Allocation, Lodestar, Reasonableness Of Fees, Substantiation Of Reasonableness Of Fees: Prevailing Plaintiff Correctly Awarded $182,000 Under Contractual Fees Clause After Winning $455,000 In Damages After A Lengthy Court Trial

Fees Award Should Not Get Offset Against Damages, And Trial Judge Awarded Contingency Arrangement Percentage As Fees—Dispensing With The Need For Review Of Detailed Bills.

            Prevailing plaintiff in Pham v. Nguyen, Case No. H044958 (6^th Dist. Apr. 15, 2020) (unpublished), on the heels of winning $455,000 in damages, moved for contractual attorney’s fees.  The trial judge awarded $182,000, which was 40%--the amount of the contingent arrangement between plaintiff and his attorney.  Defendant’s numerous challenges on appeal did not result in any disturbance of the award.

            Plaintiff initially claimed that the fees awarded had to be offset against the damages award.  No way, said the appellate court—that would nugatory the impact of a fees clause and would actually punish an attorney for taking the case on a contingency basis.  No apportionment was required because the compensable and non-compensable units of work were intertwined such that it would have been impractical or impossible to separate out.  With respect to the claim that plaintiff failed to provide evidentiary support for the fee request, the lower court did not err by awarding the contingency fee amount so that billings did not have to be reviewed.

            BLOG COMMENT:  The appellate court also chastised appellant’s attorney for filing noncompliant appellate briefs and recycling arguments from lower court papers.  (See In re Marriage of Shaban (2001) 88 Cal.App.4^th 398, 408 [“Appellate work is most assuredly not the recycling of trial level points and authorities.”].)