Companion Animal Prot. Soc'y v. Puppies4Less
| Decision Date | 29 June 2022 |
| Docket Number | E076858 |
| Parties | COMPANION ANIMAL PROTECTION SOCIETY et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. PUPPIES4LESS et al., Defendants and Respondents. |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
APPEAL from the Superior Court of Riverside County. No. MCC2000802 Craig Riemer, Judge. Affirmed.
Pease Law and Bryan W. Pease for Plaintiffs and Appellants.
No appearance by Defendants and Respondents.
FIELDS J.
Plaintiffs and appellants Companion Animal Protection Society (CAPS) and Robert McCormack (collectively, plaintiffs) filed a civil action seeking to enforce alleged violations of Health and Safety Code section 122354.5, which generally requires pet stores to obtain animals only from nonprofit animal shelters or rescue groups. They alleged that defendant and respondent Select Puppies, Inc. (SPI) and its owner, defendant and respondent Brian Mohrfeld (Mohrfeld), obtained puppies from breeders located out of state and delivered those animals to retail pet stores in California, fraudulently representing them to be rescue animals. Plaintiffs also named the owners and operators of three retail pet stores that allegedly received animals from SPI and Mohrfeld as defendants in the action. Respondents Puppies4Less and Anita Chavira are among these named defendants.
After purportedly entering into settlement agreements with some of the defendants, plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed their complaint and sought an award of attorney fees against the nonsettling defendants pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure[1]section 1021.5. The trial court denied the motion, concluding that plaintiffs failed to establish that they were successful parties within the meaning of section 1021.5 and further failed to establish any causal connection between the litigation and any voluntary changes in the behavior of the nonsettling defendants. Plaintiffs appeal from this order.
We conclude plaintiffs have forfeited any claim of error by failing to identify the correct standard of review and further failing to cite to the record for many of the factual assertions in support of their arguments. We further conclude that, even in the absence of forfeiture, substantial evidence in the record supports the trial court's findings of fact. We appreciate the importance of section 1021.5 in ensuring that attorneys who perform work furthering the public interest are reasonably compensated for their efforts. Nevertheless, the statutory scheme still places the burden on the party seeking fees to support the request with an evidentiary showing and, as we explain, that burden was not met in this case. As such, we find no abuse of discretion in the trial court's decision to deny plaintiffs' request for attorney fees, and we affirm the order.
On June 5, 2020, plaintiffs filed a civil complaint against SPI, Mohrfeld and eight other defendants. According to the complaint, SPI is an Iowa corporation owned by Mohrfeld, which obtains puppies from breeders in order to supply them to various pet stores to be sold as rescue animals. The remaining defendants, including Puppies4Less and Chavira, are businesses and individuals alleged to have sold puppies obtained from SPI. Plaintiffs alleged that this business arrangement violated Health and Safety Code section 122354.5, which mandates that retail pet stores selling dogs must obtain animals only from nonprofit shelters or rescue groups.
Based on these factual allegations, plaintiffs alleged causes of action for (1) violation of the Consumer Legal Remedies Act (Civ. Code, § 1750 et seq.); (2) unfair competition law (Bus. & Prof. Code, §17200 et seq.); and (3) fraud.[2] Plaintiffs' prayer for relief sought (1) an injunction to prohibit defendants from falsely representing that their puppies were" 'rescue puppies' "; (2) an injunction to prohibit defendants from selling any dogs, cats, or rabbits in the state of California; (3) damages; (4) restitution; and (5) reasonable attorney fees pursuant to section 1021.5.
Multiple pet store defendants, including Puppies4Less and Chavira, filed answers to the complaint. SPI and Mohrfeld never filed a responsive pleading and never appeared in the action.
On June 12, 2020, plaintiffs sought a temporary restraining order on an ex parte basis to prohibit Puppies4Less "from selling puppies in a pet store in violation of Health and Safety Code section 122354.5." Puppies4Less opposed the request principally on the ground that there was no future act to enjoin, arguing that it was not aware SPI had misrepresented the source of any puppies and further arguing that it was confident SPI would correct any misunderstanding and provide properly sourced rescue animals in the future. The trial court granted the temporary restraining order and issued an order to show cause with respect to a preliminary injunction.
