Judge: Gregory Keosian, Case: 20STCV13763, Date: 2023-05-10 Tentative Ruling
Case Number: 20STCV13763 Hearing Date: May 10, 2023 Dept: 61
Defendant City of Los Angeles’s Motion for Attorney Fees is
DENIED.
I.
MOTION FOR ATTORNEY FEES
In FEHA actions, “the court, in its discretion,
may award to the prevailing party, including the department, reasonable attorney's
fees and costs, including expert witness fees, except that, notwithstanding
Section 998 of the Code of Civil Procedure, a prevailing defendant shall not be
awarded fees and costs unless the court finds the action was frivolous,
unreasonable, or groundless when brought, or the plaintiff continued to
litigate after it clearly became so.” (Gov. Code § 12965, subd. (c)(6).)
“‘[T]he term ‘meritless’ is to be understood as meaning
groundless or without foundation, rather than simply that the plaintiff has ultimately
lost his case, and . . . the term ‘vexatious’
in no way implies that the plaintiff's subjective bad faith is a necessary
prerequisite to a fee award against him. In sum, a district court may in its
discretion award attorney's fees to a prevailing defendant in a Title VII case
upon a finding that the plaintiff's action was frivolous, unreasonable, or
without foundation, even though not brought in subjective bad faith.’” (Cummings, supra, 11 Cal.App.4th at p. 1387.)
The court in Cummings
held further:
“In
applying these criteria, it is important that a district court resist the
understandable temptation to engage in post hoc reasoning by concluding that,
because a plaintiff did not ultimately prevail, his action must have been
unreasonable or without foundation. This kind of hindsight logic could
discourage all but the most airtight claims, for seldom can a prospective
plaintiff be sure of ultimate success. No matter how honest one's belief that
he has been the victim of discrimination, no matter how meritorious one's claim
may appear at the outset, the course of litigation is rarely predictable.
Decisive facts may not emerge until discovery or trial. The law may change or
clarify in the midst of litigation. Even when the law or the facts appear
questionable or unfavorable at the outset, a party may have an entirely
reasonable ground for bringing suit.”
(Cummings, supra, 11 Cal.App.4th at p. 1388.)
However, courts also recognize that “[m]eritless lawsuits
clog court dockets, delaying the resolution of meritorious suits and diverting
judicial resources that could be devoted to worthwhile litigation. Courts exist
to settle disputes, not to settle scores. Suits filed with no real hope of
victory needlessly bring defendants through the costly and agonizing
uncertainty of defending suit.” (Del Rio v. Jetton (1997) 55 Cal.App.4th
30, 35.) Courts have affirmed awards of attorneys’ fees for prevailing
defendants where the plaintiff “never had or even claimed to have any evidence
that race discrimination played a role in his termination other than his own
opinion.” (Robert v. Stanford University (2014) 224 Cal.App.4th 67, 73.)
Defendant City of Los Angeles (Defendant) seeks $49,500.00
in attorney fees, representing 110 hours of work at $450 per hour to prepare
Defendant’s motion for summary judgment and reply, plus an award of $5,151.70
in costs associated primarily with the taking of Plaintiff’s deposition.
(Motion at p. i.) Defendant argues that Plaintiff Adrienne Rico-Garcia’s
(Plaintiff) claims were objectively meritless under the above authority,
largely for the reasons laid out in Defendant’s successful motion for summary
judgment: Plaintiff was not promoted because she was not eligible for
promotion, not because of racial or retaliatory animus; and Plaintiff was not
denied opportunities for overtime and other forms of pay, but was granted more
opportunities for such pay than other similarly situated workers. (Motion at
pp. 3–7.)
Plaintiff in opposition argues that if her claims were truly
frivolous, Defendant ought not to have spent 110 hours prosecuting their motion
for summary judgment. (Opposition at pp. 2–3.) Plaintiff identifies the
declarations of Jeffrey Buford and Judith Thompson, Plaintiff’s co-workers,
which were submitted in opposition to the motion in an attempt to corroborate
Plaintiff’s claims. (Opposition at p. 3.) Plaintiff also argues that Defendant
has failed to submit time sheet to support the number of hours claimed with
regard to its motion. (Opposition at pp. 3–4.)
Defendant has not demonstrated entitlement to fees under the
FEHA statute. Such fees are available to a prevailing defendant only when the
action is “unreasonable, frivolous, meritless or vexatious.” (Cummings, supra,
11 Cal.App.4th at p. 1387.) Plaintiff’s opposition to the motion for
summary judgment was largely based on an attempted disparate impact claim,
based on Defendant’s purported misclassification of Communications Information
Representatives (CIRs). Defendant’s argument against such claims was that
Plaintiff had failed to exhaust administrative remedies as to them, given their
absence from either her original or amended complaint with the Department of
Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH). Defendant’s argument was meritorious, but
Plaintiff’s opposition was not so baseless as to warrant fees: the DFEH
complaints are framed in broad terms of discrimination, including among them
the failure to promote. (12/22/22 RJN Exh. 4.) Such a claim is linked to
Plaintiff’s allegation that she was not provided with adequate training, which
was in turn among the bases for her disparate impact claim. While such broad
and conclusory iteration of Plaintiff’s allegations did not exhaust Plaintiff’s
administrative remedies as to an unpleaded disparate impact claim, Plaintiff
was not unreasonable or vexatious for proceeding therewith.
Additionally, although Plaintiff did not present evidence
that the pleaded denials of her opportunities to earn overtime were
discriminatory or retaliatory, the justifications for such denials were not of
uniform strength. Although Defendant demonstrated that the great majority of
overtime denials were the product of the ordinary and proper operation of the
overtime system, or else the product of Plaintiff’s fault, one such denial was
admitted to be an “oversight” on the part of Defendant. (12/22/22 UMF No. 89.)
Plaintiff’s opposition to the motion for summary judgment, while unsuccessful,
was not without any basis. Accordingly, attorney fees under Government Code §
12965 are unavailable.
Accordingly, the motion for attorney fees is DENIED.