Judge: Gary I. Micon, Case: 21STCV37556, Date: 2024-04-09 Tentative Ruling


Case Number: 21STCV37556    Hearing Date: April 9, 2024    Dept: F43

Dept. F43

Date: 4-9-24

Case #21STCV37556, Hamid Reza Mirshojae, et al. vs. 5975-5999 Topanga Canyon Blvd LLC, et al.

Trial Date: N/A

 

MOTION FOR ATTORNEY FEES

 

MOVING PARTY: Plaintiffs Hamid Reza Mirshojae and Woodland Hills Medical Clinic II, Inc.

RESPONDING PARTY: Defendants 5975-5999 Topanga Canyon Blvd, LLC and Ahang Mirshojae

 

RELIEF REQUESTED

Plaintiffs are requesting attorney fees in the amount of $619,675, plus $17,036.01 in costs, from Defendants

 

RULING: Motion for attorney fees is granted at a reduced amount. No costs will be awarded at this time.

 

SUMMARY OF ACTION

Plaintiff Hamid Reza Mirshojae (Hamid) and Defendant Ahang Zarin Mirshojae (Ahang) were formerly married and were engaged in extensive and bitter litigation against each other before 2017. The assets in dispute were more than $20 million. At mediation, Hamid and Ahang entered a complex settlement agreement. Immediately after, Hamid alleges that Ahang breached the settlement agreement, and he was forced to incur attorney fees to enforce various terms of the agreement. Eventually, Hamid sued Ahang in October 2021 to enforce the settlement agreement.

 

Ahang accused Hamid and his counsel of inducing her to sign the settlement agreement and she eventually cross complained against him for $7 million in damages. This Court eventually struck Ahang’s cross-complaint based on Plaintiffs’ anti-SLAPP motion and determined that Ahang was a vexatious litigant. After this ruling, Ahang attempted to disqualify Hamid’s lead counsel, though that motion was rejected. Hamid alleges that he has incurred significant legal fees over the course of this litigation.

 

In November 2023, after two years of litigation, Hamid accepted cross defendant’s offer to settle pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 998 (hereafter Section 998.)  The offer required Ahang to pay Hamid $270,000, with his reasonable attorney’s fees and costs to be determined by the Court. Plaintiffs Hamid and Woodland Hills Medical Clinic II, Inc. (Plaintiffs) now seek to recover those fees in the requested amount of $619,675. Plaintiffs seek the fees from both Defendants Ahang and 5975-5999 Topanga Canyon Blvd, LLC (Defendants).

 

Plaintiffs contend this amount is reasonable. Their request is based primarily on declarations from his lead attorney, Christopher Beatty, other attorneys who worked on the case, and billing statements (with some redactions) that show which attorney worked on a task, what the task was, and how much time was spent on the task. (Beatty Decl., Ex. H.) The Beatty Declaration also includes a table which shows the hourly rates of the attorneys who worked on the case and their hourly rates at different times. (Beatty Decl., ¶ 35.)

 

Christopher Beatty’s hourly rates were $950 (for 2.5 hours in 2021), $975 (for 19.2 hours in 2022), and $1,300 (for 1.5 hours in 2022 and 71.6 hours in 2023). Tami K. Sims’ hourly rate was $1,115 (for 83.4 hours in 2023). Trevor T. Garney’s hourly rate was $955 (for 87.8 hours in 2023). Arron J. Pak’s hourly rate was $705 (for 277.3 hours in 2023). Minh-Van Do’s hourly rates were $795 (for 0.5 hours in 2021) and $840 (for 76.1 hours in 2022). Benjamin Mandel’s hourly rate was $595 (for 89.6 hours in 2022). Finally, Scarlet Speakmore’s hourly rate was $350 (for 38.8 hours in 2022).

 

The total lodestar was calculated by multiplying each of these attorneys’ hourly rates by their hours worked then adding them all together, for a total of 784.3 hours. The lodestar amount, as previously noted, is $619,675.

 

Plaintiffs have also requested costs in the amount $17,036.01. However, costs are awarded pursuant to California Rules of Court, Rule 3.1700. If Plaintiffs wish to request costs, Plaintiffs should file a memorandum of costs at the appropriate time.

