Private Attorney General: Extremely Destitute Plaintiff Winning Unemployment Benefits In Two Prior Appellate Decisions And Accompanying Litigation Was Improperly Cut Off From Fee Recovery For First Phase Of The Litigation

$365,660.94 Award For $1 Million In Requested Work Was Not Enough Given The Nature Of The Dispute.

            Equities do matter in decisions, and Robles v. Employment Development Dept., Case No. A148803 (1^st Dist., Div. 4 Aug. 1, 2019) (published) is no exception in the private attorney general fee area.

            Plaintiff earlier had won two appeals, generating published decisions, to gain unemployment benefits (actually, initial amount was $11,700) from EDD, which stubbornly refused to pay so to require a second phase of litigation and the second appeal.  EDD finally paid, with Plaintiff’s attorney seeking private attorney general fees of around $1 million for work going back to 2010.  The lower court found that the first phase work was not compensable, but it awarded $365,660.94 for the subsequent work.  Plaintiff appealed, which was a good thing—leading to the third published opinion in this odyssey. 

            The 1/4 DCA basically reversed and remanded, because it determined that the first phase litigation/appeal work was compensable.  The result otherwise was incompatible with Whitley [our Leading Case No. 14] because only $11,700 was initially at issue, plaintiff had to expend $200,000 to chase down the benefits of $66,000 (once interest and other things were included), and plaintiff was in extreme poverty (having to relocate to the Philippines at some point).

            On remand, the appellate court did indicate some justice needed to be done here given the lengthy delay in the overall proceedings, suggesting that the lower court use current hourly rates (rather than much lower hourly rates going to the 2010-plus time frame) or use lower hourly rates but augment them with some interest award on those lower hourly rates over time.