Contractor Failed To Support Its Roughly $570,000 Fees/Costs Request With Underlying Documentation And Testimony, And Made No Attempt To Allocate Fees Between Compensable And Noncompensable Claims.
In Paul Ryan Associates v. Catlin Specialty Ins., Case No. A156755 (1st Dist., Div. 5 May 21, 2021) (unpublished), contractor prevailing on summary judgment, against contractual indemnity claims, appealed the trial court’s order denying its motion for roughly $570,000 in contractual prevailing party attorney fees and costs.
The 1/5 affirmed – finding the trial court acted well within its discretion. Contractor – if it were entitled to fees (something the panel did not determine) – “utterly failed to satisfy its burden of demonstrating a reasonable fee award.” Contractor made no attempt to estimate or apportion the fees/costs incurred in defending against the contractual indemnity claims from fees it incurred defending against other claims made by other parties involved in the litigation. Rather, contractor divided the litigation into 3-month quarterly periods of time, separately calculated the amount of fees and costs incurred during each quarterly period in which the parties asserting the indemnity claims were involved in the litigation, and divided the total by the number of parties involved in the litigation at the time. Additionally, contractor did not submit billing records, provide attorney testimony as to the number of hours worked on the contractual indemnity claims, nor provide any other underlying data that would assist the trial court in making a determination as to the reasonableness of the fees requested.
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