Moran v. OSO VALLEY GREENBELT ASS'N

[158]

Opinion

MOORE, J.

Angela Moran sued the Oso Valley Greenbelt Association (Association) for failure to produce the Association’s minutes for inspection. Although the court found the board of directors’ meeting minutes had been “wrongfully” withheld and ordered the minutes produced, the court declined to award Moran her attorney fees and costs pursuant to Corporations Code section 8337. Moran appeals this decision, arguing that without reimbursement of attorney fees and costs, she has suffered a pyrrhic victory. The Association argues the court did not abuse its discretion, because, inter alia, the delay was reasonable and mostly attributable to Moran. We disagree with this conclusion, because once the court concluded the Association acted “wrongfully,” denying attorney fees and costs without further explanation was an abuse of discretion. We therefore reverse and remand.

I

Facts

Angela Moran is a member of the Association, a common interest development under the jurisdiction of the Davis-Stirling Common Interest Development Act. (Civ. Code, § 1350 et seq.) In October 1998, Moran sent a letter to the Association’s management company, CC&R Management, asking for the Association to contact her “to schedule a convenient time” to review the board of directors’ meeting minutes.

The parties sharply dispute the events that followed regarding who responded to letters and who did not, and whose phone calls were returned or ignored. Suffice it to say that each blames the other for the failure to resolve this dispute at its early stages, and attorneys became involved. The parties also questioned each other’s motives. Moran was a paralegal employed by the attorneys representing her, Neuland, Nordberg & Andrews, and the Association suspected she was seeking the minutes on behalf of the law firm rather than in her interest as a member. Moran believed that the Association might not be keeping proper records or was actively hiding them to conceal some impropriety.

By December 1998, Moran had yet to review the minutes. Based upon what they believed was a scheduled appointment, Moran and her counsel drove 45 minutes to CC&R Management’s offices and were told their