In response to the trial court's order to show cause, Puppies4Less and Chavira filed a nonopposition to the issuance of a preliminary injunction, provided that the act enjoined remained only as to the purported violations of Health and Safety Code section 122354.5. Again, they took the position that they never had any intention of knowingly violating the statute and, thus, did not oppose issuance of a preliminary injunction purportedly enjoining such an act.
However, no preliminary injunction ever issued. The register of actions suggests that the order to show cause was discharged, and the temporary restraining order was terminated on procedural grounds. Thereafter, plaintiffs sought a second temporary restraining order and requested the trial court issue an order to show cause regarding issuance of a preliminary injunction against Puppies4Less. However, the trial court denied the request. Plaintiffs did not include the order denying the request or a transcript of the hearing as part of the record on appeal.
On December 22, 2020, plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed their complaint with prejudice.
On February 22, 2021, plaintiffs filed a motion requesting an award of attorney fees pursuant to section 1021.5 against SPI, Morhfeld, Puppies4Less, and Chavira. In a memorandum of points and authorities, plaintiffs claimed they had entered into settlements with all of the defendants except the four against whom they sought an award of attorney fees. According to the memorandum, plaintiffs were successful parties within the meaning of section 1021.5 because their settlement agreements prohibited settling defendants from obtaining any further animals from SPI, and plaintiffs also confirmed Puppies4Less had closed permanently as a result of their lawsuit. However, none of the declarations or documentary evidence submitted with the motion addressed any of these assertions.[3]
On April 8, 2021, the trial court indicated its tentative decision was to deny the motion for attorney fees. Specifically, the trial court observed that plaintiffs had not obtained a judicial resolution of any of their claims; there was no evidence to show any of the four nonsettling defendants had engaged in a change in behavior; and there was no evidence to show that any purported change in behavior was motivated by plaintiffs' litigation. Plaintiffs did not request oral argument or appear at the time of hearing on their motion and, as a result, the trial court adopted its tentative ruling as its final ruling. Plaintiffs appeal from the order denying their motion.
" 'The Legislature adopted section 1021.5 as a codification of the private attorney general doctrine of attorney fees developed in prior judicial decisions.'" (Sweetwater Union High School Dist. v. Julian Union Elementary School Dist. (2019) 36 Cal.App.5th 970, 979-980 (Sweetwater).) Under the statute, "a court may award attorneys' fees to a successful party against one or more opposing parties in an action which has resulted in the enforcement of an important right affecting the public interest if: (a) a significant benefit . . . has been conferred on the general public or a large class of persons, (b) the necessity and financial burden of private enforcement . . . are such as to make the award appropriate, and (c) such fees should not in the interest of justice be paid out of the recovery, if any." (§ 1021.5.) Generally, "[t]he determination of whether a party has met the requirement for an award of fees and the reasonable amount of such an award are matters best decided by the trial court in the first instance." (Sweetwater, at pp. 980.)
In this case, it is undisputed that plaintiffs filed a voluntary dismissal and did not obtain a judicial resolution of the claims alleged in their complaint. "[A] plaintiff who has not succeeded in obtaining 'a judicial resolution' . . . or 'a judicially recognized change in the legal relationship between the parties' . . . must obtain attorney fees under the catalyst theory, or not at all." (Vasquez v. State of California (2008) 45 Cal.4th 243, 260.) Under this theory, "a plaintiff must establish that (1) the lawsuit was a catalyst motivating the defendants to provide the primary relief sought; (2) that the lawsuit had merit and achieved its catalytic effect by threat of victory, not by dint of nuisance and threat of expense . . . and; (3) that the plaintiffs reasonably attempted to settle the litigation prior to filing the lawsuit." (Tipton-Whittingham v. City of Los Angeles (2004) 34 Cal.4th 604, 608 (Tipton-Whittingham).)
"' "On review of an award of attorney fees after trial, the normal standard of...
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