Judge William A. Crowfoot, Case Number: 23AHCV00364, Date: 2025-06-09 Tentative Ruling

Judge: William A. Crowfoot, Case: 23AHCV00364, Date: 2025-06-09 Tentative Ruling

On January 27, 2025, plaintiff Erchanik Happy Pogosyan (“Plaintiff”) filed this motion for attorney’s fees, costs, and expenses. Plaintiff requests a fee award of $123,960, consisting of $82,160 in attorneys’ fees with a 1.5 lodestar multiplier, as well as $720 in assistant fees. Plaintiff also requests $8,518.52 in costs.

Defendants Jaguar Land Rover North America, LLC (“JLR”) and Symes Cadillac, Inc. dba Land Rover Pasadena (“Symes Cadillac”) (collectively, “Defendants”) filed an opposition brief on May 27, 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.)

Plaintiff submits the declarations of Armen Margarian and Hovanes Margarian, wherein they each testify to their qualifications and the reasonableness of their rates.

Armen Margarian states that he has billed for 1.3 hours of work “though [he] performed about 150% more in terms of hours.” A “substantial percentage of [his] time is spent on evaluating cases, including assessing repair records, [and] researching vehicle defects before a decision to take on a case can be reached.” (A. Margarian Decl., ¶¶ 9-10.) He states that an hourly rate of $550 is reasonable because he charges $450 for all non-contingency cases with an up-front retainer. (Id., ¶ 14.) He has over 8 years of litigation experience in handling consumer protection cases.” (Id., ¶¶ 16-18.)

Hoven Margarian declares that he has billed for 125.3 hours of work, though he performed about 25% more in terms of hours. (H. Margarian Decl., ¶ 10.) He states that he charges $550 per hour on all non-contingency cases and believes that a $100 additional charge for contingency work is minimal and reasonable. (Id., ¶ 11.) He states he has practiced law and handled consumer protection cases for 18 years; moreover, his requested rate of $650 has recently been confirmed as reasonable on similarly litigated lemon law cases. (Id., ¶¶ 15-17.) He also emphasizes that lemon law litigation involves “complex principles of mechanical engineering and math” and he has spent hours “researching [and] studying various mechanical processes and components” in order to “understand the causal relationship among malfunctions existing on vehicles, their potential causes, and effects”, but he does not identify any particular facts which complicated this particular matter. (Id., ¶ 27.)

In opposition, Defendants argue that Plaintiff’s request for fees is excessive and contends this is a “simple Lemon Law warranty case.” (Opp., p. 1.) “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.)

Defendants state that the case settled without much effort less than one year after it was at issue (March 29, 2023). Defendants point out that no trial preparation or expert discovery was necessary and no experts were deposed because trial was scheduled for September 9, 2024, and it was vacated on May 17, 2024. Defendants also highlight the lack of any motions or hearings other than a case management conference and a status conference. Defendant contends that a more appropriate fee award would be $21,000 at most because Plaintiff’s attorneys’ hourly rate are too high for a simple rote action when the median rate for attorneys handling vehicle cases is $430. Defendant refers to several cases in which Plaintiff’s counsel’s hourly rate was reduced, including one case in which a reasonable hourly rate was determined to be $375, along with a negative multiplier. Defendants also point out that their attorneys’ fees and costs total about one-seventh of Plaintiff’s requested fee award, which is evidence that Plaintiff’s request is unreasonably high. Last, Defendant argues that a multiplier is not appropriate because the “novelty and difficulty of the questions involved” and “skill displayed” in this case was minimal. Defendant claims the case was resolved with minimal litigation and would not have precluded Plaintiff’s counsel from taking on other work.

Given the lack of any significant complications in this lemon law case, the Court reduces Plaintiff’s counsels’ hourly rates to $450 and declines to award a multiplier. Only two motions were filed in this case: the instant attorneys’ fee motion and an unremarkable and simple motion to compel the deposition of Defendants’ Person Most Knowledgeable. Also, the relatively short amount of time Plaintiff’s counsel spent on drafting discovery further supports the conclusion that this case was not unusually complicated since Plaintiff’s counsel was apparently able to rely largely on templates.

Defendants also specifically challenge several items billed by Plaintiff’s counsel. First, with respect to Plaintiff’s counsel’s charge of $10,220 (16.8 hours) for work performed before the Complaint was filed, Defendants contend this is excessive because the Complaint was a form complaint “bereft of specific factual allegations.” (Opp., p. 10.) Plaintiff includes nearly 3.5 pages of specific facts detailing his vehicle’s defects, the number failed repair attempts for each defect, and the repair history of the vehicle; this work, however, was apparently already done earlier when Plaintiff’s counsel “itemized the details of each visit to a repair facility”, therefore the 3 hours spent on drafting the Complaint is duplicative and excessive. Additionally, certain entries by Plaintiff’s counsel describe clerical work that should have been performed by his assistant, including “organiz[ing] [] papers” and other document management tasks. Therefore, the Court subtracts 4 hours from the amount of time spent by Hovanes Margarian in the pre-filing stage for a total of 11.40 hours.

Second, Defendant objects to Plaintiff’s counsel’s claim that 8.5 hours were spent on “client communication” and argues this amount of time should be reduced by approximately 3.50 hours, to 5 hours total. The Court agrees that the amount billed for “client communication” is due to the rote and uneventful nature of this case and Plaintiff’s counsel’s communications on a near-weekly basis (and sometimes 3-4 times a week) are excessive.

Third, Defendant argues that Plaintiff’s counsel should not have billed 13.80 hours for preparing this attorney fee motion and that 5 hours at a rate of $450 is more appropriate. Given the standard nature of this fee motion, the substantial similarities between the supporting declarations and memorandum of points and authorities, the brief nature of the opposition and reply papers, and the fact that filing and service should have been handled by an assistant, the Court reduces the amount of time spent on the motion to 5 hours. The Court also strikes the 10.3 hours included in the category named “Hours Spent on the Breakdown of Plaintiff’s Attorneys’ Fees, Costs, and Expenses” as duplicative.

Accordingly, the Court calculates a total fee award of $45,360, consisting of the following:

- $720 for 4.8 hours of work by Plaintiff’s counsels’ assistant at an hourly rate of $150, and

- $44,640 for 99.2 hours of work by Plaintiff’s counsel at an hourly rate of $450.

Plaintiff’s motion for fees, costs, and expenses is GRANTED in part and the Court awards Plaintiff $45,3600 in fees and $8,518.52 in costs, for a total of $53,878.52.

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.