However, Many of the Nonstatutory Costs Were Taxed.
Although we do not often post about trial court decisions involving fees and costs, Caleb Marker of Ridout Lyon + Ottoson, LLP in Long Beach sent us copies of the fees and costs rulings in Weiss v. City of Los Angeles, Case No. BC141354 (L.A. County Superior Court). They are worth synopsizing because Judge Chalfant did write detailed tentatives granting $721,994.81 in CCP § 1021.5 fees to Plaintiff’s attorneys, although taxing most of their requested costs. These tentatives do provide an interesting look into the judicial perspective on fees and costs motions.
In this case, Plaintiff achieved some success—but not all—in obtaining a mandate writ which basically decided that City of Los Angeles could not delegate the task of initially reviewing parking violations to an outside processing entity, with this outsourcing not following under the “home rule” authority of the California Constitution. However, some of Plaintiff’s claims were found to be moot or were dismissed and, in the mandate proceeding, the trial court found that the initial review by the outside entity was adequate and a form letter may be used to deny a challenge after initial review.
So, that brings us to Plaintiff’s motion for fees and costs. Judge Chalfant had no problem finding that Plaintiff was the “successful” party under Calfornia’s private attorney general statute because he did successfully challenge the outside processor’s initial review of parking tickets, meaning both City and outside processer should be jointly and severally liable for fees. An important right was vindicated by requiring City, as the issuing agency, to initially review parking tickets, which impacted a broad spectrum of motorists who park their cars in L.A and receive a ticket. Plaintiff had to bring this action because City had no interest in doing so, with Plaintiff not receiving any personal gain from the challenge.
The rest of the discussion focused on the lodestar, multiplier, and costs requests. Plaintiff initially requested a lodestar of $862,448.75 for the work of three firms. The trial judge did ask for supplemental briefing, because of a lack of detail in the fee requests—no time sheets and no attorney declaration explaining work efforts. Judge Chalfant did tax a substantial amount of requested costs, finding that postage, conference calls, photocopying, database legal costs, and travel expenses are not statutory costs which can be recovered.
After supplemental fee papers were filed, the trial judge then focused on the $859,898.75 lodestar request. He reduced this request for (1) unnecessary redacted entries at a uniform 80% markdown rate; (2) excessive conferencing activities between the different firms, (3) work in a separate federal case, (4) clerical work, and (5) block billing by one firm for a further 20% reduction. That brought the total lodestar down to $687,61.10. From that, however, Judge Chalfant made a further reduction of 30% for limited success, taking the sum down to $481,329.87. Then, he found a 1.5 positive multiplier was justified, such that the total fee recovery to Plaintiff’s attorneys was $721,994.81.
HAT TIP: Mr. Marker, thanks for sharing these tentatives with us because they are insightful on at least one concrete judicial perspective on how to approach fees and costs requests.
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