Lower Court Did Not Support Reduced Hourly Rate And Substantial Time Cuts.
Free haircut on Saturday morning in W.M. Scott's general store. Farrington. Chatham County, North Carolina. Library of Congress. Marion Post Wolcott, photographer. September 1940.
Based on the Ninth Circuit’s Moreno decision which we have cited many times, federal courts in California need to support cuts over 10% with detailed reasoning. However, California state courts do not have the same strictness in issuing fee awards because no statement of decision is required. However, that does not mean that an appellate court will not reverse a reduced fee award where the panel perceives those certain cuts, in hourly rates and time requested, are unfairly slashed. Edmundson v. Bonilla, Case Nos. G062039 et al. (4th Dist., Div. 3 Dec. 7, 2023) (unpublished) is just that situation, authored by Justice Sanchez.
In Edmundson, after fee entitlement was sustained by the appellate court (construing written documents and oral agreements together as an integrated whole), the lower court reduced the requested $700,000 in fees to $198,445, a significant cut based on reductions in claiming attorney’s hourly rate (only allowing $345 in Orange County) and for time claimed (mainly for block billing, duplicative work, and work that was not used such as unfiled in limine motions). The appellate court reversed and remanded.
The 4/3 DCA panel decided that the “haircut” in fees was too much and an abuse of discretion—“[b]ut a haircut was in order, not a decapitation” even under a deferential review standard relating to amount of fees awarded. With respect to the $345 hourly rate awarded to counsel, that was too low based on the Laffey Matrix and other evidence which showed this was a lower rate charged to the client, rather than the true market rate applicable under a lodestar analysis. On the time reduction—which varied between 34-54.3% depending on what numbers you used—this, too, was excessive according to the reviewing court. The block billed entries were not truly block billed, except for minor ones. It was error to not allow billing for some unfiled tasks given that some “dead ends” are compensable, citing Vargas v. Howell, 949 F.3d 1188, 1194, 1198 (9th Cir. 2020). The lower court did reasonably reduce for excessive number of inter-conferencing sessions and emails. Not to be forgotten was that plaintiffs’ attorney obtained a compensatory award of $980,988.83 in a challenging case, which reinforced why a “richer” fee award was in order.
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