Judge: H. Jay Ford, III, Case: SC129884, Date: 2023-04-13 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: SC129884    Hearing Date: April 13, 2023    Dept: O

Case Name:               Andrews v. RA_Bar Beauty Incorporated, et al.

SUBJECT:                MOTION FOR ATTORNEY’S FEES   

MOVING PARTY:   Plaintiff Heather Andrews

RESP. PARTY:         Defendants RA_Bar Beauty Incorporated, Whtiney Olson, Kennedy Van Dyke and Audrey Boyd and X-Complainant RA_Pothecary Inc.

TENTATIVE RULING

            Plaintiff Heather Andrews’ Motion for Attorney’s Fees is GRANTED in the amount of _____________.  Plaintiff’s request for a multiplier is DENIED. 

            Defendants’ objections and motions to strike declarations of Kete Barnes and Ryan Abbott are OVERRULED and DENIED. 

            Andrews undisputedly prevailed on her Labor Code claims.  Defendants do not dispute this.  As such, Andrews is entitled to recovery of a reasonable fee for the time spent in connection with her Labor Code claims pursuant to Labor Code §§218.5(a), 226(e) and 1194(a).   

            In total, Andrews recovered $10,458.35 on her Labor Code claims.  Andrews now seeks $375,985.94 in fees, which reflects a reduction of 25% to reflect any “mixed” time that could not be excluded and a 1.25 multiplier.  Andrews’ requested amount excludes any time exclusively incurred in connection with non-Labor code claims.

I.  Sufficient documentation is provided.

A request for attorneys' fees ordinarily should be documented in great detail, but there is no bright rule mandating any particular type of evidence be proffered in support of or in opposition to such a request.  Weber v. Langholz (1995) 39 Cal.App.4th 1578, 1587 (affirming fee award based on sworn declaration of counsel explaining work performed and rate charged but without submission of supporting billing statements where opposition failed to explain or support conclusory objections to amount requested). To that end, the court may require defendants to produce records sufficient to provide a proper basis for determining how much time was spent on particular claims.  The court also may properly reduce compensation on account of any failure to maintain appropriate time records.  See ComputerXpress, Inc. v. Jackson (2001) 93 Cal.App.4th 993, 1020.   

            Defendants object to the documentation provided as insufficient.  Plaintiff relies entirely on two declarations of counsel and no contemporaneous billing tickets are provided.  Defendants argue this was done to conceal improprieties in inflated billings. 

            However, the declarations of Plaintiffs’ counsel sets forth the total number of hours spent on the case, the attorneys who worked on the case, the work performed on the case by category of task, the hourly rates of the attorneys and a table setting for the name of the attorney, the amount of time spent on the case, the hourly rate of each attorney and the total fees attributable to each attorney.  See Dec. of K. Barnes, ¶¶5-16, 29. 

            The trial court is “the best judge of the value of the professional services rendered in his court, and while his judgment is of course subject to review, it will not be disturbed unless the appellate court is clearly convinced it is wrong.”  ComputerXpress, Inc., supra, 93 Cal.App.4^th at 1020.  Given the Court’s first-hand knowledge of the work performed on the case, the documentation provided is sufficient for it to determine what qualifies as a reasonable fee. 

II.  Amount of fees requested relative to recovery on Labor Code claims

            “For a century or more, California courts have considered the success or failure of attorney efforts when evaluating attorney fee requests.  The size of a judgment is pertinent to rational evaluation of a requested fee. Rational decisionmaking weighs benefits and costs. The judgment measures the dollar benefit of the litigation. The attorney fee is the cost of obtaining that benefit.”  Karton v. Ari Design & Construction, Inc. (2021) 61 Cal.App.5th 734, 746–747. 