 

Defendants’ Evidentiary Objections to the Declaration of Keith M. Maziarek:

            Sustained: Entire Declaration (irrelevant), Paragraph 11

            Overruled: None

 

Plaintiffs’ Evidentiary Objections to the Declaration of June D. Coleman and the Declaration of Raffi Kassabian: The individual evidentiary objections presented by Plaintiffs to these two declarations are not consecutively numbered. Typically, when written objections to evidence are filed, the “written objection must be number consecutively.” (See Cal. Rules of Court Rule 3.1354 (applies to written objections to evidence for summary judgment motions).) While Plaintiffs listed them by paragraph number from the declarations, this is not necessarily effective, because in some instances Plaintiffs objected to different sentences from the same paragraph and listed them separately with the same paragraph number. The Court will not rule on the individual evidentiary objections based on this procedural deficiency. Plaintiffs have objected to the entire Coleman Declaration on the basis that it is improper expert testimony because Coleman has not shown any special knowledge, skill, etc., related to billing for these types of cases pursuant to Evidence Code § 720. The Court agrees. Plaintiffs’ objection to the entire Coleman Declaration is sustained.

 

ANALYSIS

As noted, Plaintiffs are entitled to recover their attorney’s fees under the terms of the section 998 offer that they accepted. Defendants oppose Plaintiffs’ motion on the basis that Plaintiffs agreed only to recover fees actually incurred and according to proof in the 998 Offer, and Defendants argue that Plaintiffs have not provided this proof. Defendants point out that the billing statements provided by Plaintiffs redacted the actual hourly rates and amounts billed to Plaintiffs, making it impossible to determine the actual fees incurred. (See Beatty Decl., Ex. H.) Instead, Plaintiffs just provided a chart that states the hourly rate of the different attorneys that worked on the case with their total hours worked. (See Beatty Decl., ¶ 35.) Because of the redactions, Defendants argue that they and the Court have no way of knowing how much the attorneys worked or what their billing rates were at the time they did the work. Defendants cited San Dieguito Partnership L.P. v. San Dieguito River Valley Regional Open Space Park Joint Powers Authority (1998) 61 Cal.App.4th 910 in support of these arguments. However, that case was disapproved by the Supreme Court in PLCM Group v. Drexler (2000) 22 Cal. 4th 1084, 1097,  footnote 5 (PLCM). Therefore, it cannot be used in support of Defendants’ opposition.

 

Plaintiffs do rely on PLCM, supra,  22 Cal.4th 1084 in support of their calculation method. In that case, the Supreme Court allowed in-house counsel to calculate their attorney fees by multiplying the prevailing hourly rate in the community for comparable legal services by reasonable in-house attorney hours. (Id. at pp. 1093-1095.) Plaintiffs argue that they should be allowed to do something similar. The obvious difference between PLCM and Plaintiffs’ situation is that Plaintiffs’ counsel are not salaried in-house corporate counsel. They know how much time each attorney spent on the case and their hourly rates.

 

Another case cited by Plaintiffs in their reply contains the proper standard: “It is well established that ‘California courts do not require detailed time records, and trial courts have discretion to award fees based on declarations of counsel describing the work they have done and the court’s own view of the number of hours reasonably spent. [Citations.]’.” (Syers Properties III, Inc. v. Rankin (2014) 226 Cal.App.4th 691, 698 (Syers).) Furthermore, “‘Because time records are not required under California law…, there is no required level of detail that counsel must achieve. See (Citation) (‘We do not want “a [trial] court, in setting an attorney’s fee, [to] become enmeshed in a meticulous analysis of every detailed facet of the professional representation. It…is not our intention that the inquiry into the adequacy of the fee assume massive proportions, perhaps dwarfing the case in chief.”)’” (Id. at 699.) Additionally, courts routinely affirm fee awards based on a lodestar calculation, regardless of actual rates charged. (See Pasternack v. McCullough (2014) 65 Cal.App.5th 1050, 1055.)

