Second District, Division Three Awards Fee to the Defense Where Plaintiff’s Case Found Objectively Baseless in Nature. Winning FEHA defendants, take solace. Up to this point, we have mainly reported on cases where losing plaintiffs have avoided paying attorney’s fees in cases involving Fair Employment Housing Act (FEHA) claims for discrimination. The overriding reason […]
Proof of Paralegal Status and Compliance with Education/Certification Requirements Are Musts. In our June 4, 2008 post, we discussed federal and state decisions that generally allowed paralegal time to be compensated under the EAJA or many California fee-shifting statutes. An interesting article, authored by Kirstin Simonson, has appeared in the November 2008 issue of
First District, Division Four Finds No Abuse of Discretion in Denying Fees Based on the Lack of Proof of a Large Class Benefit in a “One-Off” Situation. Code of Civil Procedure section 1021.5, the so-called private attorney general statute, is a well-recognized exception to the American rule that parties bear their own litigation costs.
First District Also Discusses Impact of Unenforceable Attorney Lien Provision in a Contingency Fee Agreement. The First District, Division One—in a convoluted set of facts—recently decided a case involving charges of illegal retainer agreements (because tainted by prohibited legal referral actions) and unenforceable attorney lien provisions. The case is Shopoff & Cavallo LLP v.
Part 2 Follow-up From Our October 30, 2008 Post. In our October 30, 2008 post, we provided highlights from a civil justice survey of state courts in 2005, which primarily focused on the nation’s 75 most populous counties. (The California counties surveyed were Alameda, Contra Costa, Fresno, Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, San Francisco,
Mike and Marc welcome Steve Mayer and The California Constitution to the Blogosphere. We have added a sidebar link to Steve's new blawg.
Second District, Division One Finds No Abuse of Discretion In Denying Further Sanctions. In our October 14, 2008 post, we reviewed The Capital Gold Group v. Michael Thomas Media Group, a Second District, Division 5 decisions reversing a sanctions award because the notice of motion for sanctions failed to identify the object of
First District’s Reversal Wipes Out $1,969,000 Fee Award to Plaintiffs. Reversal of a merits judgment has a legal tsunami effect—it can also wipe out a substantial fee award to the ex-prevailing party. That is what happened in the next case we review. In Turner v. Assn. of American Med. Colleges, Case No. A117071
Bureau of Justice Statistics Study Offers Some Interesting (and Possibly Unexpected) Findings. Although our concentration is on attorney’s fees award, we sometimes digress to report on studies relating to the general civil litigation sector. Now is the time to discuss a recent study that has some results that may be surprising in many respects.
California Public Records Act: Unpublished Decision Reviewed On Our October 1, 2008 Post Is Certified For Publication Sixth District Certifies Bernardi v. County of Monterey For Publication. On October 1, 2008, we posted a review of Bernardi v. County of Monterey, Case No. H031648 (6th Dist. Sept. 30, 2008). We indicated that this case
