In The End, The Defense May Have Gotten The Better Side Of It, But The Appellate Court Rejected That Nothing Was Owed To Plaintiff—The Reduced Fee Award Affirmed In No Uncertain Terms In A Remanded Voting Rights Case.
We hardly know where to start on this one, but Robles v. City of Ontario, Case No. G065946 (4th Dist., Div. 3 Oct. 22, 2026) (unpublished) is worthy of a more extended post. It shows lessons in what to do and not to do when arguing for statutory fees and when arguing against fees—both entitlement and reasonableness of amount being requested.
The backdrop of the appeal was well described by the appellate court in its introductory paragraph: “What began as a voting rights case about district elections in the City of Ontario (Ontario or defendants) has become an overheated dispute about attorney fees, in which it seems that both sides will leave no stone unturned and no matter unlitigated.” (Not a good start, right?) Looks like it went downhill from there, but we summarize what occurred, because the parties raised a plethora of arguments which did not prove persuasive on appeal because dueling appeals were filed. This appeal involved a remand reversal from a prior decision to determine if Robles and another party prevailed for fee recovery purposes. Plaintiffs were not happy with a reduced fee request and denied costs request, while the defense argued no fees were owed. Quite a standoff.
The parties reached a stipulated judgment under the voting right provisions, including a state fee-shifting statute under Elections Code section 14030, with the appellate court determining that a motion to enforce the stipulated settlement gave rise to fee recovery under the voting rights state—dismissing various arguments about the private attorney general statute being applicable, because the Elections Code fee-shifting provision was enough. Plaintiffs surmounted the fee entitlement hurdle, because they did prevail and moved the needle in terms of getting remapping compliance by Ontario. That ended the defense argument that no fees were allowable.
The part of the opinion we found interesting was what the parties did to substantiate the amount of the fee requested or being contested. After setting a briefing schedule for the remand fee issues, Plaintiffs—after the reply brief deadline had lapsed–filed another 253 pages of additional documents, which triggered the defense to file a cascade of additional pages and then further filings by plaintiffs. The lower court declined to consider these papers, a determination sustained on appeal. Plaintiffs requested over $490,000 in fees, plus a multiplier enhancement of a little over $196,000. The defense said nothing was owed on various grounds. The lower court found various grounds to reduce Plaintiffs’ fee request (we discuss below), so that the fee award was $162,000. Also, not to be ignored, is the fact Plaintiffs filed an initial costs memorandum for $497,095.99 in costs, only to file a “corrected” costs memo for $4,327.61 when the lower court questioned it in a motion to tax proceeding. The lower court denied costs under the original costs memo and further denied the lowered costs because an incorrect form was used with no citation to authority.
All fee rulings were affirmed on appeal, after having to adjudicate whether appellate motions to strike briefs were meritorious (they were not).
The lower court had reduced Plaintiffs’ request for all block billed entries by 210.5 hours, almost one half of the requested lodestar amount. That was no abuse of discretion because Plaintiffs relied on block billed large entries which made it impossible to ascertain the reasonableness of tasks, given block billing was not limited to a handful of entries. The lower court lowered plaintiffs’ lead counsel hourly rate “ask” of $1,089-$1,247 per hour to $750, rejecting use of San Francisco higher rates or use of the Laffey matrix—mainly because there was no evidence supporting that local counsel could not be retained at lower San Bernardino venue hourly rates (given the defense showed voting right hourly rate cases ranged from $585-$630 per hour in Southern California). Although contingency risk was a positive factor, no multiplier was justified because plaintiffs’ counsel was paid for some original work of a fairly substantial amount, and there was no evidence showing plaintiffs’ counsel was precluded from other employment. The costs properly were denied based on using wrong forms and gaffes in calculations.
Justice Moore authored the 3-0 unpublished opinion. It provides a good roadmap on what to do and not do in a fee proceeding. If you lose credibility on either or both sides, you will get a result like the one in this case, unfortunately for all parties here.