California Court of Appeal

In a dispute between a homeowner and a home builder, a trial court order on attorney's fees is reversed to the extent it awarded the homeowner fees of $125,000 as the prevailing party on the home builder's first petition to compel arbitration, where: 1) attorney's fees should be awarded to the party who prevails on a petition to compel arbitration only when the resolution of that petition terminates the entire action on the contract; 2) under Civil Code section 1717, there may only be one prevailing party entitled to attorney's fees on a given contract in a given lawsuit; 3) the suit did not involve two independent contracts; 4) the court had awarded the builder attorney's fees as the prevailing party in arbitration; and 5) specific contract language may not justify a separate attorney's fee award.

Appellate Information

• Decided 05/24/2012
• Published 05/24/2012

Judges

• Simons

Court

• California Court of Appeal

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold LLP, Ropers, Majeski, Kohn & Bentley