Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. v. Younan Properties, Inc.

Dist. Ct. did not err in conditioning grant of plaintiff’s motion to voluntarily dismiss without prejudice its breach of contract action by requiring plaintiff to pay defendants $11,000 out of requested $56,000 in legal fees associated with defendants’ claim that plaintiff lacked subject-matter jurisdiction, after Dist. Ct. had found that instant parties were not completely diverse. While defendants argued that they were entitled to remaining portion of requested legal fees that arose out of other claims in their motion to dismiss, which included claim that one defendant had not been properly served with lawsuit, Dist. Ct. could properly find that $45,000 fee was excessive for said legal work, and defendants could not have otherwise prevailed on lack of service issue, where they had waived it by failing to include it in their responsive pleading to complaint.