Judge Lynne M. Hobbs, Case Number: 20STCV00604, Date: 2025-04-10 Tentative Ruling

Judge: Lynne M. Hobbs, Case: 20STCV00604, Date: 2025-04-10 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 20STCV00604 Hearing Date: April 10, 2025 Dept: 61

JALEN J. LEE vs BMW OF NORTH AMERICA, LLC

Tentative:

Plaintiff Jalen J. Lee’s Motion for Attorney Fees is GRANTED in the amount of $202,509.29.

Moving party to provide notice.

Analysis:

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 Jalen J. Lee (Plaintiff) seeks $321,753.75 in attorney fees. This amount consists of a lodestar of $213,302.50, representing 38.3 hours ($18,652.5) of attorney work by the firm Quill & Arrow LLP (QA), and 470.3 hours of work ($194,650.00) by the firm Wirtz Law APC (WL). Plaintiff additionally seeks a lodestar multiplier of 150% for an additional $107,251.25.(Motion at p. 15.)

Plaintiff presents the declaration of Kevin Jacobsen, a partner of QA, who authenticates billing records for the firm and provides a basis for the hourly rates charged, which range from $350 to $525 per hour, incurred by four attorneys in the firm. (Jacobsen Decl. ¶¶ 3–20, Exh. 7.) Plaintiff also presents the declaration of Richard M. Wirtz of WL, who testifies to the work performed by six attorneys, four paralegals, and one law clerk on this matter, with rates ranging from $250 to $750 per hour. (Wirtz Decl. ¶¶ 17–26, 33, Exh. 1.) Wirtz notes that two of the paralegals recorded on billing records and three of the attorneys left the firm in 2022 and 2023. (Wirtz Decl. ¶¶ 23–27.)

Defendant BMW of North America, LLC (Defendant) argues that Plaintiff’s case was overstaffed, argues that no multiplier is appropriate, and seeks a reduction of Plaintiff’s requested lodestar from $213,302.50 to $103,887.50. (Opposition at pp. 1–3.) Defendant argues that Plaintiff’s requested rates are unreasonably inflated. (Opposition at pp. 3–4.) And Defendant identifies particular billing areas where it claims Plaintiffs’ counsel seeks compensation for unreasonable and unnecessary work. (Opposition at pp. 4–5.)

Defendant is correct that unreasonable multiplicity of attorneys performing duplicative work may furnish a basis to substantially reduce a cost award. In Morris v. Hyundai Motors America (2019) 41 Cal.App.5th 24, the trial court substantially reduced a requested attorney fees award involving 11 attorneys and two firms in a lemon law action. (Id. at p. 32.) “Out of a total of 283.3 hours of billed work, the court did not award any fees for 83.5 hours of work billed by six associates.” (Ibid.) The appellate court affirmed: “Plainly, it is appropriate for a trial court to reduce a fee award based on its reasonable determination that a routine, non-complex case was overstaffed to a degree that significant inefficiencies and inflated fees resulted.” (Id. at p. 39.) The appellate court determined that the trial court’s remedy of cutting out several attorneys’ billings was permissible because it “was designed to yield a revised lodestar figure that reflected a total amount of fees that were reasonably incurred.” (Id. at p. 40.) A similar result was reached in the case Mikhaeilpoor v. BMW of North America, LLC (2020) 48 Cal.App.5th 240, 253, which cited Morris with approval to reduce an award involving 595 claimed hours of work and a total request of $344,639.00 in fees following trial.

However, in the present case, there is little indication that the staffing meaningfully contributed to inefficiencies reflected in the billing records. The billing records indicate that the multiple attorneys staffed on this case were occasioned by the switch in firms from QA to WL in 2021. (Jacobsen Decl. Exh. 7; Wirtz Decl. Exh. 1.) And as Wirtz notes in his declaration, additional attorneys and paralegals were brought in to replace those that left the firm in the course of the present litigation. (Wirtz Decl. ¶¶ 23–27.) Although overstaffing may entail duplicative costs for duplicative work, or fees for inter-counsel communication, such fees are expressly excluded from WL’s billings here. (Motion at pp. 4–5.)

Defendant’s objections to the hourly rates are also unsupported. Plaintiff supports the hourly rates sought with declarations of counsel attesting to the experience of the attorneys and other staff for which fees are sought, as well as explanations for rate increases weighed against public inflation records during the relevant period. (Wirtz Decl. ¶ 33, Exh. 6.) This is sufficient to justify the hourly rates sought.

Defendants’ arguments as to particular charges or areas of charge are mostly unpersuasive. Defendant seeks a reduction of 13.5 hours related to the inspection of Plaintiff’s vehicle and correspondence related to the same, yet offers no explanation as to why this amount is excessive. (Opposition at p. 4.) Defendant objects to the 39.7 hours spent opposing Defendant’s motion for summary judgment, but such an expenditure of time is not unreasonable in opposition to a dispositive motion brought on the fact-intensive grounds that Plaintiff’s claims were time-barred because he ought to have had notice of the relevant breaches long prior to suit. (Opposition at p. 4.)

Defendant argues that Plaintiff unreasonably spent 4.9 hours preparing and propounding written discovery, and 5.6 hours to prepare for the deposition of Plaintiff, but these expenditures are reasonable and not excessive. (Opposition at pp. 4–5.) A greater amount of time — 104.3 hours — was spent preparing for trial in this action, but Defendant’s arguments against are not persuasive, as trial was indeed imminent (and continued several times) when the present matter was settled. The challenge to Plaintiff’s time spent drafting pretrial motions and preparing exhibits are persuasively rebutted by Plaintiff’s counsel in reply. (Reply at pp. 7–8; Supp. Wirtz Decl. ¶ 9.)

But Defendant’s objection to the travel charges for Plaintiff’s counsel is persuasive. Defendant identifies 50 hours of travel time billed by Plaintiff’s WL counsel at full hourly rates. (Opposition at p. 3.) Although travel time is compensable where reasonably incurred (See Roe v. Halbig (2018) 29 Cal.App.5th 286, 312), such fees were multiplied in this action by Plaintiff’s decision to employ WL, a law firm based in San Diego. (Reply at pp. 8–9.) Plaintiff may retain who he wishes, but absent some showing that a local firm could not be retained to represent Plaintiff in a Los Angeles County lemon law action, these fees are properly reduced by 25 hours, at the average hourly rate for WL attorneys of $431.73 per hour, yielding a lodestar reduction of $10,793.21.

Additionally, no lodestar multiplier, upward or downward, is appropriate in this matter. “Once the court has fixed the lodestar, it may increase or decrease that amount by applying a positive or negative ‘multiplier’ to take into account a variety of other factors, including the quality of the representation, the novelty and complexity of the issues, the results obtained, and the contingent risk presented.” (Thayer v. Wells Fargo Bank., N.A. (2001) 92 Cal.App.4th 819, 833.) Although Plaintiff’s attorneys have obtained favorable results for their client on an expectation only of contingency, the subject matter of this case was not so complex as to warrant recovery of fees beyond the reasonable hourly rates charged.

Accordingly, the motion for attorney fees is GRANTED in the amount of $202,509.29.