Enforcing a judgment is hard enough before appeals and appeal bonds enter the picture. Unfortunately, the published opinion in Wertheim, LLC v. Currency Corp. (D2d1 Oct. 14, 2021) 2021 WL 4785575 (nos. B304655, B310650) now takes that picture even further out of focus. The upshot is that the defendant fully satisfied a judgment, but that was not enough: the plaintiff intended to seek more costs, and the defendant did not "condition" its payment on its constituting full satisfaction of the judgment.
Held: contrary tot Gray1 CPB, LLC v. SCC Acquisitions, Inc. (2015) 233 Cal.App.4th 882, 891, the plaintiff could continue filing motions for more enforcement costs even after the defendant had paid the entire amount of the judgment, interest, and costs then due.
Takeaways: (1) Don't wait to enforce an appeal bond — you have a year after the appeal, that ought to be plenty. (2) When seeking judgment-enforcement fees, the touchstone is "necessarily incurred," not the more familiar and relaxed standard under Civil Code section 1717. (3) If you are a defendant trying to satisfy a judgment, make it clear that is your intent, because Wertheim throws existing law on this point into doubt.