Author name: Marc Alexander

Requests For Admission: Denial Of Postjudgment Fees Was Error Where Plaintiff Made Stipulation Which Tacitly Demonstrated That RFA Denial Might Have Been Unjustified

Cases: Requests for Admission

  Remand In Order to See If Any Exceptions Applied.      In Mobasser v. Yermian, Case No. B247269 (2d Dist., Div. 7 Apr. 22, 2014) (unpublished), defendant appealed a lower court’s refusal to award $22,408 in postjudgment attorney’s fees based on plaintiff’s denial of a request for admission that plaintiff was not an employee. CCP […]

Reasonableness Of Fees: Fees For Collateral Actions And Hourly Rates Sought By Prevailing Party Were Reasonable In Nature

Cases: Reasonableness of Fees

  Discounted Rates of $150-260 in Riverside Were Just Fine.      Defendant promising to sell certain property to a plaintiff governmental entity for $8.42 million, with some environmental contamination holdback provisions, lost a specific performance suit in Riverside County Transportation Commission v. Liston Brick Co. of Corona, Case No. E054980 (4th Dist., Div. 2 Apr.

Class Action/Common Fund: Reasoning By N.D. California District Judge Might Aid State Court Practitioners Arguing Percentage Of Fund, Rather Than Lodestar, Should Be The Approach In Common Fund Cases Even At The State Level

Cases: Class Actions, Cases: Common Fund

  Around $13.25 Million, 25% Of $53 Million Settlement Fund (After Deducting Class Action Administration Expenses), Is Awarded To Class Counsel.      Generally, California uses the lodestar as the fee-setting approach in the class action context, “cross-checked” by the percentage of recovery approach. However, reasoning by U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg in his fee award

Social Security: Social Security Disability Claimant Winning Remand Erroneously Denied Attorney’s Fees Under EAJA By District Court

Cases: Social Security

  Government’s Position on Remand Issue Was Not Justified, Such That Later Litigation Position Rulings Were Irrelevant.      In Tobeler v. Colvin, Case No. 12-16392 (9th Cir. Apr. 18, 2014) (published), Social Security disability claimant had obtained a remand because a Social Security administrative law judge (ALJ) had disregarded competent lay witness on claimant’s symptoms

Costs: Lower Court Properly Awarded Prevailing Plaintiff Expenses For Computer Illustrations And Correctly Failed To Apportion Certain Expenses Among Other Defendants Not Present At Trial

Cases: Costs

  However, Remand Necessary to Determine if Lower Court Parsed Out Costs of Pretrial Transcripts.      In Hellam v. Crane Co., Case Nos. A1380131/A139141 (1st Dist., Div. 4 Apr. 16, 2014) (unpublished), plaintiff won a sizable asbestos verdict against defendant. The lower court then awarded prevailing plaintiff about $85,000 in routine costs out of a

Bankruptcy: Debtor’s Attorney’s Fees Incurred In Successfully Defending Against Creditor’s Stay Violation On Appeal Are Recoverable As Damages Under 11 U.S.C. § 362(k)(1)

Cases: Bankruptcy Efforts

  Contrast That With Nonrecoverability of Fees For Adversary Proceeding Work Related to Pursuit of Damages From Stay Violation.      The Ninth Circuit in In re Schwartz-Tallard, Case No. 12-60052 (9th Cir. Apr. 16, 2014) (published) dealt with a different issue leading to a different result than that reached in Sternberg v. Johnston, 595 F.3d

Allocation/Section 1717/Substantiating Reasonableness Of Fees: Realtor/Broker Defensing Sellers’ Tort Claims And Winning Broker Compensation Cross-Claim Gets Contractual Fees Against Real Estate Plaintiffs/Sellers

Cases: Allocation, Cases: Section 1717, Cases: Substantiation of Reasonableness of Fees

  Not Every Attorney Must Attest to Substantiation of Hours in Fee Petition.      In Anelle v. Tran, Case No. G048072 (4th Dist., Div. 3 Apr. 15, 2014) (unpublished), realtor/broker defendants defensed plaintiffs/sellers’ tort claims from a failed real estate transaction and also recovered listing compensation on a cross-claim where the listing agreement did contain

News . . . . Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow Will Get Pro Bono Representation And Katherine Jackson/Her Living Children Suffer Adverse Court Costs Award In Case Against AEG Live

In The News

  Free Criminal Representation to Mr. Chow.      As reported by Jeremy B. White and Dan Walter in an April 14, 2014 article in The Fresno Bee, criminal lawyers, including well-known attorney J. Tony Serra (who previously represented Huey Newton and some Black Panthers, as well as known for his vow of poverty), have agreed

Scroll to Top