred for the
instant motion to $2,000.”
       As with the Lakeview order, the court did not separately
address the fees requested for attorney Hoffman, despite finding
his hourly rate to be reasonable.
       Finally, the court partially rejected the BONY parties’
challenge to the costs portion of Canyon View’s request, which
the BONY parties argued was improper because Canyon View
had not filed a renewed memorandum of costs in connection with
its renewed fees request. The court found this challenge had
merit “only [as] to costs awarded on the actual appeal following
the remittitur itself, rather than the underlying costs incurred
in the action and awarded to plaintiffs as prevailing parties
under the [MRL].” The court thus awarded all costs Canyon
View claimed to have incurred prior to the Canyon View I appeal.
       In sum, the court awarded a total of $19,870.94 in fees for
work leading up to the judgment, $18,000 for work on the first
fees motion, $19,589.27 in fees for work on Canyon View I, and
$2,000 in fees for the second fees motion, plus $4,010.47 costs.

            3.    Appeals
      Canyon View appealed the order on the second fees motion
in the instant action, resulting in the instant appeal. The BONY
parties filed a cross-appeal from that same order.
      Canyon View also appealed the order on the second fees
motion in the Lakeview action, resulting in a separate appeal,
Canyon View II.

                               22
      F.    Canyon View II Decision Reversing the Court’s
            Fees and Costs Order in the Lakeview Action9
       While the instant appeal was still pending, we issued an
unpublished decision in the appeal from the fees and costs order
in the Lakeview action: Canyon View II. We held that the court
acted within its discretion “in finding not credible the evidence
[Canyon View submitted to prove] that the NWF fees requested
for prejudgment work and Canyon View I were all attributable
to the Lakeview action,” as opposed to the BONY, Ocwen, or
Household actions. (Boldface omitted.) We further concluded,
however, that, the court’s concerns about overlap between the
actions notwithstanding, there was no “ ‘reasonable basis’ for
the quartering approach the court applied to calculate the fee[s]
award,” because there was a “lack of correlation . . . between
(1) the court’s concern that the NWF bills at issue could contain
not just fees for work on the Lakeview action, but at least some
fees for work on one or more of the three related cases as well,
and (2) the court’s quartering reduction of the total requested
fees. Whatever fees that request included, it did not include

      9 We hereby grant Canyon View’s request that we take
judicial notice of this unpublished opinion not as legal authority,
but as a record of the court that provides relevant factual and
procedural background for the arguments presented on appeal.
(See In re W.R. (2018) 22 Cal.App.5th 284, 286–287, fn. 2
[“[c]itation of [a] prior unpublished opinion is permitted by
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(b)(1) ‘to explain the
factual background of the case and not as legal authority’ ”];
McArthur v. McArthur (2014) 224 Cal.App.4th 651, 656, fn. 5
[may be appropriate to refer to unpublished appellate opinions
“for purposes of factual context only”].)

                                23
the total NWF fees for all prejudgment and Canyon View I
work in all four cases. There is thus ‘no reasonable basis for
the conclusion that the total hours included in the [25 percent
of NWF’s requested prejudgment and Canyon View I fee
amount] . . . was even reasonably close to [25] percent of the
total’ NWF fees in all four cases for prejudgment work and
Canyon View I work.” (See Mountjoy v. Bank of America, N.A.
(2016) 245 Cal.App.4th 266, 281 (Mountjoy) [abuse of discretion
when no reasonable basis].) For these reasons, we reversed
the court’s order on the second fees motion in the Lakeview
action and instructed the court “to enter a new order awarding
Canyon View (1) a reasonable amount of attorney fees for NWF’s
prejudgment work in the Lakeview action and NWF’s work
in connection with Canyon View I attributable to the Lakeview
action, plus (2) . . . the portion of attorney Hoffman’s fees for
work on the Canyon View I appeal attributable to the Lakeview
action.”
                         DISCUSSION
      Because of the significant overlap between the legal
issues presented by Canyon View’s appeal and the BONY parties’
cross-appeal, we organize our discussion based on these issues,
rather than based on which arguments were raised in the appeal
versus the cross-appeal.

