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March 12, 2026 Get Citation Alerts Download PDF Add Note

Espinoza v. Chuang CA3

California Court of Appeal

• Citations: None known
• Docket Number: C101833

• Precedential Status: Non-Precedential

• Opinion

• Authorities (12)

• Cited By (0)

• Summaries (0)

• Similar Cases (17.7K)

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Combined Opinion

Filed 3/12/26 Espinoza v. Chuang CA3
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for
publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication
or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
THIRD APPELLATE DISTRICT

(Yolo)

JOSE ESPINOZA, C101833

Plaintiff, Cross-complainant, (Super. Ct. No. CV-2021-
and Appellant, 0958)

v.

RONALD CHUANG et al.,

Defendants, Cross-defendants,
and Respondents.

Jose Espinoza appeals from the trial court’s order granting Ronald Chuang and
Linda Chuang’s (the Chuangs) motion for attorney fees following their successful anti-
SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) motion to strike Espinoza’s cross-
complaint.
Espinoza contends: (1) the trial court erred in granting the anti-SLAPP motion
and (2) the attorney fees award was unreasonable because the hours reported by the
Chuangs’s counsel included undisclosed, nonrecoverable hours the Chuangs’s daughter
(daughter) spent drafting the anti-SLAPP motion.

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The Chuangs filed a motion for sanctions on the grounds that Espinoza’s appeal is
meritless and misrepresents the record and our prior opinion in this case.
We have no jurisdiction to consider Espinoza’s first contention because the anti-
SLAPP motion was not identified in the notice of appeal. We reject his second
contention because the record does not show daughter spent time on the anti-SLAPP
motion. We deny the Chuangs’s motion for sanctions.
The order awarding attorney fees is affirmed.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
In 2021, Espinoza Bail Bonds, Inc. (Bail Bonds) sued the Chuangs and their son
for breach of contract. The Chuangs filed a cross-complaint in pro per against Bail
Bonds and Espinoza for financial elder abuse, alleging that Bail Bonds was not
incorporated in California at the time the contract at issue was signed.
In 2023, Espinoza filed a cross-complaint against the Chuangs and their son,
claiming that he, not Bail Bonds, signed the contract at issue. On January 30, 2024, the
Chuangs filed an anti-SLAPP motion, signed by counsel Aaron Morris, to strike
Espinoza’s cross-complaint. On February 27, 2024, the trial court issued an order
granting the anti-SLAPP motion. On April 5, 2024, it denied Espinoza’s motion to
reopen and reconsider that order.
On April 26, 2024, the Chuangs served a “notice of ruling re motion for
reconsideration” on Espinoza and Bail Bonds. On the same day, the Chuangs moved to
recover $24,826.64 in attorney fees and costs under the anti-SLAPP statute (Code Civ.
Proc., § 425.16), consisting of $20,344.50 in fees for work on the anti-SLAPP motion,
$4,207.50 in fees for work on the attorney fees motion, and $274.64 in costs. Morris
declared he spent a total of 41.1 hours on the anti-SLAPP motion, including 18.2 hours
preparing the anti-SLAPP motion, 6.7 hours on the reply, 7.3 hours opposing the motion
for reconsideration, and 8.9 hours on related activities such as communicating with
clients, reviewing tentative rulings, preparing for and attending oral argument, and

