Judge: Colin Leis, Case: 21STCV46590, Date: 2024-10-11 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 21STCV46590    Hearing Date: October 11, 2024    Dept: 74

Linkage Financial Group, Inc. v. Jane Un

Plaintiff Linkage Financial Group, Inc’s Motion for Attorney’s Fees.

BACKGROUND 

            This case arises out of a Breach of Contract action for repayment guarantee agreements.

            On December 21, 2021, Linkage Financial Group, LLC. (Plaintiff) filed a complaint for Breach of Guaranty against Jane Un (Defendant) and Does 1-10.

            The Court issued its finding for Plaintiff on January 03, 2024.

            On November 14, 2023, Plaintiff filed its Motion for Attorney’s Fees.

            On October 07, 2024, Defendant filed an opposition.

LEGAL STANDARD

¿¿            The California Code of Civil Procedure provides for attorney’s fees to the prevailing party in a contract action only if the contract included an attorney’s fees provision.  (Cal. Civ. Proc. § 1717.)  The “prevailing party” is the party who obtained grater relief in the action.  (Cal. Civ. Proc. § 1717(b)(1).)

            A plaintiff’s verified billing invoices are prima facie evidence that the costs, expenses, and services listed were necessarily incurred.  (See Hadley v. Krepel (1985) 167 Cal.App.3d 677, 682.)  Counsel has the burden of providing the reasonable number of hours devoted to the litigation, through declarations, or redacted or unredacted timesheets or billing records.  (Concepcion v. Amscan Holdings, Inc. (2014) 223 Cal.App.4th 1309, 1325.)  “[T]he verified time statements of the attorneys, as officers of the court, are entitled to credence in the absence of a clear indication the records are erroneous.” (Horsford v. Board of Trustees of California State University (2005) 132 Cal.App.4th 359, 396.)  

“‘In challenging attorney fees as excessive because too many hours of work are claimed, it is the burden of the challenging party to point to the specific items challenged, with a sufficient argument and citations to the evidence. General arguments that fees claimed are excessive, duplicative, or unrelated do not suffice.’”  (Lunada Biomedical v. Nunez (2014) 230 Cal.App.4th 459, 488. Accord Etcheson v. FCA US LLC (2018) 30 Cal.App.5th 831, 848.)

The determination of reasonable amount of attorney fees is within the sound discretion of trial courts.  (PLCM Group v. Drexler (2000) 22 Cal.4th 1084, 1095.)

“[A]ttorney fees need not be reduced for work on unsuccessful claims if the claims ‘are so intertwined that it would be impracticable, if not impossible, to separate the attorney's time into compensable and noncompensable units.’"  (Mann v. Quality Old Time Service, Inc. (2006) 139 Cal.App.4th 328, 342.)

Costs are recoverable if they are reasonably necessary to the litigation and are reasonable in amount.  (See Thon v. Thompson (1994) 29 Cal.App.4th 1546, 1548.) 

If items appear on their face to be proper, the verified memorandum of costs is prima facie evidence of their propriety, shifting the burden of proof to the attacking party.  (Adams v. Ford Motor Co. (2011) 199 Cal.App.4th 1475, 1486-1487.)   “[T]he burden is on the objecting party to show them to be unnecessary or unreasonable.”  (Nelson v. Anderson (1999) 72 Cal.App.4th 111, 131.)  

DISCUSSION 

            Two contracts were at issue in the matter, a loan agreement between Plaintiff and MJM Ventures and Guarantee Agreements between Jane Un and Linkage.  These contracts provide for reasonable attorney’s fees and costs.  Plaintiff was the prevailing party in the matter and, therefore, Plaintiff is entitled to attorney’s fees.

1)      Attorney’s Fees

Plaintiff submitted a Declaration from Paul Johnson supporting the hourly rate and costs associated with this case.  Additionally, Plaintiff submitted a reasonably redacted billing record.  (Concepcion, supra, 223 Cal.App.4th at 1325.)  Given that Plaintiff has submitted a billing record, the burden shifts to Defendant to challenge the sufficiency of the billing statements.  (Lunada Biomedical, supra, 230 Cal.App.4th at 342.)

Defendant alleges three primary insufficiencies of the billing statements (1) the billing statement is redacted; (2) blocked billing; (3) complexity.  The central component to the Defendant’s objections is that the billing records are redacted and block billed in a way that makes it impossible to distinguish between different causes of action for the purpose of awarding attorney’s fees.

Defendant challenges that Plaintiff did not prevail on some matters, including the 18% interest rate and the recovery of collection costs.  In cases where a party succeeds on some claims, but fails on other distinct claims, the Court must be able to differentiate between the attorney work for the separate claims.  (See Hensley, supra, 461 U.S. at 440.)  In this case, Plaintiff was successful on the merits of the claims, the Court’s finding for only a 12% interest rate and the denial of collection costs are not factually distinct from Plaintiff’s overall success.  Therefore, the billing statement does not need to be so specific as to differentiate for work done on each issue or cause of action for the Court to assess reasonableness.

Defendant’s objections to redactions and alleged block billing are not sufficient or persuasive in this case because the fees sufficiently show that Plaintiff’s counsel was working on the case for which they were the prevailing party.  The Court need not separate the causes of action.

2)      Reasonableness

The Court is in the best position to establish the reasonableness of attorney’s fees.  (PLCM Group, supra, 22 Cal.4th at1095.)

Plaintiff requests $80,026.70 for attorneys’ hours and $11,887.09 in costs for a total of $91,913.79.  Plaintiffs request an hourly fee between $175 and $595 based on attorney status and time employed, attesting that the salary of each attorney, assistant and paralegal is reflective of their skill and time employed.  The Court finds this evidence sufficient to show the hourly rate is reasonable.  There is no evidence submitted that the hourly rates reasonable in San Jose are somehow unreasonable in Los Angeles. 

Plaintiff also included the billing records to support their 205.4 hours spent on this case.  The Court finds the time spent reasonable. 

Therefore, the Court awards $80,026.70 in attorney’s fees.

3)      Costs

Plaintiffs submitted their Memorandum of Costs, requesting a total of $11,887.09 in costs. Defendant requests that the entirety of costs be denied because they allege that without the causes of action for contractual damages and interest rates, this “case never should have been initiated before [t]his court.” 

The Court finds that the costs appear proper on their face.  Defendant does not challenge any particular cost.  Rather, Defendant alleges that all of the costs were unnecessary and unreasonable based on their supposition that the case may not have been brought to court if Plaintiff’s causes of action were different. This is not a proper objection, and therefore, the Court awards costs as requested, $11,887.09.

CONCLUSION 

The court grants Plaintiff’s motion for attorney’s fees and costs and awards $91,931.79 to Plaintiff.

Plaintiff shall give notice.