Gagen, Mccoy, McMahon, Koss, Markowitz & Fanucci Inter-Office Memorandum

Changsha Metro Group Company Limited v. Xufeng (2020) 57 Cal.App.5th 1. This case involved an award of attorneys’ fees as sanctions for a frivolous SLAPP motion. The court of appeal affirmed the award of attorneys’ fees finding that the request for fees was properly submitted in the opposition to the motion, which was proper because the time limit for the opposition makes it impracticable to comply with the safe harbor and separate motion requirements when seeking fees in the anti-SLAPP context. The court noted that impossibility (Civil Code §3531) is an appropriate interpretative canon for construing statutes, not a means for invalidating them, in its reasoning upholding the attorneys’ fees sanction.

/lsa

Related Attorney(s):
Gregory L. McCoy