Judge William A. Crowfoot, Case Number: 22AHCV01428, Date: 2025-06-12 Tentative Ruling

Judge: William A. Crowfoot, Case: 22AHCV01428, Date: 2025-06-12 Tentative Ruling

On January 31, 2025, plaintiffs Ashley Mendoza and Maribel Mendoza (collectively, “Plaintiffs”) filed this motion for attorney’s fees, costs, and expenses. Plaintiffs request a fee award of $42,497.67, consisting of $23,457 in attorneys’ fees with a 1.5 lodestar multiplier, $1,312.71 in costs, and $6,000 in fees to review the anticipated opposition, draft a reply, and attend the hearing on this motion.

On May 30, 2025, defendant Nissan North America, Inc. (“Defendant”) filed its opposition to Plaintiffs’ motion.

On June 5, 2025, Plaintiffs filed a reply brief and supplemental declaration of counsel.

Defendant filed evidentiary objections to this supplemental declaration on June 6, 2025.

“[T]he starting point of every fee award ... must be a calculation of the attorney's services in terms of the time he has expended on the case. Anchoring the analysis to this concept is the only way of approaching the problem that can claim objectivity, a claim which is obviously vital to the prestige of the bar and the courts.” (In re Vitamin Cases (2003) 110 Cal. App. 4th 1041, 1058, citation omitted.) “[T]he primary method for establishing the amount of ‘reasonable’ attorney fees is the lodestar method. The lodestar (or touchstone) is produced by multiplying the number of hours reasonably expended by counsel by a reasonable hourly rate.” (Thayer v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. (2001) 92 Cal. App. 4th 819, 833.) Under this approach, a base amount is calculated from a compilation of time reasonably spent and reasonable hourly compensation of each attorney. (Serrano v. Priest (1977) 20 Cal.3d 25, 48; Serrano v. Unruh (1982) 32 Cal.3d 621, 639.)

The determination of reasonable amount of attorney fees is within the sound discretion of trial courts. (PLCM Group v. Drexler (2000) 22 Cal.4th 1084, 1095;¿Akins v. Enterprise Rent-A-Car Co. (2000) 79 Cal. App. 4th 1127, 1134.) The Court “need not simply award the sum requested.” (Id.) “[R]easonableness of attorney fees is ... to be determined from a consideration of such factors as the nature of the litigation, the complexity of the issues, the experience and expertise of counsel and the amount of time involved. The court may also consider whether the amount requested is based upon unnecessary or duplicative work.” (Wilkerson v. Sullivan (2002) 99 Cal.App.4th 443, 448.)

Pursuant to Civil Code section 1794(d), “[i]f 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.” “The lodestar method is applicable to calculating attorney fees under section 1794, subdivision (d).” (Doppes v. Bentley Motors, Inc. (2009) 174 Cal.App.4th 967, 997.)

Plaintiffs submit the declaration of Kevin Jacobson, wherein he describes the qualifications of the attorneys who worked on this matter (including himself) and the reasonableness of their rates. (Jacobson Decl., ¶¶13-26.) These attorneys include Allen Amarkarian, Daniel Nickfardjam, Camran Pakbaz, Roy Enav, Danja Stocca, Olga Ponce, and Stephanie Argent. Their hourly rates range from $350 to $525, with most of the work being billed at a rate of $395 per hour. The total number of hours spent on this litigation is approximately 61 hours and Plaintiffs attach a copy of their counsel’s billing records. (Jacobson Decl., Ex. 7.) In the Court’s experience, these hourly rates are reasonable. (569 East County Boulevard LLC v. Backcountry Against the Dump, Inc. (2016) 6 Cal.App.5th 426, 437 [courts may consider their knowledge and familiarity with the legal market, the experience, skill, and reputation of the attorney requesting fees, the difficulty or complexity of the litigation, affidavits from attorneys regarding prevailing fees in the community, and rate determinations of other cases].)

Defendant opposes the motion on the grounds that the hourly rates were unreasonable and the hours billed include numerous entries that should be reduced or eliminated. Defendant proposes that a reasonable fee award should be no more than $14,074.20 and argue that no lodestar multiplier is warranted because this was a routine lemon law case that did not present any novel issues. “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. General arguments that fees claimed are excessive, duplicative, or unrelated do not suffice.” (Premier Medical Management Systems, Inc. v. California Ins. Guarantee Assn. (2008) 163 Cal.App.4th 550, 564.)

Here, Defendant challenges what it deems “improper value billing” for standardized pleadings and forms, discovery, and argues that the matter was overstaffed by eight attorneys, leading to duplicative billing entries. (Opp., pp. 16-17.) Specifically, Defendant argues that having four attorneys bill 0.8 hours to “review and analyze case file” is inefficient in what appears to be a standard lemon law case. Plaintiffs’ memorandum of points and authorities show that multiple attorneys were staffed on this matter over the course of three years, which is not unreasonable. The other entries specifically identified by Defendant also appear reasonable, including the 3.7 hours spent to prepare 4 sets of discovery and the amount of time taken to prepare deposition notices and a motion to compel a deposition of Defendant’s person most knowledgeable. Although Defendant emphasizes that the motion to compel was not filed, Defendant does not explain why it was not reasonable for the motion to have been prepared. The Court also declines to deduct any amount of time from the 2.1 hours that counsel spent on client communication. Attorneys have a duty to communicate with their clients and billing a total of 2.1 hours to discuss this case that was commenced in 2022 is not unreasonable.

The Court does, however, reduce the amount of time spent on this motion for attorneys’ fees to 5 hours. Stephanie Argent apparently spent 8.3 hours to prepare this motion and proposed order, but the motion is not particularly complex. Also, the Court refuses to award the prospective $6,000 requested for reviewing the opposition and preparing the reply without a declaration stating the actual amount of time spent. The Court also declines to apply the requested multiplier of 1.5 absent any showing that Plaintiffs’ counsel was unable to take on other work due to the contingency nature of this basis or that this case was unusually complex.

Accordingly, the Court calculates a total fee award of $23,584.71 consisting of the following:

Plaintiffs’ motion for fees, costs, and expenses is GRANTED in part and the Court awards Plaintiffs $22,272 in attorneys’ fees and $1,312.71 in costs, for a total of $23,584.71.

William A. Crowfoot

Judge of the Superior Court

Parties who intend to submit on this tentative must send an email to the Court at ALHDEPT3@lacourt.org indicating intention to submit on the tentative as directed by the instructions provided on the court website at www.lacourt.org. Please be advised that if you submit on the tentative and elect not to appear at the hearing, the opposing party may nevertheless appear at the hearing and argue the matter. Unless you receive a submission from all other parties in the matter, you should assume that others might appear at the hearing to argue. If the Court does not receive emails from the parties indicating submission on this tentative ruling and there are no appearances at the hearing, the Court may, at its discretion, adopt the tentative as the final order or place the motion off calendar.