DiMare v. Taylor
This appeal involves a fee dispute between two attorneys who represented a client in a wrongful death-product liability action involving a death that took place in 2006. Unfortunately, this appeal does not allow us to adjudicate with finality the division of fees between the competing attorneys because although it has been four years since the two attorneys first commenced their joint representation, their fee dispute is not yet ripe for resolution. Instead, we address warring anti-SLAPP motions filed by the two attorneys, along with related orders, leaving for another day the award to the parties of their respective shares of the proceeds from their legal work.
Carla DiMare (doing business as the Law Office of Carla DiMare) appeals from four orders: (1) granting the motion of defendants John Taylor and the law firm of Taylor & Ring, LLP to strike several causes of action from DiMare’s complaint arising from a fee sharing dispute because those claims arose from Taylor’s First Amendment-protected activity and therefore qualified as Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation (Code Civ. Proc., § 425.16; SLAPP)[1]; (2) denying DiMare’s motion to strike the Taylor defendants’ cross-complaint against her under the same provision; (3) awarding the Taylor defendants attorney fees for their successful SLAPP motion; and (4) denying her request for a preliminary injunction ordering the release to her of a share of the attorney fees. We affirm all four orders.
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