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Dispute centred on a Sausalito property
The legal battle took another turn when he sought $90,010 from his former partner to cover his legal expenses. In its October 30, 2026, order in Fotsch v. Shroder, available in Justia, the US District Court for the Northern District of California granted the request in part, ordering Mackenzie Fotsch to pay Matthew Shroder $66,192.50 while rejecting his demand for additional, unspecified fees. The application covered work by three lawyers and a paralegal, whose hourly rates ranged from $225 to $900. She proposed limiting the award to $3,593, or at most $7,129.50, based on the portions of the anti-SLAPP motion that had succeeded. The court consequently approved $40,887.50 in attorney fees for the anti-SLAPP proceedings. It allowed the full $3,605 in Westlaw research expenses, finding that the charges were supported by itemised records and related to the legal issues. The judge separately examined the $40,720 requested for preparing the attorney-fee motion. The work involved 66.8 hours, including 63.4 hours by the principal drafter, nearly twice the 33.9 hours he had spent drafting the original anti-SLAPP motion.
Because the court had allowed her claims to survive, fotsch challenged the amount, arguing that Shroder had achieved only limited success. The court therefore reduced the principal lawyer’s claimed time by 50 per cent, bringing the recoverable fees for the fee application to $21,700.
Rather than calculating fees solely according to the proportion of allegations struck, the court deducted time associated with unsuccessful portions of the motion. A dispute over a shared home can continue long after a relationship ends, particularly when disagreements over property ownership turn into lengthy legal proceedings. In Sausalito, California, a former couple’s fight over a house led to a separate dispute over attorney fees after one partner partly succeeded in getting allegations against him struck from a lawsuit. Shroder argued that certain allegations in Fotsch’s complaint relied on his protected litigation activities. The court partly agreed, striking portions of four allegations to the extent that they made his filing, service and prosecution of the unlawful-detainer action a basis for liability. Those allegations could remain in the complaint as background and evidence. However, it refused to dismiss the entire claims and allowed the unjust-enrichment claim to proceed. She also questioned the billing records, the hours claimed and the expenses associated with preparing the fee application. She also opposed the research charges and the request for unspecified future fees. The judge recognised that Shroder had not secured everything he requested. The court had rejected his attempt to strike entire claims and had allowed the unjust-enrichment claim to continue. However, it found that removing the unlawful-detainer proceedings as a basis for liability and damages had materially narrowed the issues in the lawsuit. It also removed an hour spent correcting an over-length reply brief. The court considered this excessive. It also noted that parts of the application repeated arguments already decided and included discussions of the lawyers’ professional backgrounds and criticism of opposing counsel.