Cases: Reasonableness of Fees

Employment/Special Fee Shifting Statute (Pen. Code, § 502)/Reasonableness Of Fees/Allocation/Substantiation Of Fees: $980,373.50 Fee Award To Ex-Employee Not Paid All His Promised Commissions And Subject To Personal Computer Tampering Affirmed On App

Cases: Allocation, Cases: Employment, Cases: Reasonableness of Fees, Cases: Special Fee Shifting Statutes, Cases: Substantiation of Reasonableness of Fees

  Appellate Court Found Lower Court Correct to View L.A. Attorneys As Within San Bernardino Venue and Necessary Given Earlier Misfortunes with Local Attorneys.      Trealoff v. Forest River, Inc., Case No. E048818 (4th Dist., Div. 2 Oct. 6, 2011) (unpublished) was a case where an ex-employee won sizable jury verdicts, including punitive damages, for […]

Civil Rights/Special Fee Shifting Statute: Defendant/Cross-Complainant Losing Adverse Elder Abuse Claim and FEHA Cross-claim Properly Hit With $1.312 Million Fee Order

Cases: Civil Rights, Cases: Reasonableness of Fees, Cases: Special Fee Shifting Statutes

  She Lost Elder Abuse Claim by Plaintiff and Did Not Prevail on Her Frivolous FEHA Sexual Harassment Cross-claim.      Bad facts can result in large jury verdicts; they also tend to guide the dispositon of the trial judge when it comes to awarding attorney’s fees against the non-prevailing litigant. That is what happened in

Reasonableness Of Fees: $247,480.05 Fee Award To Property Owner/Landlord In “Bat Bite” Case Affirmed On Appeal

Cases: Reasonableness of Fees

  Fifth District Finds Nothing Wrong in Substantial Fee Award.      Hopper Properties v. Payless Shoesource, Inc., Case No. F060235 (5th Dist. July 7, 2011) (unpublished) involved interesting facts and a substantial fee award affirmed on appeal.      Owner/landlord Hopper and tenant Payless settled with a six-year-old boy who was bitten by a bat inside

Lots Of Fee Decisions On Variant Issues Come Out On June 21, 2011

Cases: Choice of Law, Cases: Family Law, Cases: Private Attorney General (CCP 1021.5), Cases: Reasonableness of Fees

  Choice of Law–California Law Applies Across the Board If It Is the Governing Choice of Law on Fee Issues.      In our prior posts of June 11, 2008 and January 21, 2010, we discussed decisions indicating that Civil Code section 1717’s reciprocity principle is a fundamental California interest trumping unilateral fee clauses governed by

Post-Memorial Day Unpublished Troika: Reduced Fee Award Reversed; Res Judicata Supports Another Fee Award; Implied Covenant’s Operation Justifies Finding Opt-In Defendants Not Liable For Fee In Proposition 65 Case

Cases: Civil Rights, Cases: Estoppel, Cases: Reasonableness of Fees

  $23,600 Fee Award Out of Requested $223,615.50 Reversed in Civil Rights Case.      In Williams v. Hei Long Beach, LLC, Case No. B224211 (2d Dist., Div. 2 May 31, 2011) (unpublished), the appellate court reversed a fee award of $23,600 out of attorneys’ requested $223,615.50 in an Unruh Civil Rights hotel accommodation case resulting

Lodestar/Reasonableness Of Fees: Two Drastic Haircut Fee Decisions–One Reversed And One Affirmed

Cases: Lodestar, Cases: Reasonableness of Fees

Justice Bedsworth Gives Us Two Fee Case “Gems.”      Justice Bedsworth, who sits on the Fourth District, Division 3 (the venue where co-contributors Marc and Mike are based practice-wise), has written two interesting decisions on lodestar/reasonableness of fees. Both involved trial court decisions dramatically cutting fee requests. On appeal, one got reversed and the other

Reasonableness of Fees: $175,361.02 Fee Award To Winning Plaintiff Stands Because Abuse of Discretion Deferential Standard Could Not Be Surmounted

Cases: Reasonableness of Fees

  Case Highlights How Fee Recoveries Can Be Substantial in Fairly Standard Real Estate Cases.      Mehrabian v. Meruelo Maddux Properties-Ponte Vista, LLC, Case No. B219623 (2d Dist., Div. 1 May 19, 2011) (unpublished) is not so remarkable for its conclusion, but highlights the high costs of fairly standard real estate litigation and demonstrates the

Section 1717 and Prevailing Parties: Fourth District, Division One, Rules that Civil Code Section 1717’s Prevailing Party Standard, Mutuality Principle, and Reasonable Fees Standard Apply to an Attorney’s Fees Provision in a Consent Decree

Cases: Prevailing Party, Cases: Reasonableness of Fees, Cases: Section 1717, Rates

Order Granting the People $707,882.50 in Attorney Fees and Costs of $32,673 Goes Up in Smoke, But Not to Worry, Parties Will Get to Light Up Again in Trial Court      In this appeal, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company challenged an order awarding attorney fees to the People for enforcing a Consent Decree banning participating tobacco

Allocation/Appealability/Homeowner Associations/Reasonableness Of Fees: $190,065 Fee Award Affirmed in “Acrid Dispute Between Neighbors” Under CC&Rs

Cases: Allocation, Cases: Appealability, Cases: Homeowner Associations, Cases: Reasonableness of Fees

Trial Court’s Significant Reductions in Requested Fees Obviated Need to Apportion With Mathematical Precision.      The next case illustrates a result we see often in appellate decisions when apportionment of fees is necessary as between compensable and noncompensable claims: a lower court’s reduction of fee requests obviates the need to perform a CPA-like audit of

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