Borisoff v. The Pullman Group CA2/1
Pullman relies on Roberts v. Packard, Packard & Johnson (2013) 217 Cal.App.4th 822 for the proposition that any fee award for Borisoff’s success in arbitration is premature. Roberts is inapposite. There, an arbitration agreement provided that the prevailing party in “cases” brought under the False Claims Act, 31 United States Code section 3729 et seq. would receive “statutory” costs and expenses and, in another portion of the agreement, “all” costs and expenses. (Roberts, at p. 827.) The issue was whether the trial court properly awarded statutory attorney fees to defendants for prevailing on their petition to compel arbitration. (There had as yet been no arbitration.) Relying on a definition of the word “action” found in Civil Code section 1717, we held that a petition to compel arbitration is not itself an action, and “the determination of the prevailing parties must await the resolution of plaintiffs’ causes of action by an arbitrator. Then, the trial court can
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