Law Office of Shawn A. McMillan Gets Recent Two-Fer Awards.
Congratulations go out to Shawn A. McMillan and his colleagues for obtaining two recent nice fee award recoveries, one in state court and one in federal court.
Fogarty-Hardwick Orange County Superior Court Case.
We have posted on this one before in our October 12, 2008 and June 19, 2010 posts. Most recently, the Fourth District, Division 3 affirmed a $1.6 million fee award to plaintiff Deanna Fogarty-Hardwick in a case involving very sympathetic facts. That then brought plaintiff to seeking attorney’s fees for appellate work. On December 13, 2010, Orange County Superior Court Judge Ronald Bauer awarded plaintiff $945,395.55 in appellate fees, which included a lodestar based on hourly rates of $225-585, a fee enhancement, and a “fees on fees” grant. (See Orange County Superior Court Case No. 01CC02379.)
Rock and Roll Religion Federal Trademark Case.
In this one, U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real awarded plaintiff (in a counterdefendant capacity) $112,529.05 in attorney’s fees under 11 U.S.C. § 1117(a), which authorizes a district judge to award exceptional fees in a trademark case where the claim is found to be groundless and pursued in bad faith. Plaintiff showed trademark counterclaims met those standards, garnering a nice fee recovery. (See Rock and Roll Religion, Inc. v. CELS Enterprises, Inc., Case No. CV 09-5258-R (PLAx).) In the process, District Judge Real found that hourly rates of $64-400 were reasonable in nature.