      A.    The BONY Parties’ Forfeiture Arguments
      As a preliminary matter, we reject the BONY parties’
contention that Canyon View has forfeited an appeal from the
order as against BOA by failing to separately address BOA in
Canyon View’s opening brief. The BONY parties argue that
Canyon View’s opening brief recognizes that BOA and BONY

                               24
are separate entities with separate roles in the underlying
events, but refers to only BONY in its arguments. We are not
persuaded that this warrants a forfeiture of Canyon View’s
arguments as against BOA when the brief is considered as a
whole and in the larger context of the litigation.
       First, Canyon View’s opening brief challenges the trial
court’s fees and costs order, and that order was against both
of the BONY parties. Canyon View’s arguments apply equally
to BONY and BOA. Neither the fees award nor the underlying
judgment in this action differentiates between BONY and BOA
in any way. The case law dealing with forfeiture for failure
to raise an argument in appellate briefing is premised on the
notion that an appellant bears the burden of “develop[ing] [its]
argument [and] cit[ing] authority supporting it” (DFS Group
L.P. v. County of San Mateo (2019) 31 Cal.App.5th 1059, 1086
[forfeiture of argument for failure to do so]), and that this burden
is necessary to give the opposing party a meaningful opportunity
to respond to the appellants’ arguments. (See, e.g., Nelsen v.
Legacy Partners Residential, Inc. (2012) 207 Cal.App.4th 1115,
1122 [no forfeiture where respondent “cannot reasonably claim
prejudice from [court’s] consideration of [appellant’s] argument”].)
Here, Canyon View’s arguments are fully developed, its brief
cites both the record and authority, and it is clear what Canyon
View is challenging and on what basis. Even accepting the
BONY parties’ argument that Canyon View is referring solely to
BOA in its arguments on appeal creates some sort of ambiguity,
that ambiguity disappears in the context of Canyon View’s
arguments attacking the entirety of the fees and costs order
under which BONY and BOA are jointly liable following a

                                25
stipulated judgment in which they are likewise jointly liable.
There is no basis for forfeiture.

      B.    Canyon View I Already Concluded That the
            Instant Action Arises Out of the MRL, and That
            the MRL Fees and Costs Provision Applies
      The BONY parties challenge the award of any attorney
fees and costs under the MRL, arguing that the MRL fees and
costs provision does not apply in the instant action because the
case does not “aris[e] out of the [MRL].” (§ 798.85.) The BONY
parties characterize Canyon View I as addressing only whether
“attorneys’ fees may be awarded in an action arising under the
MRL even if the case does not involve landlord-tenant issues,”
and not whether “this case [the BONY action] involved a dispute
arising under the MRL—or that there was even a dispute.”
The BONY parties argue that we may therefore consider this
question now, and urge us to answer it in the negative—that is,
to conclude that Canyon View cannot recover any amount of fees
or costs under section 798.85.10

      10 The BONY parties raise numerous bases on which they
argue we should conclude that Canyon View did not need to file
the instant action against the BONY parties in order to perfect
its MRL-based right to clear title to the property. For example,
they argue that, because BOA is a servicer and does not now
have, nor has it ever had or claimed to have had, an interest in
the property, a quiet title action against BOA was not necessary
to clear title, so no fees are recoverable from BOA under the
MRL. The BONY parties also argue that the action was not
necessary to perfect MRL-based rights because the documents
at issue did not actually affect Canyon View’s title to the property
or encumber it in any way, and because the statute of limitations

                                26
       The express holding of Canyon View I directly contradicts
the BONY parties’ characterization of the issues Canyon View I
considered. Canyon View I explicitly holds that “[t]he . . .
BONY . . . action[ ] satisf[ies] the requirement of ‘arising out
of [the MRL]’ as we interpret it” (Canyon View I, supra, 42
Cal.App.5th at p. 1114) and that the Canyon View is entitled
to recover reasonable attorney fees and costs from the BONY
parties under the MRL. (See id. at p. 1100 [“[b]ecause Canyon
View’s action[ ] against . . . the BONY respondents . . . [was]
necessary to perfect Canyon View’s right to free and clear title
under the MRL, [it] arose out of the MRL, and Canyon View, as
the prevailing party, is entitled to recover its reasonable attorney
fees and costs”].)
       “[U]nder the doctrine of the law of the case, the case may
not go over ground that has been covered before in an appellate
court.” (Sargon Enterprises, Inc. v. University of Southern
California (2013) 215 Cal.App.4th 1495, 1506, italics omitted.)
Where, as here, “[a] prior appellate opinion expressly ruled . . .
upon a party’s entitlement to attorney’s fees, the trial court is
bound to follow the appellate court’s expressions on the subject,
under principles of law of the case.” (Benson v. Greitzer (1990)
220 Cal.App.3d 11, 14, citing Auto Equity Sales, Inc. v. Superior
Court (1962) 57 Cal.2d 450, 455; see In re Marriage of Colvin
(1992) 2 Cal.App.4th 1570, 1582 [Court of Appeal’s decision in

