Fee Substantiation, Lodestar: Detailed Fee Billings Not Required For Substantiation And Fee Recovery Does Not Need To Be Proportional To Damages Awarded Under Contractual Fee Recovery

$625-675 Partner Hourly Rates And $395-475 Associate Hourly Rates Were Found Reasonable For Los Angeles Attorneys.

             In SP Investment Fund I v. Grossman, Case No. B284289 (2d Dist., Div. 4 Aug. 29, 2018) (unpublished), prevailing plaintiff moved for attorney’s fees based on a contractual fees clause, winning the whole requested tamale (including additionally requested fees) in the sum of $450,608.00 despite the fact that jury awarded damages were only $294,620.90.

             Losing defendant apparently was appalled at the fee award and appealed. Unfortunately, nothing changed at the appellate level.

             Although miffed that only attorney declarations were provided, California state courts—unlike most federal courts—are more liberal, accepting attorney declarations rather than detailed billing statements to substantiate fee requests. (Lunada Biomedical v. Nunez, 230 Cal.App.4^th 459, 487-488 (2014).) The Los Angeles rates for partners of $625-675 over a 2015-2017 time frame and for associates of $395-475 over the same time frame were not found unreasonable. The defense argued that the fee award had to be proportional to the damages awarded, but this was not a defensible argument. (Concepcion v. Amscan Holdngs, Inc., 233 Cal.App.4^th 1309, 1321 (2014).)