Judge: Gregory Keosian, Case: 22STCV00904, Date: 2022-10-28 Tentative Ruling
Case Number: 22STCV00904 Hearing Date: October 28, 2022 Dept: 61
Plaintiff Shahab Arianpour’s
Motion for Attorney Fees and Costs is GRANTED
in the amount of $52,966.50 in fees and $1,207.54 in costs.
I.
MOTION FOR ATTORNEY FEES
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.)
Plaintiff Shahab Arianpour (Plaintiff) here seeks $80,878.00 in attorney
fees, representing 145 hours of work at rates ranging from $250 to $695 per
hour, plus $1,207.54 in costs. (Saedian Decl. ¶ 17, Exh. A.) Plaintiff brings
this motion after obtaining a settlement amount of $203,300.00. (Motion at p.
5.)
Defendant Mercedes-Benz USA, LLC (Defendant) opposes the motion on
numerous grounds. It identifies various areas in which Plaintiff’s claimed fees
were excessive or unreasonable, including fees incurred in preparation of
motions to compel which were ultimately withdrawn, in reviewing formulaic
discovery, in preparing a motion to enforce settlement that was duplicative of
a motion filed earlier by Defendant, and in preparing the present motion for
fees. (Opposition at pp. 3–5.) Defendant further argues that the hourly rates
charged in this matter are unreasonable, and should be lowered. (Opposition at
pp. 7–8.)
Defendant is correct that certain of the fees charged in this motion are
excessive. Specifically, Plaintiff seeks
$8,598.00 in fees for 11.4 hours of work (with attorneys Michael Saeedian and
Christopher Urner performing respectively 8.3 and 1.2 hours of work, and law
clerk Jorge Acosta performing 1.9 hours of work), totaling $7,091.00, from
April 25 through June 21, 2022, connected to four motions to compel that were
ultimately withdrawn. Defendant is correct that this amount of work is
excessive in related to the simple subject matter of the motions and the fact
that no reply or hearing was ultimately had upon them. Thus a more reasonable
amount of time for attorney Saaedian to spend on this work would have been six
hours.
Similarly, the court agrees with Defendant that the 7.6 hours (at $695
per hour) spent reviewing Defendant’s discovery and preparing a meet and confer
letter that was never sent on June 8, 2022, are excessive. (Rixit Decl.
¶ 8.) These 7.6 hours are properly reduced to 2.5 hours.
Some reductions are also appropriate as to the time expended in
preparing the motion to enforce settlement and the present fee motion.
Plaintiff here seeks 7.5 hours at $695 per hour in connection with preparing
the present motion, not counting the 4.5 hours of time expended by the law
clerk in reviewing billings, or the additional 8 hours of work anticipated in
preparing the reply and attending hearing. (Saeedin Decl. Exh. A.) Because the
motion consists primarily of statements of the law applicable to fees motions
and recitations of the case’s underlying facts, and because of the limited scope
of Defendant’s opposition, the 15.5 hours of attorney work claimed is
excessive. A more reasonable amount of time for Saaedian to spend on the same
subject matter is eight hours.
There was also excessive work in regard to Plaintiff’s motion to enforce
settlement. Plaintiff’s invoices record 43.1 hours of work performed on the
motion from June 1 to July 20, 2022, yielding charges of $24,890.00, with
attorneys Micahel Saeedian and Christopher Urner performing respectively 14.3
hours and 28.1 hours of work, and law clerk Jorge Acosta performing 0.7 hours
of work. (Saeedian Decl. Exh. A.) While this includes fees incurred related to
scheduling the motion in conjunction with Defendant’s opposing motion to vacate
settlement, it does not include fees related particularly to Plaintiff’s review
and opposition to that motion. Here, the court agrees with Defendant that the
43.1 hours expended on this motion were excessive. Although the motion involved
a relatively novel issue in the context of a lemon law claim, that novelty does
not justify the 43.1 hours expended upon it. A more reasonable amount of time
to have spent prosecuting this motion would have been 25 hours: Urner expending
20 hours, and Saeedian expending five.
Defendant is also persuasive in arguing that Plaintiff’s hourly rates
are excessive. Those rates are $695 per hour for partner Michael Saaedian, and $525
per hour for attorney Christopher Urner. (Saaedian Decl. ¶¶ 11–13.) These
rates are excessive in relation to the experience of these attorneys and the
kinds of work performed in this case. Defendant has presented judicial
decisions in which requests for fees for similar work were reduced, which
conform with this court’s own knowledge and familiarity with the fees
customarily awarded in cases of this type, reflecting prevailing conditions in
the relevant legal market. (See Heritage Pacific Financial, LLC v. Monroy
(2013) 215 Cal.App.4th 972, 1009 [“The court may rely on its own knowledge and
familiarity with the legal market in setting a reasonable hourly rate.”].)
Here, reasonable hourly rates for Saaedian and Urner would be, respectively,
$595 and $425 per hour.
Given the 115.1 hours of attorney work performed by Saaedian and Urner
in this matter, this reduction yields a $11,510 reduction in the overall
lodestar amount, before computing deductions related to specific tasks at the
new hourly rates. Adding these tasks yields the following calculation:
·
$1,878.50
reduced from the fees incurred with the withdrawn motions to compel;
·
$3,034.50
reduced from the fees associated with the review of Defendant’s discovery and
the preparation of a meet-and-confer letter that was never sent;
·
$7,026.00
reduced from the fees associated with the motion to enforce settlement
·
$4,462.50
reduced from the fees associated with the present motion for attorney fees.
These reductions from the $80,878.00 lodestar yield a new lodestar of
$52,966.50 in attorney fees, and $1,207.54 in costs.
The motion is therefore GRANTED in the amount of $52,966.50 in fees and
$1,207.54 in costs.