1st District, Division 4 Sustains Award in Entirety. Under 42 U.S.C. § 1988(b), a trial court can award reasonable attorney’s fees to a prevailing defendant if the court finds the plaintiff’s action was frivolous, unreasonable, or without foundation, even though not brought in bad faith. (County of Butte v. Bach, 172 Cal.App.3d 848, 869
Fourth District, Division 3 Reverses and Remands, But Does Allow Consideration of How Fee-Driven Motivation Impacts Reasonableness of Fee Request. In the civil rights area, the American Disabilities Act (ADA) does have a mandatory fee-shifting provision in favor of prevailing plaintiffs, although it has the important caveat that only reasonable fees should be awarded.
Third District Also Addresses Clerical Time and Multiplier Issues. Plaintiff won a jury verdict of $16,536 on a failure to accommodate discrimination claim. Under the fee-shifting provisions of the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA; Government Code section 12965(b)), the trial court awarded plaintiff $189,503.40 in fees, after lodestar deductions for clerical tasks, duplicative
Second District, Division 6 Rejects Plaintiff’s Request for Award of $114,895 in Fees and $27,441.35 in Costs. Although the courts will award appropriate attorney’s fees to prevailing plaintiffs in civil rights disability cases, they will also discount for limited success and overinflated claims of complexity in litigation of the case. Molski v. Evergreen
But Outcome in Three Recent Cases Sends Only a Little Chill, as California Courts Rebuff Defendants’ Attempts. Dan Levine reports in The Recorder on three recent efforts by successful defendants in civil rights cases to collect attorney’s fees from losing plaintiffs. Plaintiffs who sued the Metropolitan Transportation Commission challenging San Francisco Bay
Third Circuit Court of Appeals So Holds Under 42 U.S. C. Section 1988; California State Court Decisions Split In Analogous Areas, But Ninth Circuit Disagrees. On July 23, 2009, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, in Lohman v. Duryea Borough, __ F.3d __, 2009 WL 2183056 (3d Cir. 2009), affirmed a district judge’s decision
Unpublished Decision Faces Some Interesting Fee-Shifting Issues In ADA Case. Many of the California intermediate appellate unpublished decisions we examine have some very interesting legal issues for jurists to grapple with and resolve. The next one is no exception, containing some gnarly fee-shifting issues that involve Code of Civil Procedure section 998 (pretrial offer
This Comes On Top of $1.2 Million Jury Verdict. Newport Beach, California police Sergeant Neil Harvey sued for sexual discrimination in a case that has likely polarized the Newport Beach Police Department and generated lots of press coverage. He won a $1.2 million jury verdict in March 2009, stemming from his claim that
Illinois Sitting Judge Shadur Raises Alchemy Analogy in Court of Appeal Decision. Federal court costs are routinely rewarded to the prevailing party—especially the party winning a summary judgment motion or trial against a plaintiff. Even though this happened in the context of a summary judgment proceeding, the plaintiffs in the next case tried to
His Attorneys Are Seeking a $1 Million Lodestar Plus a Multiplier. According to a May 14, 2009 article by Joseph Serna in the Daily Pilot, civil attorneys representing Newport Beach police Sgt. Neil Harvey, who obtained a favorable civil rights award of $1.2 million from a jury earlier this year, will be moving for
