However, Prevailing Sibling’s Use Of Overly Redacted Billings Justified Reduction From Fee Request.
In Levine v. Levine, Case No. B284749 (2d Dist., Div. 1 February 6, 2019) (unpublished), siblings in a probate dispute entered into a global settlement agreement. One sibling moved to enforce the settlement agreement, but the motion was denied. The settlement agreement had a fees clause, inspiring the winning sibling to move as the prevailing party for costs of $2,659.17 and attorney’s fees of $74,349.17. The sibling moving for fees and costs submitted heavily redacted fee billings. The lower court granted the motion, but it denied the requested costs and awarded reduced fees of $25,112.
Both sides appealed, but nothing changed. Winning sibling did prevail because he took actions under the settlement agreement which were beneficial to the estate and belied the efforts to enforce the settlement agreement (especially given that the other sibling got sizeable distributions of an unusual nature before estate taxes were settled). However, the trial court’s award of reduced fees to prevailing sibling was justified; after all, he chose to not apportion costs between settlement agreement/trust administration activities and chose to submit redacted billings which made it equally hard to decipher what was compensable.
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