California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from Oxnard Corner, LLC v. Ap-Colton, LLC, E053678 (Cal. App. 2013):
The pivotal point in the analysis of whether a prevailing party is entitled to recover contractual attorney fees for defending against a competing non-contractual claim (where the contract language does not encompass non-contractual claims or is ambiguous) is not whether the fees can be apportioned between the theories, but whether a defense against the non-contractual claim is necessary to succeed on the contractual claim. (Siligo v. Castellucci (1994) 21 Cal.App.4th 873, 879.)
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