However, In Unpublished Part Of Decision, Appellate Court Affirmed A Small Fee Award Where Counsel Failed To Follow Lower Court’s Supplemental Briefing/Proof Instructions.
Chavez v. California Collision, LLC, Case No. A167658 (1st Dist., Div. 3 Dec. 10, 2024) (partially published; fee discussion unpublished) is part of a continuing trend for appellate courts to honor the Legislature’s directives that prevailing employees usually get costs while it is difficult for prevailing employers to obtain costs unless the employees’ cases are frivolous, notwithstanding employees that fail to beat CCP § 998 offers. The unpublished portion of the opinion demonstrates the discretion accorded to lower courts in adjudicating fee motions.
Two plaintiff employees accepted CCP § 998 offers, while a third plaintiff employee did not. The third employee rejecting a § 998 offer failed to obtain a more favorable judgment at trial. After extensive law and motion proceedings, the trial judge awarded routine costs against the third plaintiff and in favor of defendant employer (with the plaintiff also receiving some routine costs which were offset against other aspects of the judgment), but he also awarded attorney’s fees to all plaintiffs in a much reduced amount.
The 1/3 DCA affirmed all aspects, except the costs awards against the third plaintiff employee—reinstating the total costs award in favor of plaintiff without any offset for the reversed costs award in favor of employer. (The defense costs award was reversed as a matter of law.)
The reason for the reversal is that specific Labor Code costs-shifting provisions are pro-employee—costs allowable to a winning employee, but with costs not awardable to the employer unless employee’s case was found frivolous/meritless in nature. The appellate court determined these specific Labor Code provisions had priority over the more general § 998 costs-shifting mechanism, affirmatively citing and agreeing with Cruz v. Fusion Buffet, Inc., 57 Cal.App.5th 221, 242 (2020).
In the unpublished portion relating to the plaintiffs’ challenge of the fee request, they were focused on upending the lower court’s awarding $200 per hour to their counsel having no employment experience and awarding them only $13,635 out of a total request of approximately $550,000. The problem for plaintiffs is that their counsel lacked employment experience to justify a higher rate and they failed to comply with the lower court’s order for supplemental proof to allocate out time and justify the request. Given this disobedience and the trial judge’s finding that the billing submissions had credibility problems, the reduced fee award was affirmed under the deferential abuse of discretion standard. The moral from this last aspect is to make sure you, as a fee claimant, follow a lower court’s order on supplemental proof or face a draconian result you will not like.