 

Based on this standard, the records and timekeeping information provided by Plaintiffs would be sufficient for the Court to make a determination as to its reasonableness. Plaintiffs have provided a table with all of their attorneys hourly rates each year, their hours worked, and the total lodestar for each attorney. (Beatty Decl., ¶ 35.) Plaintiffs have also provided redacted billing records that indicate the time spent on each task during the case. This is sufficient to satisfy Syers.

 

Next, defendants argue that the fees requested are unreasonable and excessive, in part because several different attorneys worked on the case, with some putting in more than 80 hours of duplicative work totaling 224.4 hours. (Opposition at p. 8.) Defendants base this estimate on the amount of time it took Hamid’s attorneys to draft some of the motions in the case, including the Anti-SLAPP motion (160.5 hours), opposition to the motion to disqualify counsel (96.5 hours), and the demurrer to cross-complaint (90.2 hours), among other things. (Kassabian Decl., ¶¶ 16-26.)

 

They also argue that Plaintiffs’ attorneys “tag-teamed” the same tasks and duplicated efforts for many projects that did not require multiple  attorneys. Defendants also argue that Plaintiffs billed excessive amounts of time for simple projects, including preparing a subpoena to LADWP (14.7 hours), a motion for attorney fees for the Anti-SLAPP motion (49 hours), and an opposition to a motion to quash summons (38.6 hours). (Opposition at p. 10.)

 

In determining the reasonableness of fees, courts look to the factors from Church of Scientology v. Wollersheim (1996) 42 Cal.App.4th 628, disapproved on other grounds by Equilon Enters. v. Consumer Cause, Inc. (2002) 29 Cal.4th 53, 68 footnote 5 (Wollersheim). These factors are (1) the amount of money involved in the litigation; (2) the nature of the litigation and its difficulty and the intricacies and importance of the litigation; (3) the skill required and employed in handling the litigation, the necessity for skilled legal training and ability in trying the case, and counsel’s education and experience in the particular type of work involved; (4) the attention given to the case; (5) the success of the attorneys efforts; and (6) the time consumed by the litigation. (Ibid.)

 

Plaintiff argues that he satisfies these factors. First, he argues that the stakes of this litigation were high because Ahang’s cross-complaint sought damages of more than $7 million and because the original settlement agreement divided assets of the parties that were valued in excess of $20 million. Next, Plaintiff contends that  this action  was  highly emotional, involving a bitterly fought dispute between two ex-spouses and business partners with significant assets at issue, with the Court having determined that Ahang engaged in fraud. For the third factor, Plaintiff contends that this was a complex case that required an experienced legal team to handle it, and that Beatty’s team was the logical one to handle it because Beatty had handled the cases that led to the settlement agreement. For the fourth factor, Plaintiffs argue that their lawyers had to devote significant attention to this case. Fifth, Plaintiff contends that lawyers were consistently successful, prevailing on the anti-SLAPP motion and defeating the attempt to disqualify Beatty, as well as by obtaining a favorable Section 998 Offer. Finally, Plaintiffs contend that this case consumed considerable time  and would have gone on much longer if Hamid had not accepted the Section 998 offer.

 

Plaintiffs’ reply rejects defendants’ argument that the matter was overbilled. They argue that all the time billed was reasonable, including the 230 hours billed for the anti-SLAPP motion, because that motion was complex and dispositive. Plaintiffs also contend that the hourly rates charged were reasonable, and that the overstaffing argument is misleading because they voluntarily waived fees for five timekeepers before filing the motion.

 

Plaintiffs also point out Defendants’ opposition papers improperly relied on the following quote, which defendant attributed to the court in In re Bluetooth Headset Prods. Liab. Litigation (9th Cir. 2011) 654 F.3d 935, 942, footnote 7: “[w]here tag teams of attorneys are involved, fee application should be scrutinized with special care”. As Plaintiff correctly notes, that language does not appear in that case.  In any case, the court believes that it has employed the required level of scrutiny.

 

Next, Defendants argue that Plaintiffs improperly redacted task descriptions making it impossible to determine the reasonableness of tasks. The Court will defer to the findings in Syers Properties that there is no specific level of detail required. The same goes for Plaintiffs’ argument that the block-billed entries were improper.