had run for the BONY parties to enforce its rights in any event.
We need not assess the merits of these or any of the BONY
parties’ other arguments that the MRL fees and costs provision
does not apply because, as we conclude above, our holding in
Canyon View I already decided this issue.

                                 27
attorney fees appeal “will be law of the case on [respondent’s]
entitlement to any fees”].) We are similarly bound by Canyon
View I’s holding. (See City of Oakland v. Superior Court (1983)
150 Cal.App.3d 267, 277 [“reviewing courts [must] follow the
principles laid down upon a former appeal in the same case”].)
The law of the case doctrine applies even if a court “may ‘be
clearly of the opinion that the former decision is erroneous.’ ”
(Bell v. Farmers Ins. Exchange (2004) 115 Cal.App.4th 715, 735.)
Thus, to the extent the BONY parties are arguing that this court
incorrectly held that the instant action was necessary to perfect
an MRL-based right, even if they are right—and we neither
conclude nor imply that they are—it would not provide a basis
for departing from Canyon View I’s holding. Application of
the doctrine is subject to some recognized exceptions, including
“where there has been an intervening or contemporaneous
change in the law or the establishment of a new precedent by
controlling authority” and “where its application will lead to a
harsh or inequitable result.” (Meyer v. Byron Jackson, Inc. (1984)
161 Cal.App.3d 402, 409.) But the BONY parties do not attempt
to argue that any such exception applies, nor would we find such
an argument persuasive.
       In sum, in Canyon View I, the BONY parties had an
opportunity to persuade this court that the MRL fees and costs
provision does not apply to the instant action. They failed to
successfully do so,11 and the trial court correctly rejected the
BONY parties’ efforts to relitigate the issue.

      11 Canyon View has requested that we take judicial notice
of the briefing in Canyon View I in an effort to establish that
the BONY parties are raising now on appeal some of the same

                                28
     C.    The Court Abused Its Discretion in Calculating
           Attorney Fees
       We next consider the parties’ arguments regarding
purported error in the amount of attorney fees the court awarded.
On appeal, both the BONY parties and Canyon View argue—
albeit in different ways and with different desired outcomes—
that the court erred when, in deciding the amount of attorney
fees to award, the court failed to properly assess the specific
work Canyon View’s attorneys performed in the instant action
and Canyon View I.
       Canyon View argues the court improperly imported the
quartering approach from the Lakeview action, an approach
Canyon View II deemed an abuse of discretion and that, in any
event, is not based on an analysis of the evidence presented in
this action.
       The BONY parties’ cross-appeal argues that, even if the
MRL entitles Canyon View to fees, the court erred by awarding
fees for work that was not reasonable and necessary to protecting
rights that arose under the MRL. Specifically, the BONY parties
argue that, for various reasons, much of the work for which

arguments they raised in Canyon View I. But this is not germane
to our analysis on appeal; regardless of the basis the BONY
parties identified in arguing in Canyon View I that the instant
action does not arise under the MRL, we decided this issue in
Canyon View I, and will not revisit it, whether or not the BONY
parties urge us to do so on some basis not previously argued. Nor
need we take judicial notice of the briefing in order to conclude
that Canyon View I’s holding encompasses the issue the BONY
parties are currently attempting to relitigate. Accordingly, we
deny this part of Canyon View’s request for judicial notice.

                               29
Canyon View sought fees was performed after all clouds on title
had been lifted, and that only work performed before that point
can be a potential source of an attorney fees award under the
MRL.
      We consider these arguments in turn below.

