Can a defendant who prevails on an anti-SLAPP motion recover his or her attorney's fees and costs?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from Pecot v. Wong, A139566 (Cal. App. 2018):

A defendant who prevails on an anti-SLAPP motion is entitled to recover his or her attorney's fees and costs. ( 425.16, subd. (c)(1).) We review such an attorney fee award for abuse of discretion. " ' "While the concept 'abuse of discretion' is not easily susceptible to precise definition, the appropriate test has been enunciated in terms of whether or not the trial court exceeded ' "the bounds of reason, all of the circumstances before it being considered. . . ." ' [Citations.]" [Citation.] "A decision will not be reversed merely because reasonable people might disagree. 'An appellate tribunal is neither authorized nor warranted in substituting its judgment for the judgment of the trial judge.' [Citations.] In the absence of a clear showing that its decision was arbitrary or irrational, a trial court should be presumed to have acted to achieve legitimate objectives and, accordingly, its discretionary determinations ought not be set aside on review." [Citation.]' [Citation.] Accordingly, an abuse of discretion transpires if ' "the trial court exceeded the bounds of reason" ' in making its award of attorney fees. [Citation.]" (Maughan v. Google Technology, Inc. (2006) 143 Cal.App.4th 1242, 1249-1250 (Maughan).)

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