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preparing two notices of filing of ruling. The Chuangs incurred $274.64 in costs to bring
the anti-SLAPP motion, and Morris estimated he would spend an additional 8.5 hours
preparing and defending the attorney fees motion. Morris billed the Chuangs at his
standard hourly rate of $495, which he claimed was “well below rates charged by
similarly experienced attorneys.” Morris stated he had been a licensed attorney in
California since 1987 and had previously taught pretrial litigation skills and strategies as
an adjunct law professor.
On June 26, 2024, the trial court granted the Chuangs’s motion for attorney fees,
finding “all the fees and costs requested by [the Chuangs] are reasonable” and awarded
them the full amount sought.
Espinoza filed a notice of appeal, identifying only the June 26, 2024 order and
stating he appeals from “[a]n order after judgment under Code of Civil Procedure,
§ 904.1(a)(2).”
DISCUSSION
A. The Scope of Appeal
Our jurisdiction “is limited in scope to the notice of appeal and the judgment
appealed from.” (Dakota Payphone, LLC v. Alcaraz (2011) 192 Cal.App.4th 493, 504.)
“While a notice of appeal must be liberally construed, it is the notice of appeal [that]
defines the scope of the appeal by identifying the particular judgment or order being
appealed.” (Morton v. Wagner (2007) 156 Cal.App.4th 963, 967.)
An order granting an anti-SLAPP motion is appealable. (Code Civ. Proc.,
§ 425.16, subd. (i).) An order awarding attorney fees made after an order granting an
anti-SLAPP motion is also appealable as an order made after a judgment. (Ellis Law
Group, LLP v. Nevada City Sugar Loaf Properties, LLC (2014) 230 Cal.App.4th 244,
250-251.) “If an order is appealable, an aggrieved party must file a timely notice of
appeal from the order to obtain appellate review.” (Sole Energy Co. v. Petrominerals
Corp. (2005) 128 Cal.App.4th 212, 239.) “ ‘[W]here several judgments and/or orders

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occurring close in time are separately appealable (e.g., judgment and order awarding
attorney fees), each appealable judgment and order must be expressly specified—in either
a single notice of appeal or multiple notices of appeal—in order to be reviewable on
appeal.’ ” (DeZerega v. Meggs (2000) 83 Cal.App.4th 28, 43; see Morton v. Wagner,
supra, 156 Cal.App.4th at p. 967 [declining to address a judgment granting an injunction
where the notice of appeal identified only the post-judgment order denying the
appellant’s motion for reconsideration and designating him a vexatious litigant].)
Here, the notice of appeal identifies only the trial court’s June 26, 2024 order
granting the Chuangs’s motion for attorney fees. Thus, our jurisdiction on appeal is
limited to that order.
B. Attorney Fees
Espinoza contends the attorney fees award was unreasonable, alleging that the
award included the time daughter spent on the anti-SLAPP motion. Nothing in the record
supports this contention.
A prevailing defendant on an anti-SLAPP motion is entitled to recover reasonable
attorney fees and costs for (1) bringing the anti-SLAPP motion; (2) responding to an
appeal of the order granting the anti-SLAPP motion; and (3) bringing an attorney fees
motion after the trial court grants the anti-SLAPP motion. (Code of Civ. Proc., § 425.16,
subd. (c)(1); Christian Research Institute v. Alnor (2008) 165 Cal.App.4th 1315, 1321;
Wanland v. Law Offices of Mastagni, Holstedt & Chiurazzi (2006) 141 Cal.App.4th 15,
21.) “The reasonableness of attorney fees is within the discretion of the trial court, to be
determined from a consideration of such factors as the nature of the litigation, the
complexity of the issues, the experience and expertise of counsel and the amount of time
involved.” (Wilkerson v. Sullivan (2002) 99 Cal.App.4th 443, 448.) The appellant
carries the burden to affirmatively demonstrate the trial court committed an error that
justifies reversal of the judgment. (Jameson v. Desta (2018) 5 Cal.5th 594, 609.)