           1.    The Court Erroneously Grafted the
                 Lakeview Action Approach in Awarding
                 Amounts in the Instant Action
                 a.    NWF fees for prejudgment and
                       Canyon View I work
      In the order on appeal, the court expressly states that,
based on the same concerns the court set forth in deciding
the second fees motion in the Lakeview action, the court is
applying the Lakeview action quartering analysis as a means of
calculating the fees award for prejudgment and Canyon View I
work in the instant action. But at least some of the court’s
concerns related to the NWF supporting documentation and
Norminton declarations in the Lakeview action are inapplicable
to the supporting NWF documentation and Norminton
declaration in the instant action. Specifically, the court voiced
concerns in the Lakeview action as to whether the billing records
and declarations provided a reliable, credible basis on which
the court could conclude the work they described had been
performed in the Lakeview action, rather than in some other
Canyon View action. These concerns arose when the initial
Norminton declaration in the Lakeview action characterized
numerous entries in the NWF billing records as reflecting work
on the Lakeview action only, although it was subsequently
established (and Norminton subsequently admitted) the entries
actually related to other actions. “After the court called into

                               30
question the credibility of both the NWF billing records and the
Norminton declaration—specifically with respect to the issue of
whether the fee[s] request reflected only work on the Lakeview
action—the court did not have before it what it regarded as
sufficiently reliable evidence to conclude what portion of the
requested fees was truly recoverable in the Lakeview action.” In
the instant action, by contrast, the court voiced no such concerns
about the credibility of the supporting documentation. Nor do
the NWF billing records or Norminton declaration in the instant
action contain numerous entries erroneously characterized as
attributable to the instant action.12
       Moreover, even if the court had similar concerns in the
instant action and/or the evidence in this action supported such
concerns, the court would still have acted outside the scope of
its discretion in adopting the quartering approach used in the
Lakeview action for all the same reasons we cite in Canyon
View II: Namely, there is no “‘reasonable basis” for such an
approach in this action, just as there was not in the Lakeview
action. (Gorman v. Tassajara Development Corp. (2009) 178
Cal.App.4th 44, 101; see ibid. [“[there must be] a reasonable
basis for the trial court’s reduction of the lodestar amount”].)
Specifically, because nothing suggests the amounts requested
in the instant action (or the Lakeview action) represented all

      12 The BONY parties do not argue that the lone erroneous
entry in Canyon View’s documentation—for .25 hours—provides
a basis on which the court could have called into question the
overall reliability of the supporting documents and Norminton
declaration in the instant action. Nor would we find such an
argument persuasive.

                                31
work on all four actions consolidated in Canyon View I, there
is a “lack of correlation” between any concerns about the billing
records including entries that overlap with the other three
actions and the quartering approach the court employed. (See
Mountjoy, supra, 245 Cal.App.4th at p. 281 [an across-the-board
“reduction in hours claimed” based on flawed entries, “without
any correlation shown to the number of hours claimed on the
flawed entries, is arbitrary” and an abuse of discretion].)
       Finally, in calculating the fees the BONY parties owe
Canyon View, the court also appears to have applied its
quartering approach to the fees request numbers and evidence
Canyon View submitted in the Lakeview action, not the instant
action. In so doing, the court based its fees award on evidence
not properly before it regarding work performed in a separate
action. It again did not “engag[e] in an explicit analysis of
the specific work performed or fees requested [in the instant
action]”—the same error we identified in the unpublished
portion of Canyon View I. Thus, the amount of the fees award
in the instant action for NWF’s prejudgment work and work
on Canyon View I reflects an abuse of discretion, because it
was based entirely on evidence in a separate action, not on any
analysis of the work Canyon View claims its counsel performed in
the instant action, and because the court employed an approach
to calculating the amount that has no reasonable basis.13

      13 Because we so conclude, we need not address the
argument that the award was void as beyond the scope of our
instructions on remand. (See Hampton v. Superior Court (1952)
38 Cal.2d 652, 655 [“[t]he trial court is empowered to act only in
accordance with the direction of the reviewing court; action which
does not conform to those directions is void”].)

