Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Pharilyn Chhang sued her landlord, West Coast USA Properties LLC, the property’s owner, and the property’s insurance broker, Dibuduo & Defendis Insurance Brokers, LLC (D&D), alleging housing discrimination and wrongful eviction under the federal Fair Housing Act and California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), along with related state-law claims.
D&D moved to dismiss the claims against it; the court denied that motion, finding Chhang had adequately pleaded her claims. The case proceeded through discovery to cross-motions for summary judgment, and in March 2026 the court granted summary judgment in D&D’s favor while denying the other parties’ competing motions. Chhang and the remaining defendants later settled, and the case was closed in July 2026. D&D then moved for an award of more than $150,000 in attorneys’ fees against Chhang, arguing that her Fair Housing Act and FEHA claims against it had been frivolous from the outset.
The Court’s Holding
Magistrate Judge Stanley A. Boone denied the fee motion. Under the Supreme Court’s decision in Christiansburg Garment Co. v. EEOC, a prevailing defendant in a civil rights case may recover attorneys’ fees only if the plaintiff’s claims were frivolous, unreasonable, or without foundation — a demanding standard reserved for cases where the result was obvious from the start, not satisfied merely because the plaintiff eventually lost.
The court rejected D&D’s central argument that losing at summary judgment proved the claims had been frivolous all along, explaining that the Ninth Circuit draws a sharp line between a case that had no foundation in law or fact at the outset and one where a plaintiff simply failed to produce enough evidence to survive summary judgment. The court pointed to its own earlier order denying D&D’s motion to dismiss — which had found Chhang’s complaint adequately stated FHA and FEHA claims — as evidence that her case was not groundless when filed. Applying Christiansburg’s warning against “post hoc reasoning,” the court found that D&D had not met its heavy burden and denied the fee request in full.
Key Takeaways
- Losing a civil rights case at summary judgment does not, by itself, make the case “frivolous” for purposes of a prevailing defendant’s attorneys’ fees motion under the Fair Housing Act or FEHA.
- Courts applying Christiansburg Garment Co. v. EEOC must assess frivolousness as of the time the complaint was filed, not with the benefit of hindsight after the plaintiff loses.
- A court’s earlier order denying a motion to dismiss is strong evidence that the plaintiff’s claims had a legal and factual foundation at the outset of the case.
- Defendants in housing-discrimination and employment-discrimination cases face a high bar to recover fees, reserved for “exceptional circumstances” under Ninth Circuit precedent.
Why It Matters
The order is a useful data point for California housing and employment defense counsel weighing whether to pursue a fee motion after winning summary judgment: a win on the merits, without more, will rarely support a fee award against the plaintiff. Practitioners should look for independent evidence that a claim was legally baseless from day one — not just that it ultimately failed — before investing in a fee motion likely to meet the same fate as D&D’s $150,000 request here.
For plaintiffs’ counsel in fair housing and civil rights cases, the ruling reaffirms that losing a case, even on summary judgment, does not expose a client to a large fee award so long as the claims were plausible when filed.