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“We review an anti-SLAPP attorney fee[s] award under the deferential abuse of
discretion standard. [Citations.] The trial court’s fee determination ‘will not be disturbed
unless the appellate court is convinced that it is clearly wrong.’ ” (Christian Research
Institute v. Alnor, supra, 165 Cal.App.4th at p. 1322.) In such a review, we indulge all
inferences in favor of the trial court’s order and presume the attorney fees award is
correct. (569 East County Boulevard LLC v. Backcountry Against the Dump, Inc. (2016)
6 Cal.App.5th 426, 433-434.)
Here, Morris’s declaration of his experience, hourly rate, and time spent on the
anti-SLAPP motion supports the trial court’s finding that the amount of attorney fees
requested was reasonable. The record offers no support for Espinoza’s contention that
Morris’s hours included undisclosed time of daughter. According to Espinoza, the first
13 pages of the anti-SLAPP motion contain arguments from the Chuangs’s cross-
complaint and daughter wrote a paragraph in Linda Chuang’s declaration supporting the
anti-SLAPP motion. But he cites nothing in the record showing daughter drafted either
the cross-complaint or the declaration. Espinoza further claims “the Appendix attached
to the motion contains more than 100 pages of allegations and documents that were
previously written by” daughter. It is unclear which motion Espinoza refers to here. The
record he cites in support contains the signature page to the Chuangs’s motion to strike
Espinoza’s memorandum of costs, Linda Chuang’s declaration supporting that motion,
the Chuangs’s motion to confirm an order adopting a stipulation and waiver issued by the
department of insurance, proof of electronic service of those two motions, a minute order
on the Chuangs’s motion for attorney fees, and a notice of ruling on the Chuangs’s
motion for attorney fees. None of these documents were part of the anti-SLAPP motion
and they were all filed months after the trial court granted the anti-SLAPP motion.
Espinoza further contends Morris’s representation was limited to attending
hearings on the anti-SLAPP motion, citing Morris’s notices of limited scope
representation. But only one of these notices was filed before the anti-SLAPP motion

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and that notice concerned a hearing on an unrelated motion. Thus, these notices do not
undermine Morris’s declaration that he spent 18.2 hours drafting the anti-SLAPP motion.
We also reject Espinoza’s claim that daughter “served the [anti-SLAPP] motion
and reply briefs, thus she was in control of the litigation, not . . . Morris.” Espinoza does
not explain how service of legal documents, a task routinely performed by non-attorneys
such as legal assistants, constitutes control of the litigation.
We further reject Espinoza’s contention that the Chuangs’s attorney fees motion
was untimely. This contention is entirely premised on the claim that the anti-SLAPP
motion was untimely, which we have no jurisdiction to review.
We decline to address Espinoza’s contention raised for the first time in his reply
brief that the trial court failed to apply the lodestar method. (United Grand Corp. v.
Malibu Hillbillies, LLC (2019) 36 Cal.App.5th 142, 158.) In sum, Espinoza fails to carry
his burden to demonstrate affirmative error on appeal.
C. Motion for Sanctions
The Chuangs moved to sanction Espinoza’s counsel Terry Hunt under Code of
Civil Procedure section 907 and California Rules of Court, rule 8.276 on the ground that
the arguments on appeal are meritless and Hunt repeatedly misrepresents the record and
the holding in our prior opinion in this case. We deny this motion.
“Sanctions may be imposed for frivolous appeals where the appeal was prosecuted
for an improper motive or the appeal indisputably has no merit. ([Code Civ. Proc.,]
§ 907; Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.276(a)(1).)” (Malek Media Group, LLC v. AXQG
Corp. (2020) 58 Cal.App.5th 817, 834.) But we must interpret frivolousness “to avoid a
serious chilling effect on the assertion of litigants’ rights on appeal.” (In re Marriage of
Flaherty (1982) 31 Cal.3d 637, 650.) For that reason, “[a]n appeal that is simply without
merit is not by definition frivolous and should not incur sanctions.” (Ibid.) “Whether to
impose appellate sanctions is a matter within our discretion.” (Citizens for Amending
Proposition L v. City of Pomona (2018) 28 Cal.App.5th 1159, 1194.)

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Here, much of the alleged misrepresentation concerns the trial court’s ruling on
the Chuangs’s anti-SLAPP motion that we have no jurisdiction to review on appeal. To
the extent Hunt incorrectly claims the record reflects daughter drafted most of the anti-
SLAPP motion, we decline to find those claims sanctionable.
DISPOSITION
The trial court’s June 26, 2024 order granting the Chuangs’s motion for attorney
fees is affirmed. The Chuang’s motion for sanctions is denied. The Chuangs shall
recover their costs on appeal. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.278(a)(1), (2).)

/s/
MESIWALA, J.

We concur:

/s/
ROBIE, Acting P. J.

/s/
KRAUSE, J.

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