Goodman Forecast to Curtain Attorney’s Fees
In a March 15, 2010 article “Curtailing Attorneys’ Fees” by Harry I. Price (a Los Altos real estate attorney) published in The Recorder, Mr. Price predicts that Goodman v. Lozano—a recent California Supreme Court decision examined in our February 5, 2010 post—“will change how litigants sift and weigh risks before going to trial, cropping certain cases from trial calendars.” He believes that the result may encourage settlements. (BLOG UNDERVIEW—Mr. Price recognizes that many litigation cases are ones where “the tail is wagging the dog,” a reference to where attorney’s fees can many times eclipse the amount of actual damages such that fee recovery determines the winner or loser. In doing so, he observes that “tail docking is a medical procedure: the amputation of part of the tail of the dog.” Co-contributor Mike’s dog Riffle says “ouch.”)
Chavez Hailed As One of the Most Significant Employment Cases of 2010
Lonny Zilberman (a San Diego employment lawyer), in a March 12, 2010 article “The Days of ‘Big Scores’ for Fees Are Over” published in The Los Angeles Daily Journal, fetes Chavez v. City of Los Angeles—another state supreme court decision surveyed in our January 14, 2010 post—as possibly being “the most significant employment decision of 2010.” Mr. Zilberman notes that after Chavez, fewer plaintiffs’ attorneys and mediators can use the argument “if plaintiff recovers one dollar, you have to pay all of the attorney’s fees,” giving employers some leverage in negotiating a settlement where the particular case has little or no merit. (BLOG FAVORITE QUOTE—The author says that Chavez reminded him of this passage from Dickens’ Bleak House: “This scarecrow of a suit has, in course of time, become so complicated that no man alive knows what it means. The parties to it understand it least, but it has been observed that no two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five minutes without coming to a total disagreement as to all the premises. Innumerable children have been born into the cause; innumerable young people have married into it; innumerable old people have died out of it.”)
Petaluma’s 2009 Fee Expenditures Went Up In the Last 13 Months
As reported by Philip Riley in a March 12, 2010 post on the Petaluma Argus-Courier website, the City of Petaluma was billed $600,794 in attorney’s fees, experts’ fees, and related expenses from the start of 2009 through the end of January 2010. In the prior 13-month period, $549,540 was billed to the City. Apparently, the most expensive recent issue was the proposed November ballot measure to reduce wastewater rates, an issue costing the City $69,000 to respond to in the recent 13-month period.
Comments