Non-Complexity Of Issues, Lack Of Success From Stated Goals, And Upward Adjustment Of Past Hourly Rates To Future Periods Of The Litigation Justified The .07 (Negative) Multiplier And No Award Of A Positive Multiplier.
Taduran v. James R. Glidewell, Dental Ceramics, Inc., Case No. G064718 (4th Dist., Div. 3 May 26, 2026) (unpublished) is a good example of the leeway granted to a trial judge in setting civil penalties in a PAGA/labor case and in adjudicating lodestar/multiplier requests by employee’s (or, for that matter, any fees claimant’s) attorneys.
In this one, employee brought a PAGA lawsuit for numerous Labor Code violations, with some claims being granted in employee’s favor through summary adjudication motions and with employer essentially stipulating to liability on a remaining claim. In the civil penalty bench trial, the lower court granted employee about 1% of its requested amount of $55,985,350, amounting to $515,955 for four Labor Code violations given employer’s liability acknowledgments. Employee then sought $1,571,658.75 in attorney’s fees, a lodestar of $1,047,772.50 plus a 1.5 positive multiplier. Employer argued for a lodestar of $261,943.13, or 25% of the requested lodestar without augmentation, also primarily arguing against a positive multiplier based on no issue complexity and obtaining a civil penalty much below employee’s request. The lower court awarded employee $733,440, a lodestar with a .70 (negative) multiplier because (1) employee’s attorneys claimed higher hourly rates for past work based on higher current hourly rates (which would have resulted in a positive multiplier outside of its formal enhancement request); (2) the case was relatively straightforward in nature; (3) the skill in prosecuting was not exceptional; and (4) employee only obtained a civil penalty award which was less than 1% of what he sought.
Employee’s appeal of the civil penalty and fee awards were unsuccessful. After determining that the lower court had discretion in setting the civil penalty (with no abuse of discretion occurring), the appellate court—in a 3-0 opinion by Acting Justice Delaney—decided it did not have to get into the conundrum of whether a heightened scrutiny standard applies to a negative multiplier (an issue involved on review in the Cash case) because the lower court supplied specific explanations for its choice of a .70 multiplier. Although contingency risk was a positive enhancement factor, skill of counsel was a neutral factor, success was a negative factor based on the civil penalty being miniscule from the request (a factor to consider in PAGA cases and others), and the use of present hourly rates diluted the lodestar equation so it also was a negative factor.