                               32
                  b.    Hoffman fees
       In using the quartering approach from the Lakeview
action in this way, the trial court repeated another error from
the Lakeview action regarding the fees Canyon View sought
for the work of attorney Hoffman. Namely, although the court
approved Hoffman’s hourly billing rate and failed to identify any
concerns or issues with the number of hours Hoffman claimed
to have spent working on the instant action, the court failed to
include in its fees award any amount attributed to (or that one
could imply is attributable to) Hoffman’s work. The court did
this in the Lakeview action as well, and in Canyon View II, we
deemed it an abuse of discretion because the court had wholly
failed to take issue with or even address any of the specific tasks
outlined in Hoffman’s documentation or the hours spent on them.
The award of $0 for attorney Hoffman’s work in this case thus
reflects an abuse of discretion for the same reasons, outlined
in Canyon View II, that the court’s award of $0 attributable to
Hoffman’s work in the Lakeview action constituted an abuse of
discretion.14
       The BONY parties argue that certain work Hoffman
performed needed to be “redone,” resulting in Canyon View
filing an errata to its second fees motion and supporting filings,

      14 To the extent the court concluded that its quartered
version of NWF’s appellate fees was in lieu of any recovery for
fees charged by Hoffman for Canyon View I, such an approach
requires an implicit finding that Hoffman’s fees for work on
Canyon View I were either unreasonable or excessive, which is
“ ‘entirely lacking in evidentiary support’ ” and would thus also
be an abuse of discretion as well. (Hanna v. Mercedes-Benz USA,
LLC (2019) 36 Cal.App.5th 493, 507.)

                                33
and thus that the lack of any award attributable to Hoffman’s
work reflects the court “properly discount[ing]” Hoffman’s fees.
(Boldface, capitalization & underscoring omitted.) This argument
pertains only to work Hoffman performed in connection with the
second fees motion, the court’s approach to which, as we discuss
below, does not appear to have included any sort of consideration
for the quality of Hoffman’s work or its needing to be “redone.”
To the extent the court is concerned about this, it is certainly
a factor the court is entitled to consider on remand in assessing
the evidence submitted in the instant action regarding Hoffman’s
work and in calculating what amount of fees it should award for
that work.

                  c.    Work on first and second fees
                        motions
       The court did not apply the quartering approach from
the Lakeview action to calculate the fees award for work on the
first and second fees motions in the instant action. But the court
did base the amounts it awarded for this work in the instant
action on what was awarded in the Lakeview action, rather than
considering the evidence presented in the instant action. The
court awarded the same amount in both actions for work on the
first fees motion, despite the fact that the amount Canyon View
requested for this work in the Lakeview action and the amount
it requested in the instant action were different. The award for
work on the second fees motion uses the award amount for work
on the second fees motion in the Lakeview action as a baseline,
then reduces it to account for the fact that the parties were
ordered to provide supplemental briefing regarding the second
fees motion in the Lakeview action, but not the instant action.
The requests for fees from work on the second fees motions in the

                                34
two cases were different. By simply using the fees motion award
amounts from the Lakeview action in the instant action in these
ways, the court eschewed an actual analysis of the work Canyon
View claims to have performed on these motions in the instant
action. It thereby abused its discretion.

            2.    On Remand, the Court Should Calculate
                  a Reasonable Fees Award Based on the
                  Evidence in the Instant Action Only
       We next consider how to instruct the trial court to proceed
upon remand. In addressing this issue in the Lakeview action,
we encountered a difficulty not present here: Namely, that
the court had implicitly found the billing records and attorney
declarations supporting the fees request to be not credible.
Under such circumstances, given the deference we must show to
trial court credibility determinations, we were unable to instruct
the trial court to work with the documentation supporting
the fees request in fashioning an appropriate award following
remand.
       Here, by contrast, the court did not question the credibility
of the NWF billing records or Norminton declaration as a basis
for calculating the fees award in the instant action. Canyon View
has therefore provided the information the trial court needs to
perform a lodestar analysis and calculate a reasonable award
of attorney fees: hourly attorney fee rates for both NWF and
Hoffman (fees the court has already found reasonable) and
evidence of the type and amount of legal work these attorneys
claim to have performed in the instant action. Therefore, on
remand, we reiterate our instruction from Canyon View I that the
court is to conduct a lodestar analysis and calculate a reasonable
fees award based on the documentation of work NWF and/or

