Plaintiff Requested Close to $1 Million in Fees (Inclusive of 3.5 Multiplier).
Plaintiff sued a school district and two supervisors for FEHA and a host of ancillary discrimination claims. Along the way, even though an appellate court revived some claims, plaintiff had claims pared down or only partially prevailed—3 out of 11, for a scoreboard approach. Ultimately, plaintiff prevailed against two defendants (one of them the school district) to the tune of a $75,000 jury verdict, although seeking $5 million in damages. Plaintiff then moved to recoup $1 million in fees, but was awarded only $58,887.27.
Plaintiff’s appeal was mainly unsuccessful in Aliu v. Long Beach Unified School Dist., Case No. B251925 (2d Dist., Div. 5 Oct. 3, 2014) (unpublished), although the appellate court itself added some “fees on fees” and fees for plaintiff’s successful opposition to post-trial motions—likely done to get this one resolved once and for all.
Aside from duplication/inefficiency and hourly rate reductions, the main reason for the trial court’s substantial “haircut” was the limited success of plaintiff. The trial court utilized somewhat of a numerical methodology which to the appellate court was “questionable at best,” but its ruling did show familiarity with lodestar/multiplier principles so as to not constitute palpable abuse of discretion.
The interesting part of this one was plaintiff’s contention that the lower court erred in failing to award “fees on fees” and fees for successful post-trial motion work. The appellate court agreed that this was an omission and, under somewhat unusual circumstances where the trial court was unavailable for a re-fix on remand, took the step of awarding them, except at the reduced hourly rate accepted by the trial court. This added another $39,200 to the fee award and likely got this one to the “end of the yellow brick road.”
Illustration by W.W. Denslow (d. 1915). Wikipedia.