Judge: Jon R. Takasugi, Case: BC587400, Date: 2024-11-15 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: BC587400    Hearing Date: November 15, 2024    Dept: 17

Superior Court of California

County of Los Angeles

DEPARTMENT 17

TENTATIVE RULING

The Court awards Plaintiff $3,604,544.25 in reasonable attorney fees.

On 7/7/205, Plaintiff Timothy Jang M.D. (Plaintiff) filed suit against the County of Los Angeles d/b/a Harbor UCLA Medical Center and Roger Lewis M.D., alleging: (1) Health and Safety Code section 1278.5; (2) Labor Code section 98.6 and 1102.5; (3) Business and Professions Code section 2056; (4) discrimination; (5) retaliation; (6) harassment; and (7) failure to prevent harassment, discrimination, and/or retaliation.

            On 8/20/2024, Plaintiff moved for attorney fees of $6,445,474.60 (with an adjusted 2.0 lodestar multiplier) and paralegal expenses in the amount of $333,202.50.

Legal Standard

The party claiming attorneys’ fees must establish entitlement to such fees and the reasonableness of the fees claimed.  (Civic Western Corporation v. Zila Industries, Inc. (1977) 66 Cal.App.3d 1, 16.) “Except as attorney’s fees are specifically provided for by statute, the measure and mode of compensation of attorneys and counselors at law is left to the agreement, express or implied, of the parties[.]” (CCP § 1021.)

“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.  (Id.)

In determining what constitutes a reasonable compensation for an attorney who has rendered services in connection with a legal proceeding, the court may and should consider the nature of the litigation, its difficulty, the amount involved, the skill required and the skill employed in handling the litigation, the attention given, the success of the attorneys’ efforts, their learning, their age, and their experience in the particular type of work demanded the intricacies and importance of the litigation, the labor and necessity for skilled legal training and ability in trying the cause, and the time consumed. (Stokus v. Marsh (1990) 217 Cal.App.3d 647, 657.)

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 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); see also Weber v. Langholz (1995) 39 Cal.App.4th 1578, 1587 (“The trial court could make its own evaluation of the reasonable worth of the work done in light of the nature of the case, and of the credibility of counsel’s declaration unsubstantiated by time records and billing statements.”)

Reasonable attorney fees should be based on an objective standard of reasonableness, i.e., the market value of services rendered, not on some notion of cost incurred. (PLCM Group, Inc. v. Drexler (2000) 22 Cal.4th 1084, 1090.)  The value of legal services performed in a case is a matter in which the trial court has its own expertise.  (Id. at 1096.)  The trial court may make its own determination of the value of the services contrary to, or without the necessity for, expert testimony.  (Id.)  The trial court makes its determination after consideration of a number of factors, including the nature of the litigation, its difficulty, the amount involved, the skill required in its handling, the skill employed, the attention given, the success or failure, and other circumstances in the case.  (Id.)

Discussion

Plaintiff seeks attorney and paralegal fees as follows:

In opposition, Defendant submitted an expert declaration from Grant D. Stiefel, a full-time consultant and testifying expert in the field of attorneys’ fees and a member of the California State Bar, to establish the unreasonableness of Plaintiff’s requested rates and total hours. In his declaration, Mr. Stiefel recommended the following rates:

-          Lawrence A. Bohm: $900/hr

-          Kelsey K. Ciarimboli: $500/hr

-          Brandon P. Ortiz: $500/hr

-          Bradley J. Mancuso: $600/hr

-          Kyle A. Pruner: $475/hr

-          Jack C. Brouwer: $350/hr

-          Ruth Ann Reeves: $250/hr

-          M. Noah Cowart: $250/hr

-          Jenni Burton: $250/hr

-          Edward Li: $250/hr

-          Michael Patterson: $250/hr

Moreover, his declaration set forth following the analysis:

-          78 percent of all billing entries—memorialize the sending or receiving of an email or text message. [Id., ¶ 43]. Plaintiff’s counsel billed 1,386 hours to send and receive emails and text messages, which is the equivalent of seven months of full-time billable work and represents 31 percent of all time billed. [Id., ¶ 44]. In total, Plaintiff claims $962,875 in hourly fees— $1,925,750 with multiplier—just to send and receive emails and texts in this case. [Id., ¶ 45].

-          Plaintiff’s counsel would record as much as seventeen billable hours per day for email and text communications.

-          Plaintiff’s counsel billed 328 hours and seeks $265,191 in hourly fees ($530,382 with multiplier) for conversations and emails/texts with Dr. Jang.

-          Plaintiff’s counsel also billed 286 hours to communications (texts, emails, phone calls, meetings, etc.) with defense counsel, for which Plaintiff seeks $206,485 in hourly fees ($412,970 with multiplier).

-          Plaintiff’s counsel billed 1,003 hours to internal communications (conferences, phone calls, meetings, discussions, and thousands-upon-thousands of individual texts and emails) between the lawyers, paralegals, and office staff at Bohm Law Group. This is more than six months of full-time billable work for counsel to do nothing but talk about the case,

-          Plaintiffs’ counsel also billed for clerical and secretarial work, including filing documents with the court, scheduling court reporters, ordering transcripts, saving documents to the firm’s file system, proofreading, accounting, organizing, and word processing. Plaintiff seeks $147,897 in fees—$295,794 with multiplier—for 288 hours of clerical/secretarial work.

