Filed 8/18/26 Kenne v. Community Corp. of Santa Monica CA2/3
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on
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8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for
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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION THREE
KATHLEEN A. KENNE, B348722
Plaintiff and Appellant, (Los Angeles County
Super. Ct. No. SC128551)
v.
COMMUNITY CORP. OF SANTA
MONICA, INC., et al.,
Defendants and Respondents.
APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of
Los Angeles County, Lisa Sepe-Wiesenfeld, Judge. Affirmed.
Kathleen A. Kenne, in pro. per., for Plaintiff and Appellant.
Schonbuch Hallissy and Bernadette Castillo Brouses for
Defendants and Respondents.
‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗
This appeal—appellant Kathleen Kenne’s third—
challenges a postjudgment order awarding defendants
approximately $35,000 in appellate attorney fees. We find no
error, and thus we affirm.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
I. Background.
Kenne, a former tenant of Community Corporation of Santa
Monica (CCSM), filed the present action against CCSM and five
of its officers and employees (collectively, defendants) in
December 2017. Kenne’s 109-page complaint alleged that
defendants evicted her in retaliation for exercising her rights “to
speak, associate, organize, petition, inquire, request, dispute,
complain, demand, inspect and investigate” CCSM’s management
of Kenne’s apartment complex. It asserted 14 causes of action,
including breach of lease, retaliatory eviction, and violation of the
Santa Monica City Charter.
In October 2021, the trial court granted terminating
sanctions against Kenne. It entered a judgment of dismissal in
November 2021.
Kenne appealed from the judgment (Kenne v. Community
Corp. of Santa Monica et al. (April 26, 2024, B317722) [nonpub.
opn.]). This court affirmed and awarded defendants their
appellate costs.
II. Defendants’ attorney fee motion.
In August 2024, defendants filed a motion for attorney fees
of $106,788. Defendants noted that an award of appellate costs
includes appellate attorney fees if authorized by contract, statute,
or law. (Code Civ. Proc., § 1033.5, subd. (a)(10).) Pursuant to
Civil Code section 1942.5, subdivision (i), a court “shall award
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reasonable attorney’s fees to the prevailing party” in an action for
retaliatory eviction if either party requested attorney fees.
Santa Monica Municipal Code, article XXIII, section 2304
(SMMC § 2304) similarly provides for an award of attorney fees
to a prevailing party in a wrongful eviction action.
Defendants asserted that Kenne’s complaint alleged
wrongful eviction in violation of Civil Code section 1942.5 and
SMMC section 2304. All of Kenne’s causes of action “flow[ed]
from the allegation that they wrongfully retaliated and harassed
Kenne for her tenant-related activities,” and the judgment
against Kenne was an unqualified win for defendants. Further,
Kenne sought attorney fees in her complaint, and defendants
sought attorney fees in their answer. Defendants thus contended
that they were entitled to an award of their appellate attorney
fees.
In a declaration submitted in support of defendants’
motion, attorney Bernadette Brouses, a partner with Schonbuch
Hallissy, LLP (formerly Daniels, Fine, Israel, Schonbuch &
Lebovits, LLP) asserted that her firm had expended 110 hours
defending the judgment on appeal and she expected to expend an
additional 22 hours drafting and arguing the attorney fee motion.
Although Brouses’s firm had negotiated reduced rates with
defendants ($235/hour for Brouses, $170/hour for associates, and
$95/hour for law clerks), the prevailing rates for attorneys of
comparable skill and experience in the Los Angeles area was
$809/hour for partners, $672/hour for associates, and $412/hour
for law clerks or paralegals. Thus, defendants sought attorney
fees of $106,788 (132 hours x $809/hour).
Kenne filed a motion to strike the attorney fee motion,
contending it was not timely served. In support, she stated in a
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declaration that defendants never served her with the fee motion
or supporting documents “at any time before, on or after
August 23, 2024.” (Italics and bolding omitted.) Separately, she
asked the court to sanction defendants $100,000 for their alleged
violations of the service requirements.
Kenne also filed a substantive opposition to defendants’ fee
motion. Among other things, she contended that defendants did
not prevail on the complaint; although Civil Code section 1942.5
permitted an award of attorney fees to the prevailing party in a
retaliatory eviction case, only one cause of action alleged
retaliatory eviction; and any award of fees pursuant to Civil Code
section 1942.5 had to be apportioned among the 14 causes of
action and the five defendants.
