Judge: Gregory Keosian, Case: 20STCV32561, Date: 2023-01-12 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 20STCV32561    Hearing Date: January 12, 2023    Dept: 61

Plaintiffs Vanessa Ramirez and Carlos V. Salazar’s Motion for Attorney Fees and Expenses is GRANTED in the amount of $49,224.50 in fees and $9,641.28 in costs and expenses.

I.                OBJECTIONS

Plaintiff Vanessa Ramirez submits objections to the declearation of Sharon Stewart submitted in opposition to the motion for attorney fees. These objections are OVERRULED.

II.             MOTION FOR ATTORNEY FEE

Parties to litigation must generally bear their own attorney’s fees, unless they otherwise agree. (Code Civ. Proc. § 1021.) However, the Song-Beverly Act provides for the award of attorneys’ fees to prevailing plaintiffs as follows:

If the buyer prevails in an action under this section, the buyer shall be allowed by the court to recover as part of the judgment a sum equal to the aggregate amount of costs and expenses, including attorney's fees based on actual time expended, determined by the court to have been reasonably incurred by the buyer in connection with the commencement and prosecution of such action.

(Civ. Code § 1794, subd. (d).)

“It is well established that the determination of what constitutes reasonable attorney fees is committed to the discretion of the trial court, whose decision cannot be reversed in the absence of an abuse of discretion.”  (Melnyk v. Robledo (1976) 64 Cal.App.3d 618, 623.)  In exercising its discretion, the court should consider a number of factors, including the nature of the litigation, its difficulty, the amount involved, the skill required in handling the matter, the attention given, the success or failure, and the resulting judgment.  (See id.) 

In determining the proper amount of fees to award, courts use the lodestar method.  The lodestar figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of reasonable hours expended by the reasonable hourly rate.  “Fundamental to its determination . . . [is] a careful compilation of the time spent and reasonable hourly compensation of each attorney . . . in the presentation of the case.”  (Serrano v. Priest (1977) 20 Cal.3d 25, 48 (Serrano III).)  A reasonable hourly rate must reflect the skill and experience of the attorney.  (Id. at p. 49.)  “Prevailing parties are compensated for hours reasonably spent on fee-related issues.  A fee request that appears unreasonably inflated is a special circumstance permitting the trial court to reduce the award or deny one altogether.”  (Serrano v. Unruh (1982) 32 Cal.3d 621, 635 (Serrano IV).)  The Court in Serrano IV also stated that fees associated with preparing the motion to recover attorneys’ fees are recoverable.  (See id. at p. 624.)

Plaintiffs Vanessa Ramirez and Carlos V. Salazar (Plaintiffs) seek a total of $90,640.53 in attorney fees, costs, and expenses, representing a fee lodestar of $53,999.50, a 1.5 lodestar multiplier for an additional $26,999.75, plus $9,651.28 in costs and expenses. (Motion at p. 2.) The lodestar represents 153.6 hours of attorney work performed by 12 attorneys at rates ranging from $200 to $450 per hour. (Kirnos Decl. Exh. A.)

Defendants FCA US LLC and BN Dealership I, LLC (Defendants) oppose the motion on a number of grounds. They claim that Plaintiff’s counsel overstaffed this matter with too many attorneys incurring duplicative charges. (Opposition at pp. 3–5.) Defendants also identify various specific charges that it claims are unreasonable: fees to prepare a motion to compel deposition that was taken off calendar and which itself indicated that fewer hours were expended in its preparation than are sought here for same (Opposition at pp. 5–6); fees to provide supplemental responses when initial responses consisted of boilerplate recitations of the complaint and objections (Opposition at pp. 6–7); fees for depositions that were shorter than the hours indicated (Oppostion at p. 7); more than an hour in fees for a boilerplate meet-and-confer letter (Opposition at pp. 7–8); repeated instances of block-billing (Motion at p. 8); and fees sought in relation to the present motion. (Opposition at p. 8.) Defendant further argues that the hourly rates sought are excessive, and that no multiplier is warranted. (Opposition at pp. 9–12.)

Defendants are correct that unreasonable multiplicity of attorneys performing duplicative work may furnish a basis to reduce a fee award. In Morris v. Hyundai Motors America (2019) 41 Cal.App.5^th 24, the trial court substantially reduced a requested attorney fees award involving 11 attorneys and two firms in a lemon law action. (Id. at p. 32.) “Out of a total of 283.3 hours of billed work, the court did not award any fees for 83.5 hours of work billed by six associates.” (Ibid.) The appellate court affirmed: “Plainly, it is appropriate for a trial court to reduce a fee award based on its reasonable determination that a routine, non-complex case was overstaffed to a degree that significant inefficiencies and inflated fees resulted.” (Id. at p. 39.) The appellate court determined that the trial court’s remedy of cutting out several attorneys’ billings was permissible because it “was designed to yield a revised lodestar figure that reflected a total amount of fees that were reasonably incurred.” (Id. at p. 40.) A similar result was reached in the case Mikhaeilpoor v. BMW of North America, LLC (2020) 48 Cal.App.5th 240, 253, which cited Morris with approval to reduce an award involving 595 claimed hours of work and a total request of $344,639.00 in fees following trial.

