Full Fee Request Properly Awarded By The Trial Court, Which Did Not Need To Expressly Discuss Lodestar Factor Consideration In Her Ruling
As we have observed before, federal courts generally require more detailed substantiation in support of fee requests and require district judges to explain their fees awards with some specificity. (See posts under our Home Page category, “Substantiation of Reasonableness of Fees.”) By way of contrast, Aliu v. Elavon Inc., Case No. B269451 (2d Dist., Div. 3 Apr. 4, 2018) (unpublished) shows key differences in what is required for fee petitions or rulings on them in the California state court system.
Aliu was a situation where the trial judge awarded full requested fees to a prevailing party to the tune of $91,828.75 in a contract-based lawsuit. Attorney for the prevailing party submitted a declaration describing the work and a copy of his firm’s time sheets. That sufficed, because California does not require detailed time records, with lower courts having discretion to award fees based on declarations of counsel describing the work done and the court’s own view of the number of hours reasonably spent. (Raining Data Corp. v. Barrenechea, 175 Cal.App.4th 1363, 1375 (2009).) Also, a California trial judge is not obligated to discuss the lodestar factors in issuing a ruling on a fee request, although the record in Aliu demonstrated that she did. (Ketchum v. Moses, 24 Cal.4th 1122, 1140 (2001) [our Leading Case No. 8].) Finally, the trial judge can back up his/her ruling through his/her own judgment of the value of the work based on direct observation of the attorney’s services and his/her own legal expertise based on prior hearings/being a practitioner in the past, as again was done in Aliu. (PLCM Group, Inc. v. Drexler, 22 Cal.4th 1084, 1095-1096 (2000) [our Leading Case No. 1].)
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