On November 22, 2024, the trial court continued the
hearing and ordered defendants to re-serve Kenne with the
moving papers.
Defendants filed an opposition to Kenne’s motion to strike
and for sanctions in April 2025. In a supporting declaration,
attorney Brouses stated that her assistant had electronically
served Kenne with the fee motion at the email address that
appeared on Kenne’s pleadings and at which they had served
Kenne for years. After receiving the motion to strike, Brouses
confirmed with her assistant that the email had not “ ‘bounce[d]’
back.” Brouses further stated that her assistant was not
currently able to submit her own declaration because she was on
medical leave through June 21, but that if requested by the court
her assistant would submit a declaration after her return from
medical leave. Attached to Brouses’s declaration was proof of
electronic service on Kenne of the fee motion by Brouses’s
assistant, Charlene Washington, on August 23, 2024, and a copy
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of Washington’s August 23, 2024 email to Kenne transmitting the
fee motion and supporting documents and providing a link to
copies of the documents in a Dropbox folder.
On June 13, 2025, the trial court (1) denied Kenne’s
motions to strike and for sanctions, and (2) granted defendants’
motion for fees. As to sanctions, the court said it would have no
basis to sanction defendants for a purported failure to timely
serve a motion; instead, it would simply deny the motion as
untimely. As to the motion to strike, the court said there was
evidence that Brouses’s legal assistant served Kenne with the
attorney fee motion by email on August 23, 2024, and that Kenne
had previously requested email service of all documents and
pleadings. Moreover, the court had continued the hearing on the
attorney fee motion to address any service issues, and Kenne’s
opposition to the fee motion, which addressed the motion on the
merits, “makes clear that [Kenne] ultimately received the motion
and had sufficient time to oppose the motion, and if she did not,
she had sufficient time to obtain a copy of the motion.”
With regard to defendants’ fee request, the court noted that
Code of Civil Procedure section 1033.5 permits a party to recover
reasonable attorney fees when authorized by contract, statute, or
law. Kenne’s complaint alleged retaliatory eviction in violation of
Civil Code section 1942.5, and thus defendants were entitled to
recover attorney fees under that section. The court declined to
apportion defendants’ attorney fees among Kenne’s various
causes of action because “[Kenne’s] retaliatory eviction claims
were the basis of the entire action . . . [and] it is not clear how the
Court could apportion the work based on the nature of the work
performed for this appeal.”
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The court stated that it had reviewed the billing sheets and
found that the work performed by defendants’ attorneys was
reasonable. However, the court declined to award fees at the rate
of $809 per hour as requested, finding this was an “unreasonably
high rate given the nature of this action and the nature of the
work performed.” Instead, the court awarded fees “at the rate of
$300 per hour.” The court further excluded 3.1 hours billed by a
law clerk, and awarded six hours (rather than the 22 hours
requested) for time spent preparing the fee motion. The court
thus awarded fees for 119.3 hours, at a rate of $300 per hour, for
a total of $35,790.
Kenne timely appealed from the June 13, 2025 order.1
DISCUSSION
I. Legal standards.
Code of Civil Procedure section 1033.5, subdivision (a)(10)
provides that attorney fees are recoverable as costs if authorized
by “contract,” “statute,” or “law.” Civil Code section 1942.5
prohibits retaliatory evictions, and further provides that the
court “shall award reasonable attorney’s fees to the prevailing
party” in a retaliatory eviction action seeking damages “if either
party requests attorney’s fees upon the initiation of the action.”
(Id., subds. (a), (i).)
An attorney fee award is calculated using the lodestar
method. Under that method, the trial court “first multipl[ies] the
number of hours reasonably expended on the litigation by a
1 Kenne separately appealed from the costs award. We
affirmed. (Kenne v. Community Corp. of Santa Monica et al.
(Jan. 30, 2026, B345478) [nonpub. opn.].)
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reasonable hourly rate of compensation.” (Syers Properties III,
Inc. v. Rankin (2014) 226 Cal.App.4th 691, 697.) “The amount of
an attorney fee to be awarded is a matter within the sound
discretion of the trial court.” (Akins v. Enterprise Rent-A-Car Co.
(2000) 79 Cal.App.4th 1127, 1134.) Accordingly, our review
“must be highly deferential to the views of the trial court.”