But the reasoning of those cases does not necessarily apply here. A large number of attorneys is not on its own reason to reduce a fee award, and both cases cited above upheld lodestar reductions based on the “duplicative” and “inefficient” billings that resulted from the number of attorneys employed. (Mikhaeilpoor, supra, 48 Cal.App.5^th at p. 255; Morris, supra, 41 Cal.App.5^th at p. 40.) Review of the billings submitted by Plaintiffs here shows that the number of attorneys employed does not indicate a systemic inefficiency of litigation in this matter; it rather appears from the billing records produced that different attorneys were employed to address different aspects of the case. (Kirnos Decl. Exh. A.)

This does not mean that Plaintiff’s billings do not contain charges that are, on their own unreasonable. Defendants identify several. First, they note that Plaintiff’s counsel twice billed by two attorneys the same work of preparing summaries of Plaintiffs’ depositions for opposition to Defendants’ motion for summary adjudication, the first attorney charging five hours at $400 per hour, the second 2.5 hours at $325 per hour. (Opposition at pp. 4–5; Kirnos Decl. Exh. A at pp. 6–7, 7–8.) This first five-hour charge, amounting to $2,000.00, is unreasonable.

Defendants also identify a discrepancy in the time billed for a motion to compel deposition filed by Plaintiffs:  While the motion itself claimed five hours of attorney work to support its request for sanctions, the present motion presents 10.5 hours of work conducted upon the same motion. (Opposition at pp. 5–6; Stewart Decl. Exh. 7; Kirnos Decl. Exh. A at p. 12.) Plaintiffs in reply admit the discrepancy, but say additional work was omitted in the motion to make the sanctions request seem more reasonable. (Reply at p. 8.) That motion was taken off calendar with the settlement of the case, but Plaintiffs are correct that the original figure presented in the original motion is the more reasonable, and the additional work claimed in this new motion, amounting to $2,200.00, is properly removed from the lodestar.

Defendants further argue that fees sought for Plaintiffs’ preparation of supplemental discovery responses ought to be disallowed, as such responses were made necessary by the defective, boilerplate nature of Plaintiffs’ original responses, which consisted solely of objections and recitations of facts stated in the Complaint. (Opposition at pp. 6–7.) Plaintiff acknowledges the boilerplate nature of these original responses, but claims they lacked the time necessary to effectually respond, and Defendants refused to grant them the time they lacked. (Reply at p. 8.) Plaintiffs, however, do not explain why additional time was necessary to accomplish substantive responses. Thus the additional charges, amounting to $575.00, are reduced from the lodestar.

Defendants also claim that the time billed to attend Plaintiffs’ depositions does not match the time on record for the depositions themselves, and that Plaintiffs’ counsel have overbilled for same. (Opposition at p. 7; Kirnos Decl. Exh. A at p. 4; Stewart Decl. Exhs. 4, 5.) But the discrepancies that Defendants identify are no discrepancies, as the billing entries do not charge exclusively for deposition attendance, but preparation for the depositions as well. (Kirnos Decl. Exh. A.)

Defendants cite a charge of $640.00 and 1.6 hours to prepare a four-paragraph, one-page meet-and-confer letter. (Opposition at pp. 7–8; Kirnos Decl. Exh. A at pp. 10–12;  Stewart Decl. Exh. 6.) The court agrees that charges claimed are excessive in relation to the substance of the letter, and a reduction of $240.00 is appropriate.

Defendants argue that the billings of one of Plaintiff’s attorneys, Jeffrey Mukai, are unreasonably block-billed, and contain multiple tasks charged under one line-item. (Opposition at p. 8.) Although ““[t]rial courts retain discretion to penalize block billing when the practice prevents them from discerning which tasks are compensable and which are not,” the use of the practice here is not so pervasive or obstructive as to prevent effective analysis of the fees incurred. (Heritage Pacific Financial, LLC v. Monroy (2013) 215 Cal.App.4th 972, 1010.) Here, the block-billing identified by Defendants does not prevent the court or the parties from discerning compensable tasks, or whether time spent upon them was reasonable.

Defendants cite the $3,150.00 in fees charged in anticipation of the submission of Plaintiffs’ reply to support the present motion, and argue that such charges — representing two hours to review Defendants’ opposition, four hours to prepare the reply, and one hour to prepare for and attend hearing on the motion — are speculative and unreasonable. (Opposition at p. 8; Kirnos Decl. Exh. A at pp. 12–13.) Yet the filing of a reply is no longer speculative, as one has been submitted. And said reply includes a declaration corroborating the estimate made in the original motion. (Cutler Decl. ¶¶ 4–5.) The fees sought are therefore reasonable.

Defendnats next argue that the hourly rates charged are excessive. (Opposition at p. 9.) But the rates are reasonably supported. Plaintiffs include information concerning the qualifications and experience of each attorney for which fees are sought. (Stewart Decl. ¶¶ 28–40.) Moreover, Plaintiffs provide prior lemon law decisions in which similar or higher hourly rates were awarded to plaintiff’s counsel on similar motions. (Stewart Decl. Exhs. E–X.)

No lodestar multiplier, upward or downward, is appropriate in this matter. “Once the court has fixed the lodestar, it may increase or decrease that amount by applying a positive or negative ‘multiplier’ to take into account a variety of other factors, including the quality of the representation, the novelty and complexity of the issues, the results obtained, and the contingent risk presented.” (Thayer v. Wells Fargo Bank., N.A. (2001) 92 Cal.App.4th 819, 833.) Although Plaintiffs’ attorneys have obtained favorable results for their client on an expectation only of contingency, the subject matter of this case was not so complex as to warrant recovery of fees beyond the reasonable hourly rates charged.

The motion for attorney fees is therefore GRANTED in the amount of $49,224.50 in fees and $9,641.28 in costs and expenses.