California Court of Appeal

In this lawsuit, defendants purchased homes from plaintiff, and the agreements contained identical indemnity clauses. Plaintiff attempts to enforce those indemnity clauses, seeking to recover attorney fees and costs incurred in defending a class action lawsuit brought initially by defendant Stephens and joined by defendant Young. Order granting defendants' anti-SLAPP motion is affirmed, where: 1) the indemnity clause here bars any possibility of meaningful recovery for claims falling within its scope, regardless of merit, and this establishes a high degree of substantive unconscionability, sufficiently high as to outweigh the relatively low degree of procedural unconscionability; and 2) absent an enforceable indemnity clause, plaintiff cannot show a likelihood of success on its claims for express contractual indemnification and therefore cannot satisfy its burden under the second prong of the anti-SLAPP analysis.

Appellate Information

• Decided 12/18/2014
• Published 12/18/2014

Judges

• Hollenhorst

Court

• California Court of Appeal

Counsel