(Nichols v. City of Taft (2007) 155 Cal.App.4th 1233, 1239.)
California Rules of Court, rule 3.1702(c)(1) and 8.278(c)(1),
set out the procedure for seeking appellate attorney fees—
namely, by filing a motion for fees in the superior court within
40 days after the issuance of the remittitur.
We review an attorney fee award for an abuse of discretion.
(G.F. Galaxy Corp. v. Johnson (2024) 100 Cal.App.5th 542, 551;
Valenti v. City of San Diego (2023) 94 Cal.App.5th 218, 231.)
Under this standard, “ ‘ “[t]he trial court’s findings of fact are
reviewed for substantial evidence, its conclusions of law are
reviewed de novo, and its application of the law to the facts is
reversible only if arbitrary and capricious.” ’ (Gaines v. Fidelity
National Title Ins. Co. (2016) 62 Cal.4th 1081, 1100.)”
(G.F. Galaxy, at p. 551.)
II. Kenne has not established that the trial court abused
its discretion by awarding defendants attorney fees.
Kenne asserts that the trial court abused its discretion by
awarding attorney fees because the award was not supported by
fact or law. Her contention lacks merit.
First, Kenne contends that the trial court erred by
purporting to award fees under Code of Civil Procedure section
1033.5 because that section does not authorize awards of
appellate attorney fees. Kenne cites no authority for this
proposition, thus forfeiting it. (Wiley v. Kern High School Dist.
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(2024) 107 Cal.App.5th 765, 772, fn. 6 (Wiley) [absence of citation
to authority forfeits contention]; In re Marriage of Falcone & Fyke
(2008) 164 Cal.App.4th 814, 830 [same].) On the merits, Code of
Civil Procedure section 1033.5 authorizes an award of attorney
fees when authorized by contract, statute, or law, without
distinguishing between fees incurred in the trial court and on
appeal. A statute authorizing an award of attorney fees in the
trial court “ordinarily authorizes an award of fees incurred on
appeal unless the statute specifically provides otherwise.” (Baer
v. Tedder (2025) 115 Cal.App.5th 1139, 1150.) Code of Civil
Procedure section 1033.5 does not so provide. Thus, as in the
trial court, attorney fees on appeal are recoverable under Code of
Civil Procedure section 1033.5 if authorized by contract, statute,
or law. (Ibid.; see also Eisenberg et al., Cal. Practice Guide: Civil
Appeals and Writs (The Rutter Group 2025), ¶ 14:113 [as in trial
court litigation, attorney fees on appeal are recoverable if
authorized for contract, statute, or law pursuant to Code Civ.
Proc., § 1033.5].)
Second, Kenne asserts the trial court erroneously believed
that an award of attorney fees was mandatory, not optional. As
best we are able to discern, Kenne’s claim is based on the
language of the trial court’s order—that defendants “are entitled
to fees here.” (Italics added.) We do not understand this
statement to mean that the trial court believed it was compelled
to award fees, but rather that defendants had demonstrated an
entitlement to fees under the facts of this case. This accurately
states the law.
Third, Kenne asserts that defendants were not entitled to
attorney fees on appeal because they did not serve her with the
motion and supporting documents within 40 days of the issuance
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of the remittitur, as the statute required. But the trial court
concluded otherwise, and we must uphold that conclusion if it is
supported by substantial evidence. (E.g., Akella v. Regents of
University of California (2021) 61 Cal.App.5th 801, 814 [“ ‘Only if
no reasonable person could reach the conclusion reached by the
[trial court], based on the entire record before it, will a court
conclude that the [court’s] findings are not supported by
substantial evidence’ ”]; McDermott Will & Emery LLP v.
Superior Court (2017) 10 Cal.App.5th 1083, 1106 [“Under the
substantial evidence standard of review, we may not reverse a
trial court’s ruling unless the appellant shows the evidence
required the trial court to reach a different conclusion”].) Here,
substantial evidence supports the trial court’s conclusion that
defendants timely served Kenne with the fee motion. The proofs
of service attached to the fee motion and declaration attested
under penalty of perjury that Kenne was electronically served
with the motion and supporting documents on August 23, 2024,
which was less than 40 days after the remittitur was issued.
