Judge Mark A. Young, Case Number: 22SMCV00977, Date: 2024-02-28 Tentative Ruling

Judge: Mark A. Young, Case: 22SMCV00977, Date: 2024-02-28 Tentative Ruling

Case Number: 22SMCV00977 Hearing Date: February 28, 2024 Dept: M

CASE NAME: Antonyan v. Mercedes-Benz USA LLC

CASE NO.: 22SMCV00977

MOTION: Motion for Attorneys’ Fees

HEARING DATE: 2/28/2024

Legal Standard

With respect to attorney fees and costs, unless they are specifically provided for by statute (e.g., CCP §§ 1032, et seq.), 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.) The prevailing party on a contract, which specifically provides for attorney fees and costs incurred to enforce the agreement, is entitled to reasonable attorney fees in addition to other costs.¿(Civ. Code § 1717(a); CCP §§ 1032, 1033.5(a)(10)(A).)¿The court, upon notice and motion by a party, shall determine the prevailing party and shall fix, as an element of the costs of suit, the reasonable attorney fees.¿(Civ. Code § 1717(a), (b).)¿Any notice of motion to claim attorney fees as an element of costs under shall be served and filed before or at the same time the memorandum of costs is served and filed; if only attorney fees are claimed as costs, the notice of motion shall be served and filed within the time specified in CRC 3.1700 for filing a memorandum of costs.¿(CRC 3.1702; Gunlock Corp. v. Walk on Water, Inc. (1993) 15 Cal.App.4th 1301, 1303, fn. 1.)

“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. [Citation.]” (Melnyk v. Robledo (1976) 64 Cal.App.3d 618, 623 624.) 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 lodestar figure may then be adjusted, based on consideration of factors specific to the case, in order to fix the fee at the fair market value for the legal services provided. (See Serrano v. Priest (1977) 20 Cal.3d 25, 49 [discussing factors relevant to proper attorneys’ fees award].) Such an approach anchors the trial court’s analysis to an objective determination of the value of the attorney’s services, ensuring that the amount awarded is not arbitrary. (Id. at 48, fn. 23.) The factors considered in determining the modification of the lodestar 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.” (Mountjoy v. Bank of Am. (2016) 245 Cal.App.4th 266, 271.)

In challenging attorney fees as excessive because too many hours of work are claimed, it is the burden of the challenging party to point to the specific items challenged, with a sufficient argument and citations to the evidence.¿(Premier Medical Management Systems, Inc. v. California Ins. Guaranty Assoc. (2008) 163 Cal.App.4th 550, 564.)¿General arguments that fees claimed are excessive, duplicative, or unrelated do not suffice. (Ibid.)

Analysis

Plaintiff requests $22,717.50 in attorney fees, plus additional fees of $4,000.00. In support of this request, Plaintiff provides a procedural timeline of this action. During the warranty period, Plaintiff presented the Subject Vehicle to Defendant’s authorized repair facilities on eight separate occasions for repeated problems related to the powertrain system in the Subject Vehicle. (Liu Decl., ¶ 4.) On June 24, 2022, Plaintiff filed this lawsuit alleging violations of the Song-Beverly Warranty Act, among other remedies. On August 5, 2022, Defendant filed its Answer, denying liability. On January 4, 2023, the parties attended the initial Case Management Conference whereby the Court set trial for November 13, 2023.

Plaintiff engaged in and litigated a single set of written discovery. (Liu Decl., ¶¶ 8-17.) The parties attended an informal discovery conference (IDC), at which the Court directed Defendant to supplement its responses within two weeks. (¶ 16.) Rather than provide supplemental responses, Defendant made a settlement offer on May 9, 2023, which Plaintiff accepted on May 23, 2023. (¶¶ 17, 19-20.) Plaintiff also noticed the deposition of Defendant’s PMK, but Defendant objected, and the deposition did not go forward. (¶ 18.) Plaintiff unsuccessfully attempted to resolve the fees and costs dispute informally. (¶ 20.)

Plaintiff provides verified time records of counsel for this action. (Liu Decl., ¶¶ 21-25, 42-44, Ex. 17.) Counsel Nancy Zhang charged a rate of $490-$500 per hour for 4.6 hours of work. Counsel Joseph Liu charged a rate of $445-$475 per hour for 40.7 hours of work. Counsel also provides their training, education and experience as a basis for their requested hourly rates. (¶¶ 22-25.) Counsel also attaches a US Consumer Law Attorney Fee Survey Report 2017-2018. (Ex. 16.) The Court finds that the requested hourly rate of $475 is reasonable in light of counsels’ experience, education and training, and in light of the prevailing hourly rates for lemon law counsel.

Preliminarily, the Court notes that counsel occasionally billed in increments of one percent (0.01) of an hour. The Court finds this an unusual and unreasonable practice, as this unit of time would be 36 seconds. It is unlikely that the records are accurate to that level of detail. Thus, the Court is therefore inclined to round down to the nearest tenth of an hour. In total, this resulted in the removal of .60 hours.

Defendant argues that the invoices and descriptions do not delineate tasks billed by Plaintiff’s counsel and are therefore vague and ambiguous. Defendant makes numerous specific objections to billing entries it believes are unreasonable, excessive or vague. Reviewing the specific objections, the Court concurs that some of the billing entries are ambiguous or vague. For instance, the July 6, 2022, entry regards “attention to case file re new matter,” which does not explain what sort of “attention” was being given to the case file. The Court also finds certain entries to be inflated, such as the May 22, 2023, and July 17, 2023, entries for reviewing the case file and emailing an associate. This resulted in the removal of 1.4 hours.

The Court also finds that some of the claimed supplemental fees for replying to the opposition are unreasonably inflated. Counsel claims 1.1 hours reviewing Defendant’s opposition, 5.7 hours drafting the reply and supporting documents, and anticipates spending an additional 2 hours preparing for the hearing on this matter and another 1 hour attending the hearing. (Supp. Liu Decl., ¶ 5.) Reviewing the reply papers, the Court would not find the entirety of the 9.8 hours requested for supplemental fees are reasonable. The Court will therefore reduce the claimed hours worked to reflect a reasonable number of hours worked.

The Court finds Defendant’s other contentions to be unsupported. Counsel did not engage in evasive or ambiguous block-billing when describing multiple related tasks in a single entry. Defendant’s other claims that counsel took an unreasonable amount of time to draft and serve discovery, or that counsel engaged in administrative/secretarial work, are likewise unsupported by the respective time entries.

In light of the entirety of the record, the Court finds that a reasonable number of hours worked for this action would be a total of 43.7 hours. As such, the Court GRANTS the motion in the reduced amount of $20,757.50.