Court Opinion

ID: 9746515
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 14:20:22.061059+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:14.290198
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J., Concurring.
I concur.
I concur in the disposition. Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16—the SLAPP statute (strategic lawsuit against public participation)—has resulted in numerous appeals that involve various ambiguities and apparent unintended consequences. The Supreme Court stated that once a SLAPP motion “was successful, attorney fees were mandatory under Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16, subdivision (c).” (Ketchum v. Moses (2001) 24 Cal.4th 1122, 1141-1142 [104 Cal.Rptr.2d 377, 17 P.3d 735].)
*957The court in ComputerXpress, Inc. v. Jackson (2001) 93 Cal.App.4th 993, 1016-1021 [113 Cal.Rptr.2d 625] (ComputerXpress) discussed whether a party who prevails on a SLAPP motion as to some causes of action but not others, is a prevailing party for purposes of an attorney fees award under the SLAPP statute. The court concluded, “The approach adopted in the cases applying those analogous statutes, under which partial success reduces but does not eliminate the entitlement to attorney fees, therefore should be applied here.” (93 Cal.App.4th at p. 1020, italics added.)
There appears to be a caveat expressed in a United States Supreme Court case involving an “analogous” statute—title 42 United States Code section 1988. The court in Hensley v. Eckerhart (1983) 461 U.S. 424, 433 [76 L.Ed.2d 40, 103 S.Ct. 1933] said, “ ‘plaintiffs may be considered “prevailing parties” for attorney’s fees purposes if they succeed on any significant issue in litigation which achieves some of the benefit the parties sought in bringing suit.’ ” (Italics added.) (This was cited in ComputerXpress, supra, 93 Cal.App.4th at p. 1019.) Similarly, as noted in ComputerXpress, in Los Angeles Times v. Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority (2001) 88 Cal.App.4th 1381, 1392 [107 Cal.Rptr.2d 29], applying the attorney fees provision of the California Public Records Act (Govt. Code, § 6259, subd. (d)), “the court acknowledged the possibility that in some cases a plaintiff might obtain documents that are so minimal or insignificant as to justify a finding that it did not prevail.” (ComputerXpress, supra, 93 Cal.App.4th at p. 1020.)
Here, the successful motion to strike was so insignificant that defendants should not be viewed as prevailing defendants for purposes of an attorney fee award. For that reason I concur.
On January 27, 2006, the opinion was modified to read as printed above.