Further, in opposition to Kenne’s motions to strike and for
sanctions, attorney Brouses stated in a declaration that her
assistant had electronically served Kenne with the fee motion at
the email address that appeared on Kenne’s pleadings and at
which they had served Kenne for years. Brouses further stated
that after she received the motion to strike, she confirmed with
her assistant that the email had not “ ‘bounce[d]’ back.” And,
Brouses explained that her assistant was not submitting her own
declaration because she was on medical leave, but that she would
do so at the court’s request after she returned from leave. Taken
together, the proof of service and declaration constitute
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substantial evidence in support of the court’s finding that Kenne
was properly served.
Fourth, Kenne contends the trial court erred by failing to
apportion defendants’ attorney fees among her various causes of
action—that is, between the causes of action that alleged
retaliatory eviction and those that did not. We do not agree.
When a claim for which attorney fees are recoverable is joined
with claims for which such fees are not recoverable, the trial
court may apportion the fees between them. Our Supreme Court
has explained: “A litigant may not increase his recovery of
attorney’s fees by joining a cause of action in which attorney’s
fees are not recoverable to one in which an award is proper. . . .
[¶] Conversely, [the] joinder of causes of action should not dilute
[the] right to attorney’s fees. Attorney’s fees need not be
apportioned when incurred for representation on an issue common
to both a cause of action in which fees are proper and one in which
they are not allowed.” (Reynolds Metals Co. v. Alperson (1979)
25 Cal.3d 124, 129–130, italics added; see also Hjelm v.
Prometheus Real Estate Group, Inc. (2016) 3 Cal.App.5th 1155,
1178 [“ ‘ “Apportionment is not required when the claims for
relief are so intertwined that it would be impracticable, if not
impossible, to separate the attorney’s time into compensable and
noncompensable units” ’ ”]; Drouin v. Fleetwood Enterprises
(1985) 163 Cal.App.3d 486, 493 [“Attorneys fees need not be
apportioned between distinct causes of action where plaintiff’s
various claims involve a common core of facts or are based on
related legal theories”].)
Here, Kenne asserts that the trial court erred by
concluding that it need not apportion defendants’ fees because all
of Kenne’s causes of action were based on the same essential
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allegations—that is, that her eviction was retaliatory. Kenne
urges this was error because “only 2 (two) causes” of the 109-page
complaint addressed retaliatory eviction. In fact, claims of
retaliatory eviction pervade Kenne’s complaint. The complaint’s
introductory allegations are illustrative:
“17. . . . Defendants (and their attorneys) conspired to,
among other things, to actually, constructively and/or tortuously
[sic] evict Plaintiff from her long-term apartment home in the
City of Santa Monica, and her possessory interest in the Property
after 24 year[s], . . . in direct retaliation for and for no other good
cause, based on Plaintiff’s oral and written complaints, petitions,
investigations, inspections, inquiries, and requests for
documents, and requests for certain legal, financial and
accounting information . . . .
“18. Said ongoing conspiracy, and retaliation since in and
before January 2016 has ultimately resulted in the filing,
commencement, and prosecution of the limited unlawful detainer
action filed on behalf of [CCSM] by Defendants . . . . Said UD
action was filed against Plaintiff without any just cause . . . . [¶]
. . . [¶]
“20. The UD action, and all prior acts by Defendants since
in or about September 2013 to date, was in direct retaliation for
Plaintiff’s ongoing and continuous exercise of her protected legal
rights to speak, associate, organize, petition, inquire, request,
dispute, complain, demand, inspect and investigate CCSM’s
intentional or grossly reckless breaches, acts, errors, omissions,
torts, fraud, extortion and concealment, by Plaintiff to
Defendants, and with her long-term co-tenants, neighbors, and
various other City of Santa Monica and County of Los Angeles
governmental offices, departments, and agencies . . . since in and
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before October 5, 2014, and continuing until as recently as
December 15, 2017, including, inter alia, violations of Civil Code
§§ 1942.5 and 1945, [Code of Civil Procedure] §§1161 (3), 1161.5,
the local Santa Monica eviction-control ordinance Measure RR,
and the City of Santa Monica’s longstanding public policy against
Landlord-Tenant Harassment.
