However, Matter Remanded Because His Estimate of Fees Did Not Satisfy Percentage of Benefit or Lodestar Analyses.
The appellate court in Johnson v. Johnson, Case No. B242770 (2d Dist., Div. 2 Jan. 31, 2013) (unpublished) agreed that grandson was entitled to recoup his attorney’s fees under a common fund theory when he successfully obtained court rulings that the trustee of his grandfather’s trust should return $38,000 and be removed–after all, this increased trust assets available to all.
The problem that required a remand for recalculation of the fees is that the trial court awarded $25,000 in fees based only on grandson’s “guess” that fees were up to that level after initially indicating they were no more than $15,000. Reversal was required because the trial court did not properly evaluate common fund fee recovery under either the percentage of benefit method or lodestar/multiplier analysis.