This One a Little Hard to Decipher, Actually, Except on a Presumed Correct Basis.
Valdivia v. Castillo, Case No. B247766 (2d Dist., Div. 5 Jan. 21, 2014) (unpublished) is somewhat hard to follow, but seems to follow the pattern that confusion will lead to affirmance.
Here, after a year of litigation on behalf of minors where a defendant under the influence of alcohol struck and killed minors’ mother who darted out in front of the van while high on meth, a minors plaintiffs’ case settled for $700,000, $350,000 per minor. The attorneys representing minors requested a total award of $280,000, representing 40% of the recovery for each minor. The trial court did acknowledge following CRC 7.955, which preempts a lot of former local rules limiting recovery to 25%. Ultimately, the lower court limited fee recovery to 25%, prompting an appeal by the attorneys in the aggrieved law firm.
This one was affirmed, because it was “not clear from the record” that the lower court applied the preempted local schedule rather than CRC 7.955. Basically, this one was sustained on an abuse of discretion standard, although the reasoning below—to us—is far from clear. However, that commonly does lead to an affirmance on appeal.
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