                                35
Hoffman performed in the instant action and in the portion of
Canyon View I attributable to the instant action.

            3.    BONY’s Argument Regarding Continuing
                  Necessity of Litigation as a Factor in
                  Calculating Reasonable Fee Amount
       The BONY parties argue in their cross-appeal that,
in calculating any fee amount, the court should consider the
extent to which, at various points throughout the proceedings,
continuing litigation remained necessary to vindicate Canyon
View’s MRL-based rights. The BONY parties are correct that,
because the MRL fees and costs provision only authorizes the
recovery of reasonable fees incurred incident to litigation efforts
necessary to perfect MRL-based rights, fees are recoverable
under the MRL only to the extent they are for work that is
reasonably necessary to vindicate an MRL-based right.15 But
the BONY parties are incorrect that some portion of this action
was not necessary in this way.
       The BONY parties point to the December 2016 notice
of rescission they recorded after the litigation began and
disclaimers of interest contained in litigation filings. But neither

      15 Consistent with this, in Canyon View II and the
unpublished portion of Canyon View I, we encouraged the
trial court to consider the continuing necessity of the action
throughout the litigation in assessing the fee amount recoverable
under the MRL. For example, in Canyon View I, we noted that
“[w]e share[d] the trial court’s concerns that the proceedings
may have been more extensive than necessary [in the Lakeview
action], given that, for example, proceedings in the Lakeview
action continued for several months after Lakeview filed a
post-litigation reconveyance and quitclaim deed.”

                                 36
provides Canyon View with a chain of title free from confusion
about whether any encumbrances remained on the mobilehome
after Canyon View bought it. To the contrary, the notice of
rescission BONY recorded asserts the continuing validity of the
first deed of trust. And because nothing in the record suggests
the litigation filings containing the disclaimers at issue were
recorded in public title records, they cannot remove a cloud in
such public records.
       The BONY parties argue that the language in the notice
of rescission does not change the fact that, as the BONY parties
acknowledged in their disclaimers during litigation, they had no
legally viable interest in the mobilehome, nor were they pursuing
any rights under the first deed of trust. But in the context of
assessing whether MRL attorney fees can be recovered, clouds
on title need not be based on an actual, legally viable claim or
encumbrance. An MRL-based abandonment sale necessarily
extinguishes any pre-existing lien on a property, but recordings
regarding such a lien can still affect the marketability of title
to the property. The MRL implicitly acknowledges this in that
it funds litigation efforts of an MRL-sale purchaser to obtain
a quiet title judgment even after the statute has, by operation
of law, quieted title in the purchaser’s favor. The situation
throughout the BONY action—even after the notice of rescission
and disclaimers the BONY parties identify—is thus one the MRL
envisioned: one in which public records continue to leave some
doubt as to who has an interest in the mobilehome, even though
an MRL sale has extinguished all such interests. The notice of
rescission and disclaimers thus do not present a basis on which
the court should have limited the reasonable fees recoverable
under the MRL.

                               37
       Finally, to the extent the BONY parties’ argument on
appeal encompasses the position that any work performed after
Canyon View prevailed in its quiet title action is automatically
unnecessary to vindicate an MRL-based right, we reject it. The
primary MRL-based right at issue in the litigation below was,
of course, Canyon View’s right to hold title to the home, free
and clear of any cloud created by prior liens or recordings. But
after Canyon View became the “prevailing party” in the instant
action arising out of the MRL, Canyon View also had a right to
collect attorney fees under section 798.85, to the extent Canyon
View also established such fees were reasonable and necessarily
incurred. Because section 798.85 is part of the MRL, Canyon
View’s right to collect attorney fees thereunder is an MRL-
based right. Further litigation efforts to perfect that right—
for example, work on the first and second fees motion and the
Canyon View I appeal—were thus also necessary to vindicate
an MRL-based right, and those litigation efforts arise out of the
MRL.
       Therefore, at no point did the instant action, the Canyon
View I appeal, or the first and second fees motions become
unnecessary to perfect MRL-based rights.
       This does not mean the court must accept all work in the
supporting documentation as necessary in the sense of efficiency,
however. It remains within the broad discretion of the trial court
to assess the reasonableness of the time taken to perform work
and the work performed. (See PLCM Group, Inc. v. Drexler
(2000) 22 Cal.4th 1084, 1096 [reasonableness of attorney fees
is within the discretion of the court based on consideration of a
number of factors, including, “ ‘the nature of the litigation, its
difficulty, the amount involved, the skill required in its handling,

