Court Tacks on Legal Expenses : Suit Over $8 Fee Costs Condo Owner $35,514

A woman who went to court over a $7.99-a-month fee assessed by her homeowners’ association for fire insurance was ordered Tuesday to pay $514 for missed payments and an estimated $35,000 in lawyers’ fees for the legal challenge.

“She’s been done in by the legal system,” said E. Day Carman, the losing lawyer, who said his client went to court as “a matter of principle.”

Carman’s client, Virginia F. Vosburg, owns a condominium in The Bluffs, a fashionable 642-unit complex off Jamboree Road in Newport Beach overlooking Upper Newport Bay.

Vosburg objected to a 1977 decision by The Bluffs Homeowners’ Assn. to buy blanket fire coverage for the entire complex, and charge each individual monthly fees to cover the cost. She claimed that when The Bluffs were built in 1964, the original rules allowed individual homeowners to buy the insurance of their choice.

Legal Fees, Costs Added

Vosburg lost her claim in a five-day trial in Orange County Superior Court. The missed payments amounted to just over $500 and Judge Lloyd E. Blanpied Jr. also ordered Vosburg to pay the fees and costs of the community association in successfully defending the case. They totaled $25,000, and Vosburg appealed.

On Tuesday, in a decision written by Justice Sheila Prell Sonenshine, the 4th District Court of Appeal not only affirmed Blanpied’s decision but ordered Vosburg to pay the association’s appellate legal fees as well.

William Pangman, who represented the association, said Tuesday that he will submit a bill for “about $10,000” for the appeal fees.

Vosburg’s monthly assessment for fire insurance in 1977 was probably well below the amount she had been paying for individual coverage before the change took place, Pangman said Tuesday.

“She felt she was right and they were wrong,” Carman said of Vosburg. “She felt she had an absolute right to decide whether and how she would insure her home.”

“This decision will block people from ever raising any kind of challenge to their association,” Vosburg said.

Pangman disagreed. He pointed out that since the appeal court ordered that its decision not be published, the justices felt that it did not involve novel questions of law. As a result, Pangman said, the decision cannot be cited as a precedent in other cases.

Carman said he would ask the appeal court to reconsider the decision.