Former Employee Achieved Her Litigation Objectives With Set Of Facts Common To All Causes Of Action.
In Gwin v. Natvan, Case No. B292990 (2d Dist., Div. 1 October 1, 2019) (unpublished), former employee sued employer and its vice-president (husband of employer’s owner) asserting 13 separate causes of action – several of which allowed her to recover reasonable attorneys’ fees if she prevailed.
After phase 1 of a bifurcated bench trial, the trial issued tentative rulings finding in former employee’s favor on 9 of 10 causes of action against employer, and 2 of 11 claims against VP. The parties then settled before the remaining issues were tried. The settlement agreement included $170,000 payable by employer and VP, employer’s and VP’s guarantee of the settlement payment, and it preserved attorney fees claim for later resolution through motion practice.
Former employee then moved for an attorneys’ fee award of $1,214,340, which included $821,940 in lodestar fees and multiplier fees of $392,400. The trial court awarded the lodestar with no multiplier, “as reasonable and warranted” without further explanation, against employer and VP jointly and severally. Employer and VP appealed.
VP argued it was error to hold him jointly liable for the full fee award because the tentative ruling exonerated him on most claims – with the only claim for which he was found liable, that provided for an attorneys’ fees award, being the Confidentiality of Medical Information Act (CMIA) claim which puts a $1,000 cap on recovery of attorney fees (Civ. Code § 56.35). The 2/1 DCA disagreed and, in paraphrasing Yogi Berra, put it this way, “[A] trial ain’t over till it’s over.” VP was focused on the tentative ruling, but that was not the end of the case, the tentative was never finalized, another phase had yet to be tried, and the parties entered into a settlement agreement wherein employer and VP agreed to payment of settlement proceeds – without allocation or severance of their liabilities – on multiple causes of action in addition to the CMIA claim. Because VP had agreed to be jointly responsible for payment on claims other than the CMIA claim, there was no abuse in discretion holding VP jointly and severally liable for the fees award.
Both employer and VP argued that the trial court erred by failing to apportion fees between claims for which fees were statutorily authorized and those for which fees were not, and by failing to enforce the statutory fees cap on the CMIA claim. The 2/1 DCA, again, disagreed – finding former employee’s causes of action to be so intertwined, with her causes of action based on a common set of facts, that apportionment was not required. As to the $1,000 cap for the CMIA claim, the 2/1 DCA found that section 56.35 did not require apportionment, that employer and VP failed to show that the ultimate fee award would have differed if the CMIA claim were apportioned and capped, and that “[a]pplying the CMIA to limit fees on work inextricably intertwined with other claims on which [former employee] prevailed and would otherwise be entitled to recover attorney’s fees would burden, not encourage, the enforcement of statutory rights.”
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