-          Plaintiff’s counsel also billed for a substantial amount of travel time: 166 hours, reflecting $131,920 in claimed fees (or $263,840 with multiplier).

-          Counsel also spent a massive amount of time preparing their motion for attorneys’ fees. In addition to the 220 hours that Plaintiffs’ counsel billed to “compile and audit” time for the fee motion, counsel billed an additional 97 hours to discuss and draft the fee motion. 12 In total, counsel claims 317 hours and $235,389 in fees for the attorneys’ fee motion, which is excessive.

-          Plaintiff’s counsel billed 50 hours to the Motion for Equitable Relief, for which they claim $33,803 in fees.

Based on his review, he recommended the following fee model:

-          A 70% deduction to the 9,352 line-item entries for sending and receiving emails and text messages. [Paragraphs 43-56.]

-          A 100% deduction to the time billed to “compile and audit” time for the fee motion. [Paragraphs 57-59.]

-          A 50% deduction to the time billed for internal attorney conferencing. [Paragraphs 63-67.]

-          A 100% deduction for non-compensable office overhead, clerical, and secretarial work [Paragraphs 69-70].

-          A 100% deduction for the time billed for Attorney Brandon Ortiz to attend trial as third-chair counsel. [Paragraphs 71-75].

-          A 50% deduction to travel time (and a 100% discount for the travel time billed by Jack Brouwer, who served as the trial team’s on-call driver at a rate of up to $600/hour. [Paragraphs 76-81].

-          A 50% deduction for the time billed to discuss and draft the fee motion. [Paragraph 82.]

-          A 100% deduction to time billed to Plaintiff’s Motion for Equitable Relief and for work attributed to the dismissed defendants. [Paragraph 83a].

After applying the foregoing deductions and using the recommended hourly rates, Mr. Stiefel set forth a maximum recommended lodestar of $1,648,283 (reflecting 2,847 hours of compensable work).

After review, the Court accepts Mr. Stiefel’s proposed reductions with the exception of: (1) the deduction for Attorney Brandon Ortiz to attend trial; (2) the 70% deduction to billings for emails and texts; and (3) the 100% deduction for time billed to Plaintiff’s motion for equitable relief and for work attributed to the dismissed defendants. The Court is not persuaded that it was unreasonable for three trial attorneys to attend for an employment dispute like this. While the Court finds it appropriate to reduce some time billed for communication, the Court finds a 70% reduction to be excessive, given that communication is an essential aspect of litigation. Finally, fees were actually incurred in order to prepare the equitable relief motion. While the Court finds the 50 hours claimed for that motion to be unreasonable on its face, the Court finds only a 50% reduction to be appropriate. The Court agrees that fees incurred in connection with dismissed defendants are not properly recovered here. 

Accordingly, the Court calculates a lodestar amount of $2,403,029.50 in reasonable attorney fees.  This reflects the $1,648,283 sum set forth by Mr. Stiefel, plus adds back $64,025 in fees billed by Mr. Ortiz as third-chair counsel, plus $673,820 in recoverable fees billed for communications, plus $16,901.50 in reasonable fees incurred for the equitable relief motion (i.e., 50% of the $33,803 initially billed.)

Moreover, the Court finds a 1.5 lodestar to be appropriate here. Relevant factors to determine whether an enhancement is appropriate include (1) the novelty and difficulty of the questions involved, (2) the skill displayed in presenting them, (3) the extent to which the nature of the litigation precluded other employment by the attorneys, (4) the contingent nature of the fee award.  (Ketchum v. Moses (2001) 24 Cal.4th 1122, 1132.) Here, counsel worked on contingency, and there were a number of factors which presented challenges. As noted by Plaintiff, Dr. Jang is a doctor, who may garner less sympathy from a jury, and the case was against public entity. Moreover, Dr. Jang’s claim for failure to promote can be difficult to establish.  Trial here was exceptionally time consuming and laborious, and presented considerable risk to counsel given the continency model. The level of skill demonstrated by Plaintiff’s counsel was exceptional.

 Applying the 1.5 multiplier, the Court awards $3,604,544.25 in reasonable attorney fees.

It is so ordered.

Dated:  November    , 2024

   Hon. Jon R. Takasugi
   Judge of the Superior Court

Parties who intend to submit on this tentative must send an email to the court at smcdept17@lacourt.org by 4 p.m. the day prior as directed by the instructions provided on the court website at www.lacourt.org.  If a party submits on the tentative, the party’s email must include the case number and must identify the party submitting on the tentative.  If all parties to a motion submit, the court will adopt this tentative as the final order.  If the department does not receive an email indicating the parties are submitting on the tentative and there are no appearances at the hearing, the motion may be placed off calendar.  For more information, please contact the court clerk at (213) 633-0517.