Fee Amount Did Not Have to be Pegged to L.A. Attorney Fee Schedule.
Buyers of a Cessna jet aircraft won $320,000 in damages against sellers after sellers refused to deliver the aircraft on certain terms under a contract with a fees clause. The trial court awarded buyers a combined $248,531.36 in attorney’s fees, after making about a one-third reduction in most of the fee requests for various attorneys. Being unhappy, sellers appealed in Bates v. Tristen Aviation Group, Case No. B213597 (2d Dist., Div. 5 Mar. 25, 2010) (unpublished).
Sellers obtained no further happiness on appeal, given that the Court of Appeal affirmed the fee awards.
Sellers argued that the attorney’s fees awarded were excessive under a Los Angeles local rule governing fees to be awarded in certain collection cases (generally for default judgments). However, the flaw here was that the L.A. fee schedule is not mandatory in nature for purposes of awards under section 1717. (See Cruz v. Ayromloo, 155 Cal.App.4th 1270, 1275-1276 (2007).)
Sellers then argued that buyers did not need separate attorneys, three in number. However, sellers themselves had three attorneys present at trial and may have brought the multiple count situation upon themselves by asserting fraud claims against each buyer—which likely gave rise to the need for separate representation on behalf of the plaintiffs.