            Plaintiff argues that the Court should not award her fees as a proportion of her recovery on the Labor Code claims.  Plaintiff argues this would defeat the purpose of a mandatory fee-shifting statute intended to encourage lawsuits by employees whose claims are normally not financially viable due to the cost of litigation.  Plaintiff relies on the reasoning applied in CLRA claims and civil rights claims: 

“[B]ecause this matter involves an individual plaintiff suing under consumer protection statutes involving mandatory fee-shifting provisions, the legislative policies are in favor of Graciano's recovery of all attorney fees reasonably expended, without limiting the fees to a proportion of her actual recovery. The circumstances here are analogous to those addressed by the United States Supreme Court in the civil rights context: ‘A rule that limits attorney's fees in civil rights cases to a proportion of the damages awarded would seriously undermine Congress' purpose in enacting [42 United States Code section] 1988. Congress enacted [42 United States Code section] 1988 specifically because it found that the private market for legal services failed to provide many victims of civil rights violations with effective access to the judicial process. [Citation.] These victims ordinarily cannot afford to purchase legal services at the rates set by the private market.... Moreover, the contingent fee arrangements that make legal services available to many victims of personal injuries would often not encourage lawyers to accept civil rights cases, which frequently involve substantial expenditures of time and effort but produce only small monetary recoveries.  A rule of proportionality would make it difficult, if not impossible, for individuals with meritorious civil rights claims but relatively small potential damages to obtain redress from the courts.”  Graciano v. Robinson Ford Sales, Inc. (2006) 144 Cal.App.4th 140, 164 (quoting Riverside v. Rivera (1986) 477 U.S. 561, 576–577). 

            Plaintiff obtained an award of $10,458.35 on her Labor Code claims.  Plaintiff requests fees in the amount of $375,985.94, approximately 36 times the judgment amount on the Labor Code claims.  However, as with the CLRA and civil rights statutes, the purpose of mandatory fee shifting statutes is to encourage litigants to file lawsuits they may otherwise be unable to without fee shifting.  As such, the Court will not apply a rule of proportionality to the reasonableness of Plaintiff’s request for fees relative to the amount she recovered on her Labor Code claims.  Defendants’ request that the Court award 7.4% of Plaintiff’s request for fees is also denied for the same reason.

III.  Apportionment of fees and reasonableness of amount

            The Court understands that Plaintiff has excluded all fees exclusively attributable to non-Labor Code claims and only included time attributable exclusively to work performed on Labor Code claims and time spent on “mixed” tasks that benefitted both Labor Code and non-Labor Code claims.  Based on a review of the declaration in support of the requested fees, the Court disagrees with Plaintiff’s apportionment of 25% to non-Labor Code claims.  The Court finds that an appropriate apportionment is ____________________.

            In addition, the amount of time Plaintiff claims to have spent on the Labor Code was excessive.  The focus of the action was Plaintiff’s non-Labor Code claims.  Plaintiff’s proof of her damages in connection with her Labor Code claims was not complex, the calculation of the amounts claimed was simple math.  As such, the Court finds a reasonable fee to be ___________________ for Plaintiff’s litigation of her Labor Code claims.

IV.  Plaintiff’s request for a multiplier of 1.25

            “The purpose of such adjustment is to fix a fee at the fair market value for the particular action. In effect, the court determines, retrospectively, whether the litigation involved a contingent risk or required extraordinary legal skill justifying augmentation of the unadorned lodestar in order to approximate the fair market rate for such services.”  Santana v. FCA US, LLC (2020) 56 Cal.App.5th 334, 351. 

“Perhaps the most common multiplier applied, at least where a plaintiff prevails, is a modifier for the contingent nature of the representation.”  Id.  The court may not consider the contingent nature of the representation in both setting the lodestar and applying a modifier.  Id.

            Another factor considered by a court in applying a multiplier is the “result obtained.”  “The ‘results obtained’ factor can properly be used to enhance a lodestar calculation where an exceptional effort produced an exceptional benefit.”  Graham v. DaimlerChrysler Corp. (2004) 34 Cal.4th 553, 582.  “The purpose of such adjustment is to fix a fee at the fair market value for the particular action. In effect, the court determines, retrospectively, whether the litigation involved a contingent risk or required extraordinary legal skill justifying augmentation of the unadorned lodestar in order to approximate the fair market rate for such services.”  Thayer v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. (2001) 92 Cal.App.4th 819, 833. 

            Based on Plaintiff’s declarations in support of the work performed, the outcome of the litigation and the legal skill required to obtain Plaintiff’s Labor Code damages of $10,458.35, Plaintiff’s request for a multiplier of 1.25 is denied.  Litigation of the Labor Code claims did not require extraordinary skill, nor was the result extraordinary.  Application of a multiplier is unnecessary to compensate Plaintiff’s counsel for their work at market rates.  Application of the lodestar method is sufficient.