Beach cases from Hawaii. The South gets gator law opinions. Vermont, snow law.
To this list of "local flavor" cases, add Belle Terre Ranch, Inc. v. Wilson, No. A137217 (Jan. 13, 2015), an opinion by a California Court of Appeal resolving a boundary dispute between a Northern California winery and the owner a neighboring vineyard.
There's a lot of discussion about old boundary descriptions, hundred year old surveys, and other stuff, but in the end the court of appeal concluded the trial court got it right when it determined that the winery did indeed encroach on the vineyard and enjoined it from future trespass. The court of appeal had no quarrel with the trial court's assignment of $1 as nominal damages.
The interesting part of the opinion, however, is the court's reversal of the attorneys' fee award of $117,000. The court held that the statute which the plaintiff and the trial court relied upon to fee shift was not applicable when a plaintiff only obtains nominal damages:
In any action to recover damages to personal or real property resulting from trespassing on lands either under cultivation or intended or used for the raising of livestock, the prevailing plaintiff shall be entitled to reasonable attorney's fees in addition to other costs, and in addition to any liability for damages imposed by law.The court concluded that this case was not an "action to recover damages to personal or real property resulting from trespassing on lands" because the plaintiff vineyard had not sought a damage award. The $1 was only imposed under the doctrine that any trespass, even one that has not been shown to cause damage, results in a "symbolic" award. While normally, even a nominal damage award is enough to make someone a prevailing party for purposes of fee shifting, the plaintiff here did not ask for, and did not obtain, a judgment that the trespass caused any real damage, and his main goal was resolution of the boundary dispute:
In this case, however, the parties were primarily litigating a boundary dispute upon which the trespass claim depended. Although the Wilsons’ acts of trespass onto Belle Terre’s land arguably support an award of nominal damages, there is no evidence of any actual damage to Belle Terre’s property that would trigger the provisions of section 1021.9.Slip op. at 20-21.
Belle Terre Ranch, Inc. v. Wilson, No. A137217 (Cal. App. Jan. 13, 2015)
