Venue Rates Had To Be Used And The Substantial “Haircut” Needed More Explanation.
What happened in Tidrick v. FCA US LLC, Case No. G063186 (4th Dist., Div. 3 June 26, 2025) (unpublished) is that lemon law plaintiffs requesting $82,719.33 in fees and costs ($74,275 in fees and $8,444.33 in costs) were only awarded a grand total of $15,000—an 82.9% reduction. That award did not stand up on appeal for two main reasons, resulting in a reverse and remand in a 3-0 opinion authored by Justice Delaney.
The first reason for the reversal was that the lower court applied Fresno County rates for his Fresno attorney, even though the case was properly venued in Orange County. The higher venue rates needed to be applied.
The second reason was that it was unclear whether the proper lodestar methodology was followed by the lower court given (1) there was no explanation of how the costs were factored into the grand total, and (2) there was no clear explanation for the substantial “haircut.” A remand was necessary to apply Orange County consumer attorney rates, to properly utilize the lodestar methodology, and to clarify if the original award included an award of costs.
BLOG OBSERVATION—The panel did cite Warren and Morris with respect to the “haircut” issue. We observe that the Second District, in Cash v. County of Los Angeles, discussed in our June 1, 2025 post, found that it followed Morris over Warren on an across-the-board reduction. Cash was not discussed in Tidrick, but the situation may be distinguishable based on the substantial slash in the fee request rather than just a set across-the-board reduction.
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