“21. . . . [T]he filing of the UD action, and all acts by
Defendants immediately before and after the commencement of
the UD action to date, were done in bad-faith and as a poorly
disguised pretext for their true motives, which is, inter alia, to
wrongfully evict Plaintiff and regain possession of her unit after
24 years to increase the rent, remove Plaintiff, and specifically to
silence Plaintiff, to prevent Plaintiff from assisting or advising
her co-tenants, and to specifically retaliate against Plaintiff for
her lawful exercise of her legal rights, and those of her co-
tenants, against Defendants including CCSM as set forth in this
Complaint. [¶] . . . [¶]
“23. Said UD action is not for any legitimate reason, but is
intended to ultimately silence Plaintiff and prevent her from
addressing or petitioning redress of her grievances against
Defendants . . . and to ultimately cause Plaintiff to be
constructively, wrongfully or actually evicted from her home of
over 24 years, based solely on Defendants’ falsified, self-serving,
legally and factually unsupported notices and letters to Plaintiff,
as part of a larger conspiracy, a premediated pretext and
subterfuge, to avoid certain tenant concerns and complaints, to
ignore necessary repairs, and to continue to fraudulently conceal
certain financial information from Plaintiff, by creating a
material breach when none exists, and none has existed or been
caused by Plaintiff for over 24 years.”
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In short, allegations of retaliatory eviction run throughout
Kenne’s complaint. The trial court thus did not abuse its
discretion by refusing to apportion defendants’ attorney fees
between those incurred to litigate Kenne’s Civil Code
section 1942.5 claims and those incurred to litigate other causes
of action.
Fifth, Kenne alleges that the trial court erred by awarding
attorney fees for work not related to the appeal. Kenne does not
identify any such fees with specificity, and thus she has forfeited
this claim. “In challenging attorney fees as excessive because too
many hours of work are claimed, it is the burden of the
challenging party to point to the specific items challenged, with a
sufficient argument and citations to the evidence. General
arguments that fees claimed are excessive, duplicative, or
unrelated do not suffice.” (Premier Medical Management
Systems, Inc. v. California Ins. Guarantee Assn. (2008)
163 Cal.App.4th 550, 564; see also Sonoma Land Trust v.
Thompson (2021) 63 Cal.App.5th 978, 985 [quoting Premier].)
Sixth, Kenne contends that the trial court erred by
awarding attorney fees at $300 per hour because Brouses’s actual
billing rate was $235 per hour. But as noted above, an attorney
fee award is calculated using the lodestar method—that is,
multiplying the number of hours reasonably expended by a
“reasonable hourly rate of compensation.” (Syers Properties III,
supra, 226 Cal.App.4th at p. 697.) The reasonable hourly rate “is
that prevailing in the community for similar work.” (Tidrick v.
FCA US LLC (2025) 112 Cal.App.5th 1147, 1157; see also Baer v.
Tedder, supra, 115 Cal.App.5th at p. 1159 [same].) Kenne does
not suggest that $300 per hour is greater than the prevailing
hourly rate in the relevant community, but only that it is more
13
than counsel had agreed to charge these defendants. A trial
court does not abuse its discretion by awarding greater hourly
rates than those an attorney charges her client so long as the rate
is reasonable. (See, e.g., Chacon v. Litke (2010) 181 Cal.App.4th
1234, 1260 [“ ‘The reasonable market value of the attorney’s
services is the measure of a reasonable hourly rate. [Citations.]
This standard applies regardless of whether the attorneys
claiming fees charge nothing for their services, charge at below-
market or discounted rates, represent the client on a straight
contingent fee basis, or are in-house counsel’ ”]; Baer, at p. 1159
[amount client agreed to pay lawyer “does not . . . place a cap on
the amount of an attorney’s fees award”].)
Finally, Kenne contends that the trial court erred by
awarding appellate attorney fees because defendants “had no
underlying pre-trial [fee] award.” Kenne’s contention assumes
that appellate attorney fees can be awarded only if a trial court
also awards attorney fees for work done in connection with trial
court proceedings—but Kenne cites no authority to support this
claim. The contention therefore is forfeited. (Wiley, supra,
107 Cal.App.5th at p. 772, fn. 6; In re Marriage of Falcone &
Fyke, supra, 164 Cal.App.4th at p. 830.)
For all the foregoing reasons, the trial court did not abuse
its discretion by awarding defendants attorney fees of $35,790.
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DISPOSITION
The June 13, 2025 order is affirmed. Defendants are
awarded their appellate costs.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL
REPORTS
ASHWORTH, J.*
We concur:
ADAMS, Acting P. J.
HANASONO, J.
* Retired Judge of the El Dorado County Superior Court,
assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of
the California Constitution.
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