Second District Unpublished Decision Affirms Trial Judge’s Rejection of Expert Testimony on the Value of Services in Deciding an Attorney’s Fees Motion.
Even unpublished decisions can contain instructive lessons for practitioners in opposing requests for attorney’s fees, reminding us all that the trial judge is the one ultimately vested with discretion in determining the proper amount of fee recovery.
Auto Auction Group, Inc. v. Ritz Leasing, Inc., Case No. B193602 (2d Dist., Div. 3, May 20, 2008) (unpublished) well illustrates this point.
There, defendants prevailed and moved to recover substantial fees and costs. The trial judge did award $377,917 in fees and $30,482 in costs to the prevailing party.
On appeal, the Second District affirmed in an unpublished decision.
Losing party’s main attack was to argue that the trial judge erred in sustaining an objection to an expert that analyzed the defense’s attorney bills and independently placed a much lower value on the amount of reasonable fees that should have been claimed. In rejecting the expert’s analysis, the trial court had indicated that expert testimony was inappropriate in connection with a motion for attorney’s fees. (PRACTICE POINTER—Expert testimony is frequently encountered in fee battles, such that its submission is not per se improper. See, e.g., City of Oakland v. Oakland Raiders, 203 Cal.App.3d 78 (1988); Excelsior Union High School v. Lautrup, 269 Cal.App.2d 434 (1969).
The appellate court found that the trial judge’s refusal to consider the expert declaration was not an abuse of discretion. It primarily noted that a trial court can make its own independent determination of the value of legal services, even if it is “contrary to, or without the necessity for, expert testimony,” citing PLCM Group, Inc. v. Drexler, 22 Cal.4th 1084, 1096 (2000). The Court of Appeal also noted that the court had discounted clerical tasks of $12,000 from the fee request as well as $650 for a tangentially related matter. Because the contract and tort claims were inextricably intertwined, there was no necessity for apportionment of pretrial work.
This case shows the wide discretion given to trial judges in determining fees, with the winner obtaining over $400,000 in fees/costs from the losing side. As far as describing the breadth of discretion, the trial judge in this case may have said it best when quoting from a prior appellate decision: “Each courtroom comes equipped with a ‘legal expert,’ called the judge ….” Summers v. A.L. Gilbert Co., 69 Cal.App.4th 1155, 1181 (1999). In this case, the trial judge was the final decision maker of what fees and costs were proper in amount.
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