13
The Court of Appeal affirmed the attorneys’ fees award,
concluding as to the brokers that although they were not parties
to the underlying contract, the two requirements for an award of
postjudgment attorneys’ fees articulated by Jaffe, supra,
165 Cal.App.4th at page 935 had been met. (Cardinale, supra,
222 Cal.App.4th at p. 1025.) The court explained, “While in the
usual scheme of things the target of a fee motion under
section 685.040 is presumably the original judgment debtor, the
Legislature did not so restrict the provision’s scope.” (Id. at
p. 1025.) The court continued, “Nor is it critical here that the
[brokers] were not parties to the contractual fee provision
between Miller and Cardinale. As Jaffe explains, ‘[g]enerally,
when a judgment is rendered in a case involving a contract that
includes an attorney fees and costs provision, the “judgment
extinguishes all further contractual rights, including the
contractual attorney fees clause.”’ [Citation.] . . . [The brokers’]
status as strangers to Cardinale’s contract with Miller does not
immunize them from liability under section 685.040.” (Id. at
p. 1026.)
Although we have reservations whether section 685.040
supports an attorneys’ fees award against a nonparty to a
contract, that question is not before us. But we agree with
Cardinale’s reasoning that under the merger doctrine the specific
limitations of the contract (including the $1,000 limit here) no
longer apply once the judgment is entered, and instead, the
operative question in considering whether fees are available as
enforcement costs under section 685.040 is simply whether the
judgment included attorneys’ fees awarded pursuant to a contract
because the “‘“judgment extinguishes all further contractual