                                 38
the skill employed, the attention given, the success or failure,
and other circumstances in the case’ ”].) Canyon View has, for
example, raised arguments that the BONY parties took an overly
aggressive litigation position, and that Canyon View successfully
moved to compel discovery responses from the BONY parties,
resulting in sanctions against them. The court remains free to
consider these and any other aspects of the record in this action
to craft a reasonable amount of attorney fees.
       In sum, our decision does not limit the court’s broad
discretion to assess whether attorney fees requested are
reasonable, so long as (1) the court exercises that discretion based
on evidence of the work performed in the instant action and the
related portion of Canyon View I, not in another action; (2) such
evidence provides a reasonable basis for any reduction in the fee
amount the court deems appropriate; and (3) the court does not
adjust the fees award amount based on a finding or view that the
legal work performed was insufficiently tethered to vindicating
an MRL-based right in this case.16

      16 In an unpublished opinion filed today deciding an appeal
from another case involving Canyon View and MRL attorney
fees, Canyon View Limited v. Nationstar Mortgage LLC (Oct. 26,
2023, B312642), the appellant raises some arguments similar to
those the BONY parties raise here regarding the necessity of the
work for which a party seeks MRL fees and costs as a factor in
assessing the reasonable amount of fees and costs recoverable.
Case No. B312642 is from an attorney fees and costs order in
proceedings that, unlike the instant matter, were not involved in
the Canyon View I appeal, and the trial court did not implement
the erroneous quartering approach it applied in the instant
action and the Lakeview action. We thus reach a different result
in case No. B312642 than we do here in some respects.

                                39
      D.    The Court Did Not Err in Concluding Canyon
            View Was Entitled To Recover Costs
       The BONY parties next argue that the court abused
its discretion in awarding any costs. They cite Code of Civil
Procedure section 761.030, which modifies the general rules
regarding costs set forth in Code of Civil Procedure sections 1032
and 1034 and accompanying rules. Specifically, Code of Civil
Procedure sections 1032 and 1034 permit the trial court, in its
discretion, to award costs under certain circumstances. Under
Code of Civil Procedure section 761.030, subdivision (b), even
where those circumstances are present, “[i]f the defendant [in a
quiet title action] disclaims in the answer any claim, or suffers
judgment to be taken without answer, the plaintiff shall not
recover costs.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 761.030, subd. (b).) This
exception to the generally applicable rules regarding costs is
inapplicable here, because the court awarded costs in the instant
action under the MRL fees and costs provision, to which Code of
Civil Procedure section 761.030 does not create an exception.
       In arguing we should nevertheless rely on this exception,
the BONY parties reference the unpublished portion of Canyon
View I affirming the trial court’s denial of any costs in the Ocwen
action based in part on the “spirit and intent” of Code of Civil
Procedure section 761.030. But any costs awarded in the Ocwen
action would have been awarded under Code of Civil Procedure
sections 1032 and 1034, because, unlike here, the MRL fees and
costs provision did not apply in the Ocwen action. The BONY
parties’ reference to this aspect of our opinion in Canyon View I
thus does not assist their argument.

                                40
      The BONY parties raise no argument as to why the costs
awarded should not be recoverable under the MRL fees and costs
provision. Accordingly, we affirm the costs award.

                         DISPOSITION
      The order on Canyon View’s second fees motion is reversed
to the extent the order is based on an improper measure of
attorney fees. Upon remand, the court is instructed to enter
a new order awarding Canyon View a reasonable amount of
attorney fees. The court must make this determination based
on evidence regarding the legal work performed in the instant
action, not other actions.
      In all other respects, we affirm, including specifically the
order’s award of $4,010.47 in costs to Canyon View.
      Canyon View is awarded its costs on appeal.
      NOT TO BE PUBLISHED.

                                          ROTHSCHILD, P. J.
We concur:

                  CHANEY, J.

                  BENDIX, J.

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