Contrast To the Different Result Reached by District Judge Feess In Our September 6, 2008 Post.
In our September 6, 2008 post, we explored District Judge Feess’ award of attorney’s fees in City of Los Angeles v. County of Kern. Among other things, District Judge Feess was critical of awarding plaintiffs “full credit” for their attorneys’ claimed 738.60 hours in drafting a 29 page complaint. However, because we like to champion opposing viewpoints, we offer the perspective of a California Court of Appeal in a case where fees were allowed for drafting a short complaint—although we admit that the hours claimed were far from the exponential magnitude claimed by the litigants in the case before District Judge Feess.
In the state court matter, defendants challenged prevailing parties’ request to be compensated for 39 hours of attorney time in preparing a 6 page complaint. Defendants argued that any competent attorney could draft it in an hour or so. The First District, in Children’s Hospital and Med. Center v. Bonta, 97 Cal.App.4th 740, 783 (2002), rejected such a mechanistic methodology in this way:
“The length of a document is no gauge of the time needed to prepare it. The pithy pleadings that are most effective usually require more time
to prepare than the endlessly discursive and digressive documents
judges often receive. Moreover, given the complexities of this case,
the precise language of the concise complaint warranted the
exceptional attention counsel devoted to its
preparation. Judicial use of the length of a pleading
or brief as a measure of the time necessary to prepare it would reward
verbosity and penalize thoughtful and precise draftsmanship. Given the
ponderous plethora of prolix pleadings that inundate our courts, no trial
judge in his or her right mind would adopt such an approach.”