First District, Division Three Rejects Challenges to Award Advanced by Appealing Plaintiff Hit With Fee Award.
An anti-SLAPP prevailing defendant is entitled to a mandatory award of fees. Code Civ. Proc., § 425.16(c). However, as with many fee shifting statutes, the amount of fees to be awarded is usually the key contested issue.
In Siu v. Lee, Case No. A121108 (1st Dist., Div. 3 Nov. 13, 2008) (unpublished), defendant successfully struck six of twelve claims through an anti-SLAPP motion, moving for recovery of $183,700 in fees based on a lodestar amount of $91,850 (167 hours at $550 per hour) to be enhanced by a 2.0 multiplier. Plaintiff opposed on the grounds that defendant was only half successful (so only one half the fees should be recovered), the hours claimed and hourly rate were excessive, and a multiplier was unwarranted. The trial court awarded defendant $54,275 in fees (167 hours at $325 per hour) and denied the multiplier request.
Plaintiff appealed and lost, with the First District, Division 3 affirming the fee award.
The appellate panel did a nice job of summarizing the rules governing fee awards to partially successful anti-SLAPP defendants, which can be found in the leading case of Mann v. Quality Old Time Service, Inc., 139 Cal.App.4th 328, 340 (2006). Generally, the lower court should first determine the lodestar amount for hours expended on the successful claims and, if the work was overlapping on unsuccessful claims, reduce the amount based on defendant's relative success on the motion in achieving his or her overall objective. This last analytical component includes consideration of such factors as the extent to which the defendant's litigation posture was advanced by the motion, whether the same factual allegations remain to be litigated, whether discovery and motion practice have been narrowed, and the extent to which future litigation expenses and strategy were impacted by the motion. The court can also consider other relevant factors such as the experience and abilities of the attorney and the novelty/difficulty of the issues for purposes of lodestar adjustment. (Id. at 345.)
Justice Jenkins, writing for the 3-0 panel, found no abuse of discretion. The lower court reduced the requested lodestar amount by about 41% and the total requested fee amount by about 70%. Given these discounts, no error occurred from not discounting any of the 167 hours claimed—which would have only reduced the award to $45,925 had the higher $550 hourly rate been used. Beyond that, the defendant's partially successful motion eliminated public defamation claims that changed the nature and character of the lawsuit. In the end, there was no abuse of discretion committed by the lower court, citing the formulation of this standard review contained in the recent decision of Christian Research Institute v. Alnor, 165 Cal.App.4th 1315, 1322 (2008) (discussed in our post of August 13, 2008).