TENTATIVE RULING

Defendants Tara Barauskas, Robert Connell, Durinda Abraham, Kyong Chang, Alan Wittert, and Community Corporation of Santa Monica’s Motion for Attorneys’ Fees is GRANTED in the reduced amount of $27,565.50.

Defendants Tara Barauskas, Robert Connell, Durinda Abraham, Kyong Chang, Alan Wittert, and Community Corporation of Santa Monica to give notice. 

REASONING

Defendants Tara Barauskas, Robert Connell, Durinda Abraham, Kyong Chang, Alan Wittert, and Community Corporation of Santa Monica (“Defendants”) move the Court for an order awarding them attorney fees in the amount of $106,788.00 against Plaintiff Kathleen A. Kenne (“Plaintiff”) on the ground that Defendants incurred such fees to litigate Plaintiff’s appeal of the Court’s order granting terminating sanctions in Defendants’ favor and dismissing this action on November 16, 2021.

It is axiomatic that a party is permitted to recover reasonable attorney fees, when authorized by contract, statute, or law, pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 1033.5, subdivision (a)(10)(A)-(C). Defendants state that they are not seeking fees pursuant to contract; rather, they are seeking fees under Civil Code section 1942.5, subdivision (i), which provides that “[i]n any action brought for damages for retaliatory eviction, the court shall award reasonable attorney’s fees to the prevailing party if either party requests attorney’s fees upon the initiation of the action,” and the Santa Monica Municipal Code. It is undisputed that this action sought relief for retaliatory eviction (Compl. ¶¶ 20, 24), and Plaintiff requested attorney fees in the complaint filed on December 18, 2017, which initiated this action (Compl., p. 109, ll. 21-22). Defendants also sought attorney fees in their answer. (Defs.’ Answer, p. 123, ll. 7-8.) Put simply, the Court reads the entire pleading as seeking relief based on Defendants’ alleged retaliatory eviction due to Plaintiff complaining of rodents in her unit, and attorney fees were sought. The Court finds that apportionment is not proper or necessary here, as Plaintiff’s retaliatory eviction claims were the basis of the entire action, even if the individual causes of action did not specifically include statements of retaliatory eviction, i.e., this issue was common between all claims. Moreover, it is not clear how the Court could apportion the work based on the nature of the work performed for this appeal. Further, Defendants prevailed in the appeal, and the Court of Appeal’s ruling allowed Defendants to recover their costs on appeal. Thus, Defendants are entitled to fees here.

Plaintiff takes issue with Defendants’ discussion of the case history, which is not relevant to disposition of the present motion, which merely seeks fees incurred in litigating Plaintiff’s appeal of the Court’s order granting terminating sanctions. The Court does not address the propriety of any fees outside of the appeal at this juncture, as this motion relates only to the appeal, and Defendants have filed a separate motion relating to fees incurred before the appeal. 

The fee setting inquiry in California ordinarily “begins with the ‘lodestar’ [method], i.e., the number of hours reasonably expended multiplied by the reasonable hourly rate.” (Graciano v. Robinson Ford Sales, Inc. (2006) 144 Cal.App.4th 140, 154.) “[A] computation of time spent on a case and the reasonable value of that time is fundamental to a determination of an appropriate attorneys’ fee award.” (Margolin v. Reg’l Planning Comm’n (1982) 134 Cal.App.3d 999, 1004.)

The Court has reviewed the billing sheets and finds that work performed was reasonable. However, the Court is not inclined to award Defendants their fees based on an $809 per hour hourly rate because this is an unreasonably high rate given the nature of this action and the nature of the work performed. While the Court acknowledges this action was time consuming, this merely warrants an award for more hours than what may be typical in a similar action; it does not warrant an hourly rate more than twice what was actually charged. In other words, if the Court were to award Defendants their fees based on an $809 per hour hourly rate, the Court would expect that the work could be performed in less time. The Court awards fees at the rate of $235 per hour, the rate actually charged to Defendants, for defense counsel’s work.

Defendants’ motion shows that 113.4 hours has been extended, but 3.1 hours of work was performed by a law clerk, i.e., a non-attorney, so the Court subtracts those hours from the award. As to the present motion, Defendants provide only an estimate of the work performed, so the Court awards fees for six hours of attorney work preparing the motion and one hour spent appearing at the hearing on the motion, given no reply was filed. Thus, Defendants are entitled to fees for 117.3 hours at a rate of $235 per hour, for a total award of $27,565.50. Accordingly, Defendants Tara Barauskas, Robert Connell, Durinda Abraham, Kyong Chang, Alan Wittert, and Community Corporation of Santa Monica’s Motion for Attorneys’ Fees is GRANTED in the reduced amount of $27,565.50.