Fee Award Did Not Have To Be Proportional To $45,441 Jury Verdict Recovery.
In Ochoa v. San Juan, Case Nos. A130993/A131051 (1st Dist., Div. 2 June 9, 2014) (unpublished), the appellate court considered the review of a $184,330.40 to two tenants under a tenant ordinance/ local proposition with prevailing party provisions even though they recovered $45,441 in a jury verdict against landlords. Because the review focused primarily on the size of the verdict, the defense did not succeed on appeal.
The first issue was entitlement—did tenants prevail under the tenant ordinance/proposition. Yes, they did—they achieved their litigation objectives in recovering $45,441 under both fee predicates, even though the $600 recovered under the rent ordinance was sufficient to justify the award.
No apportionment for plaintiffs’ counsel’s work relating to another tenant group was required because it was related and connected to the winning litigants’ fee efforts. (In re Tobacco Cases I, 216 Cal.App.4th 570, 589 (2013).)
Then, the appellate court confronted the defense “proportionality” argument, namely, the fees had to be reduced because the awarded damages were small.
Proportionality. Wikipedia. Under the GNU license.
Aside from the fact that the lower court did cut the fee request by almost $25,000 for excessive, duplicative, unnecessary, or erroneous time, California law does not require a reduction based on actual damages recovered—no “proportionality” required. (Harman v. City and County of San Francisco, 158 Cal.App.4th 407, 426 (2007); Vo v. Las Virgenes Municipal Water Dist., 79 Cal.App.4th 440, 446 (2000).)
BLOG UNDERVIEW—This is a case driven by the broad abuse of discretion standard as far as amount of the award. However, we will observe that limited success on claims in the overall case, versus a small damages award, often will result in a fee request reduction.
