Appellate Court Did Not Buy That Trial Court Could Just Adopt Plaintiffs’ Voluntary Reduction Without Addressing Other Objections.
We posted today about a published decision between the parties. Separately, Sarkany v. West, Case No. A161728 (1st Dist., Div. 2 Aug. 30, 2022) (unpublished) was landlords’ appeal from an adverse $684,000 attorney’s fees award in favor of tenants after a favorable jury verdict, with the fee entitlement not being contested. Without much of an explanation, plaintiffs reduced their $1.134 million fee request (inclusive of a 1.5 multiplier) by $141,245.50. The trial court bought it, awarding a little over $684,000 to plaintiffs on the lodestar request, but denying a positive multiplier. The appellate court did not buy it. The voluntary reduction did not address the defense objections to the fee motion, much less the trial judge’s concerns that a reduction might be justified based on plaintiffs’ sanctionable and litigious conduct. It simply could not determine that these factors were considered, so a re-do was ordered. One of the defendants argued no fee award was justified based on indigency, but the appellate court could only find this was a consideration for a plaintiff’s indigency, not a defendant’s indigency. (Garcia v. Santana, 174 Cal.App.4th 464, 476 (2009).)