Court Opinion

ID: 9631574
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:42:50.607211+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:56.915558
License: Public Domain

CARTER, J.
I concur in the judgment but deem it necessary to point out that attorney’s fees are not allowed in injunction cases and probably should not be in attachment cases, except the fees incurred on a successful motion to dissolve or quash the provisional remedy; they have not been allowed for defense of the action in which the injunction was sought. The majority opinion states generally, “The courts, however, have construed our statutes as authorizing the allow*872anee of attorney’s fees incurred in procuring the dissolution of an attachment or injunction in appropriate cases where such remedies were used (Reachi v. National Auto & Cas. Co., 37 Cal.2d 808 [236 P.2d 151] [attachment]; Frahm v. Walton, 130 Cal. 396 [62 P. 618] [injunction]; Prader v. Grim, 13 Cal. 585, 586, 587-588 [injunction]; Thaie v. Quan Wan, 3 Cal. 216, 217-218 [injunction]; Mason v. United States Fid. & Guar. Co., 60 Cal.App.2d 587, 593-594 [141 P.2d 475] [injunction]; see Soule v. United States Fid. & Guar. Co., 82 Cal.App. 572, 573-575 [255 P.2d 886] [attachment]), while, as we have seen, the cases have uniformly refused to allow attorney’s fees as costs or damages in actions to recover personal property where claim and delivery was invoked.” This is not a complete statement of the law in injunction eases. In such cases where a bond is given for the issuance of a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction, counsel fees incurred on a successful motion to dissolve the injunction are recoverable but not for defending on the merits the action for an injunction. (Bustamente v. Stewart, 55 Cal. 115; Porter v. Hopkins, 63 Cal. 53; Lambert v. Haskell, 80 Cal. 611 [22 P. 327]; San Diego Water Co. v. Pacific Coast Steamship Co., 101 Cal. 216 [35 P. 651]; Mitchell v. Hawley, 79 Cal. 301 [21 P. 833]; Mason v. United States Fid. & Guar. Co., 60 Cal.App.2d 587 [141 P.2d 475]; Handy v. Samaha, 117 Cal.App. 286 [3 P.2d 602]; Warden v. Choate, 33 Cal.App. 354 [165 P. 36]; Curtiss v. Bachman, 110 Cal. 433 [42 P. 910, 52 Am.St.Rep. 111]; Moore v. Maryland Casualty Co., 100 Cal.App. 658 [280 P. 1008]; Frahm v. Walton, 130 Cal. 396 [62 P. 618]; see Thaie v. Quan Wan, 3 Cal. 216.) It is said in Curtis v. Bachman, supra, 110 Cal. 433, 437: ‘‘The damages for which the plaintiff seeks to recover herein, and of which he gave evidence at the trial, consisted of moneys which he had paid to his attorneys, the costs incurred in the action of Gilman v. Curtis, supra [66 Cal. 116 (4 P. 1094)] [the injunction action], and the loss of time and injury to his business necessitated by the suit. We are of the opinion, however, that neither of these elements of damage is within the terms of the obligation of the defendants, and that the plaintiff failed to establish any right of action against them. The liability of the defendants is measured by the terms of their contract, and in the present action is limited to the damages that the plaintiff might sustain ‘by reason of the said injunction. ’ Whatever expenses he was subjected to by reason of the suit, as distinguished from those sustained by reason of the injunction, are not damages within this *873contract of the defendants; and, as it rested upon the plaintiff to establish a cause of action against them, it was necessary for him to show, not only that he had sustained damage, but that the damage which he had sustained was caused solely by reason of the injunction.
Counsel fees incurred by a defendant by reason of a preliminary injunction are recognized as a part of the damages for which he has a right to indemnity, and are within the undertaking which the plaintiff is required to give as a condition of procuring the injunction; but only such counsel fees as may be incurred after the injunction has béen issued, and prior to the determination of the action, can be considered as within the rule. If the defendant, instead of attempting to remove the temporary injunction, seeks rather to prevent the issuance of a permanent injunction, or directs his efforts to defeating the action of the plaintiff, the expense of counsel fees thus incurred is an incident of the suit, and is not recoverable as damages sustained by reason of the injunction. ‘The allowance of counsel fees in suits on injunction bonds is exceptional, and should not be carried beyond the point to which former decisions have taken it’ [citations]. Counsel fees rendered in resisting a motion for a preliminary injunction are not within the terms of the undertaking, since they are not expenses made necessary ‘by reason of the injunction.’ . . . [B]ut are expenses incurred in the action as much as are counsel fees rendered in attempting to prevent the issuance of a permanent injunction (Thurston v. Haskell, 81 Me. 303). . . . It is well settled that the services of counsel rendered in the trial of the cause are not a portion of the damage sustained by reason of the injunction.” (Emphasis added.)
In the instant case no effort was made to have the claim and delivery proceedings nullified and hence there was no basis for the award of any attorney’s fees. The only fees incurred were those of defending the action on the merits. The injunction cases are, therefore, authority for the result reached in this ease.
In regard to attachment cases it has been held by this court that where the attaching creditor attached in order to obtain jurisdiction (quasi-rem) over a nonresident defendant and the attachment was appropriate to the ease and valid on its face, the defendant therein who won the main ease could recover the attorney’s fees expended in defending the main case. (Reachi v. National Auto. & Cas. Co., 37 Cal.2d 808 [236 P.2d 151].) That case is out of line with several appellate *874court decisions and is probably wrong. It purported to distinguish Soule v. United States Fid. & Guar. Co., 82 Cal.App. 572 [255 P. 886], and Miramonte etc. Co. v. National Surety Co., 91 Cal.App. 64 [266 P. 576], which applied the same rule as had previously been applied in the injunction cases above discussed. The distinction is not realistic (see 25 So.Cal.L.Rev. 452). A short time before the decision in the Reachi case, Woodward v. Bruner, 104 Cal.App.2d 83 [230 P.2d 861], held that attorney’s fees in an action for the removal of the effects of a wrongful attachment in another action are not recoverable as damages because damages do not include attorney’s fees. And it was held in Viner v. Untrecht, 26 Cal.2d 261 [158 P.2d 3], that attorney’s fees were not “damages” and therefore not recoverable in an action for the conversion of personal property where the statute (Civ. Code, § 3336) provided that the detriment caused by the wrongful conversion of personal property is presumed to be “a fair compensation for the time and money properly expended in pursuit of the property.”