 

 Furthermore, the law permits redaction of privileged information from invoices. (See Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors v. Superior Court (2016) 2 Cal.5th 282, 298 (while matter is “pending and active, the privilege encompasses everything in an invoice, including the amount of aggregate fees”); Mai v. HKT Cal., Inc. (2021) 68 Cal.App.5th 504, 522 (allowing submission of redacted invoices).) Plaintiffs argue that of the 700 hours at issue, only about 70 hours of task descriptions include some redactions. Plaintiffs also argue that Defendants have failed to provide any evidence to suggest that Plaintiffs have improperly claimed privilege over a single billing entry. Based on this, the Court finds that Plaintiffs’ privilege redactions of certain billing entries was appropriate.

 

As for the block-billing issue, there are times when block-billing is acceptable. This is the case when the “evidence submitted in support of the motions for attorney fees, however, was sufficient to allow the trial court to determine ‘whether the case was overstaffed, how much time the attorneys spent on particular claims, and whether the hours were reasonably expended.’” (Lunada Biomedical v. Nunez (2014) 230 Cal.App.4th 459, 487.) In this case, the billing statements provided by Plaintiffs are sufficient for the Court to determine whether the case was overstaffed, how much time the attorneys spent on particular claims, and whether the hours were reasonably expended. The billing statements include the attorney’s initials, the task the attorney completed, and the amount of time that the attorney spent on that task. This is sufficient to overcome any prohibition against block-billing.

 

Defendant also argues that the attorney fees requested were unreasonably inflated and should be reduced pursuant to Serrano v. Unruh (1982) 32 Cal.3d 621. Plaintiff responds that Serrano does not apply because it allows courts to reduce or deny unreasonably inflated fee requests for work performed in seeking fees. The discretion of Serrano is only invoked where attorneys fail to accurately document the tasks performed, fail to provide a viable lodestar, or demonstrate dishonesty or incompetence.  Regardless of whether Serrano applies or not, with certain exceptions set forth below, the court finds that the fees requested were reasonably incurred.

 

Finally, Defendant argues that the fee awards should be limited to $207,400, based on the Coleman declaration. Because the court sustained Plaintiff’s objection to the entire Coleman Declaration, this argument fails.

 

However, in light of all of the foregoing, the Court does believe that some reduction of the requested fees is necessary. Defendant highlights some areas where time could be reduced on pages 9-10 of her opposition. First is the 160.5 hours spent on the anti-SLAPP motion. That is more than four weeks’ worth (40 hours a week) of time spent on drafting, replying to, and appearing at the hearing on this motion. That seems excessive, regardless of the complexity of the motion. The same could be said for the 96.5 hours (almost two and a half weeks) spent on the opposition to motion to disqualify and the 90.2 hours spent on drafting the demurrer to Defendants’ cross-complaint. Other issues of concern are the 49 hours spent on the motion for attorney fees for the anti-SLAPP motion and the 38.6 hours spent on the motion to quash summons. There are more, such as the time spent drafting subpoenas and an ex parte application, but those are the major issues.

 

The court has reviewed those motions and other court filings and, based on its experience, concludes as to those items that more time than was reasonably necessary was spent, by approximately 25 percent, for a total of 108.7 hours (160.5 + 96.5 +90.2 +49 +38.6, multiplied by 0.25).  Rather than sort out each attorney’s contribution to these matters, the court will rely on the average hourly rate for the various lawyers who worked on this case calculated at $858 as follows: $950 + $975 + $1,300 + $1,115 + $955 +$705 + $795 + $840 +595 + 350, divided by 10.  Based on this calculation, the court reduces the lodestar figure by $93,264.60, leaving a reasonable fee award of $526,410.40.

 

With the exception of the reductions set forth above, and for the reasons previously stated, the Court finds that the hourly rates charged and the fees requested are reasonable. Therefore, the motion for attorney fees is granted in the amount of $526,410.40. Costs should be requested in a memorandum of costs.

 

Moving party to give notice.