Judge: Joseph Lipner, Case: 20STCV43263, Date: 2024-03-26 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 20STCV43263    Hearing Date: March 26, 2024    Dept: 72

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA

COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES

DEPARTMENT 72

TENTATIVE RULING

Defendant Angie Kim moves for an award of attorney’s fees against Plaintiff Kilina America, Inc. (“Plaintiff”) in the amount of $13,320.

The Court GRANTS Kim’s motion in part.  Plaintiff shall be liable for $4,050 in Kim’s attorney’s fees.   

Background

            This is a contract case. Plaintiff sued Love Vintage and Kim (collectively, “Defendants”) to recover on an account for materials that Love Vintage purchased from Plaintiff. The purchase contract provided that the prevailing party in litigation to enforce it would be entitled to recover attorney’s fees.

Plaintiff alleged that Kim was the sole owner of Love Vintage and its alter ego. However, at trial, Plaintiff admitted that it was unable to provide evidence in support of the alter ego allegations.

After a one-day bench trial, the Court entered a judgment for Plaintiff against Love Vintage. The Court found that Plaintiff had not met its burden to establish personal liability against Kim.

Legal Standard

“In any action on a contract, where the contract specifically provides that attorney’s fees and costs, which are incurred to enforce that contract, shall be awarded either to one of the parties or to the prevailing party, then the party who is determined to be the party prevailing on the contract, whether he or she is the party specified in the contract or not, shall be entitled to reasonable attorney’s fees in addition to other costs.” (Civ. Code § 1717, subd. (a).)

“The court, upon notice and motion by a party, shall determine who is the party prevailing on the contract for purposes of this section, whether or not the suit proceeds to final judgment. Except [where an action has been voluntarily dismissed or dismissed pursuant to a settlement of the case], the party prevailing on the contract shall be the party who recovered a greater relief in the action on the contract. The court may also determine that there is no party prevailing on the contract for purposes of this section.” (Civ. Code § 1717, subd. (b).)

The moving party bears the burden of proof as to “reasonableness” of any fee claim. (Code Civ. Proc., § 1033.5, subd. (c)(5).) The party seeking fees has the burden of documenting the appropriate hours expended and hourly rates. (City of Colton v. Singletary (2012) 206 Cal.App.4th 751, 784.) This burden requires competent evidence as to the nature and value of the services rendered. (Martino v. Denevi (1986) 182 Cal.App.3d 553, 559.) A plaintiff’s verified billing invoices are prima facie evidence that the costs, expenses, and services listed were necessarily incurred. (Hadley v. Krepel (1985) 167 Cal.App.3d 677, 682.)

Discussion

Appropriateness of Fees

Plaintiff argues that Kim is not a prevailing party in this case because she closed Love Vintage “with no intent to pay for the judgment amount.” (Opposition at p. 3:10-13.) Plaintiff appears to be arguing either that Kim did not achieve her litigation objectives because she had to close her business, or that Kim has fraudulently withdrawn assets from the business in order to prevent them from being used in satisfaction of Plaintiff’s judgment against Love Vintage.

If the latter is the case, Plaintiff has a clear remedy: to file an action for fraudulent transfer. If Plaintiff’s argument is the former, then it is resolved by Plaintiff’s failure to establish its alter ego allegations. Kim and Love Vintage are legally separate; thus, even if Kim is Love Vintage’s sole owner and manager, the alleged fact that Love Vintage shut down as a result of this litigation (and may have necessarily have that shutdown conducted by Kim) speaks to whether Love Vintage achieved its litigation objectives of avoiding liability. Kim, a separate party, had a clear objective: to avoid personal liability for the debts of Love Vintage. She achieved this objective. Kim is therefore a prevailing party and may recover her attorney’s fees.

Fee Amount

Kim and Love Vintage are both represented by counsel David Romley in this case. Kim was formerly represented by Steven J. Bankin. Kim seeks fees for Romley only, and not Bankin.

Plaintiff’s counsel David Romley declares that his hourly rate for this case is $450.00. The Court finds this rate reasonable in light of Romley’s litigation experience.

Kim requests 29.60 hours for Romley. The problem for Kim, however, is that she gives only scant information about how this time was spent and for what tasks these fees were incurred.  Importantly, she provides almost no information about what portion of this fee applies to the attorney’s fees allocated to work for Kim, who prevailed, as opposed to work for Love Vintage, which did not prevail.

Based on the Court’s review of the billing invoices attached to the motion for attorney’s fees, as well as the Court’s familiarity with the issues from the bench trial, the Court deems 9 hours of attorney time reasonable with respect to the defense of Kim in this action.  Plaintiff adding Kim as a Defendant required Kim to seek discovery on the basis of the claim and to defend that issue at trial.  Other than that, Kim provides no further information, and the Court notes that the main thrust of Plaintiff’s case was against Love Vintage, not against Kim. 

Accordingly, the Court awards Kim nine hours of attorney’s fees.  At Romley’s rate of $450 per hour, this comes to $4,050.