Fee Entitlement Bases Existed, And Amount Of Fee Award Was Not Erroneous.
Health and Safety Code section 17980.7(b)(1) has a mandatory fees and actual costs provision to be applied for State Housing Law violations where the lower court finds a building substantially endangers residents’ health and safety. San Francisco has a Rent Ordinance (Adm. Code, § 37.10B(c)(5)) containing a mandatory fees and costs provision triggered upon a finding of tenant harassment. Both of these fee entitlement bases were at issue in City & County of San Francisco v. Kihagi, Case No. A152933 (1st Dist., Div. 1 June 13, 2019) (unpublished).
What happened was that appellant landlords were successfully sued by City and County of San Francisco (City) for illegally harassing their tenants and violating state/local building and housing laws. City sought its attorney’s fees to the tune of $2,606,741 based on the Health and Safety Code and Rent Ordinance provisions discussed above. The trial judge eventually awarded $2,503,141 after reducing the hourly rates of one of the deputy attorneys and reducing also for some duplication. (Costs of $201,279.75 out of a requested $234,135.54 were also awarded, an award not challenged on appeal.)
Landlords’ appeal of the fee award was not disturbed at all. Fee entitlement solidly was established under state statute and the local ordinance, with actual expenses meaning what it said—attorney’s fees were pegged to the lodestar market approach, not something different (such as lower rates charged by private attorneys practicing in the municipal law sector or “internalized” governmental costs). With respect to the amount of fees awarded, the attorney submissions were detailed enough such that detailed billings were unnecessary under the circumstances. The fact that public employee counsel rates were lower did not detract from the fact the lodestar market approach should prevail, especially given the hourly rates claimed were well below market anyway.
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