Judge: Christian R. Gullon, Case: 23PSCV02122, Date: 2025-04-21 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 23PSCV02122    Hearing Date: April 21, 2025    Dept: O

Tentative Ruling

PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION FOR ATTORNEYS’ FEES, COSTS, AND EXPENSES is GRANTED, but in the reduced amount of $19,250. Costs are TBD.

Background

This is a lemon law case.

On July 14, 2023, Plaintiffs NELSON REYES and EVELYN REYES filed suit against Defendant MERCEDES-BENZ USA, LLC for the following three causes of action (COAs):

1.     Violation Of Song-Beverly Act - Breach Of Express Warranty

2.     Violation Of Song-Beverly Act - Breach Of Implied Warranty

3.     Violation Of The Song-Beverly Act Section 1793.2(b)

On August 18, 2023, Defendant filed a Notice of Removal of Action.

On November 7, 2023, Defendant filed its answer.

On March 19, 2024, the court continued Defendant’s motion to compel arbitration due to the pending Ochoa case on appeal.

On September 19, 2024, a notice of settlement was filed.

On March 12, 2025, Plaintiffs filed the instant motion.

On April 8, 2025, Defendant filed an opposition.

On April 14, 2025, Plaintiffs filed a reply (along with evidentiary objections).

Discussion

Plaintiffs move for an order awarding attorneys’ fees under the “lodestar” method in the amount of $31,860.00. Plaintiffs also request a modest “lodestar” enhancement of 0.5, in the amount of $15,930.00 for a total of $47,490.00 in requested fees. Plaintiffs also move this Court for reimbursement of verifiable costs and expenses in the amount of $1,093.43. The total amount requested by this motion is $48,883.43. Defendant argues that the entire fee motion be denied, or, in the alternative, Plaintiffs’ claimed fees be reduced to at most, $8,110.10. (Opp. p. 3:23-26.)

Here, after a review of the time logs and hourly rates of attorneys doing similar work in this county, the court reduces the hours and hourly rate.

1.     Hours Expended

The prevailing buyer has the burden of showing that the fees incurred were “allowable,” “reasonably necessary to the conduct of the litigation,” and “reasonable in amount.” (Motion p. 5, citing Goglin v. BMW of North America, LLC (2016) 4 Cal.App.5th 462, 470.) Absent a contrary showing, both the number of hours that the prevailing party’s attorney spent litigating the case and his or her regular hourly rate are presumed to be reasonable. (Motion pp. 4-5, citing Serrano v. Unruh (1982) 32 Cal.3d 621, 639.) Notwithstanding, fees should be denied where the court finds the time spent on tasks unreasonable or unnecessary since “padding in the form of inefficient or duplicative efforts is not subject to compensation.” (Opp. p. 4, citing Ketchum v. Moses (2001) 24 Cal.4th 1122, 1132.)

At the outset, the court notes that neither the motion nor counsel’s declaration set forth the total number of hours the firm expended on the matter, leaving the court to perform Plaintiffs’ computation. With that, it appears that Plaintiffs’ firm expended a total of 64.9 hours on the matter. (See Daghigan Decl., p. 22 of 190 of PDF or p. 9 of 10 of Invoice.)

Here, the court agrees with Defendant that about 65 hours of work is rather inflated namely in light of the use template motions/letters/notices. And Defendant provides evidence of this by comparing the ones submitted in this case with those submitted/filed by Plaintiffs’ firm in other cases. For example, Defense Counsel Gallagher’s declaration provides that based upon her experience with Plaintiffs’ counsel, they serve template deposition notices in their consumer warranty cases. Attached to Counsel Gallagher’s declaration is Exhibit A1 which is the notice of deposition of Defendant’s PMK served on Defense counsel in this case and attached as Exhibit A2 is a true and correct copy of the notice of deposition of MBUSA’s PMK served on Defense counsel in a similar consumer warranty case with Plaintiffs’ counsel; they are rather identical. The same goes for template discovery. (See Gallagher Decl., Exs. B1 and B2.) And the same goes for this motion which itself which is a template motion that Plaintiffs’ firm states required 5.1 hours to draft. 

As for block-billing and billing of internal communication and general overhead, Defendant fails to provide an example of these issues in the opposition but does do so in Counsel Gallagher’s declaration. With that, the court will address the matter, despite Plaintiffs’ contention the court should ignore this argument. Block-billing “makes it more difficult to determine how much time was spent on particular activities” and the use of block billing can increase an attorney’s time records by 10 to 30 percent. (Opp. p. 6, citing Welch v. Metro. Life Ins. Co. (9th Cir. 2007) 480 F.3d 942, 948.) As noted by Defendant, the problem is compounded here because Plaintiffs’ counsel often block-billed compensable tasks along with clerical tasks. For example, Plaintiffs’ Counsel Rosenstein billed for 1 hour at $700/hour for “Review case file and status of trial preparation and discovery; Draft Notice of Deposition of Defendant's Person Most Knowledgeable; Draft correspondence to opposing counsel for same; Email correspondence with paralegal re: same.” (Gallagher Decl., p. 123 of 237 of PDF.) Or Counsel Martinez billed for .70 hours of work at $400/hour for “Review[ing] case file and correspondence in preparation for attending Case Management Conference; attended CMC and drafted/disseminated results memorandum re same.” (p. 128 of 237 of PDF.) In such circumstances, the court may exercise its discretion to reduce block-billed entries. (See Banas v. Volcano Corp. (N.D. Cal. 2014) 47 F. Supp. 3d 957, 968 (“[T]he Ninth Circuit [in Welch v. Metro. Life Ins. Co.,] affirmed a district court’s authority to reduce block-billed hours by 10% to 30%.”)).

Therefore, the court reduces the total hours expended on the matter by about 10 hours for a total of 55 hours. (The court declines to reduce more as the court notes this case did involve a motion to strike before a federal court.)

2.     Hourly Rate

Plaintiffs’ counsel’s claimed rates range $325.00-$700.00 per hour for the attorneys who billed on the case. The inquiry is not whether other attorneys are doing identical work but “comparable legal services in the community.” (Ketchum, supra, 24 Cal.4th at p. 1132, italics added.)

Here, exercising its discretion and based off lemon law cases that appear before this court, the court reduces the hourly rate to a blended rate of $350/hour.

3.     Lodestar

Once a lodestar amount is determined, the amount may then be augmented by taking various relevant factors into account, including (1) the novelty and difficulty of the questions involved and the skill displayed in presenting them; (2) the extent to which the nature of the litigation precluded other employment by the attorneys; and (3) the contingent nature of the fee award, based on the uncertainty of prevailing on the merits and of establishing eligibility for the award. (See Robertson v. Fleetwood Travel Trailers of California, Inc. (2006) 144 Cal.App.4th 785; see also Serrano v. Priest (1977) 20 Cal.3d 25, 49)

Here, while the court is not questioning that Plaintiffs’ attorneys are experienced trial attorneys working in this field or that they did not deliver results for their client, ultimately, this case was not complex, nor did it involve risk. Thus, Plaintiffs are not entitled to a lodestar.

4.     Costs

Defendant states that it intends to challenge Plaintiffs’ costs via a properly noticed motion, which will be filed based on the time allowed per statute. Thus, the court declines to award any costs until Defendant’s motion to strike/tax costs is heard. (To date, Defendant has not filed a motion to tax/strike costs.)

Conclusion

Based on the foregoing, the court grants the motion for attorney fees but in the reduced amount for 55 hours of work at a blended rate of $350/hour and the costs are TBD.