Compensatory Award to Plaintiff Was A Little Over $56,000.
Just to be sure, plaintiffs winning certain Labor Code violations, even if the compensatory damages are small, can win exponentially greater attorney’s fees awards under plaintiff-friendly fee shifting statutes.
That occurred in Quiroz v. Emergency University, Case No. A137595 (1st Dist., Div. 2 Sept. 30, 2013) (unpublished), which involved only a challenge to the amount of the fee award–something reviewed under a deferential abuse of discretion review standard. Below, plaintiff won a little over $56,000 in a wage overtime/meal break case, with the trial court awarding his attorneys $141,080 in attorney’s fees but declining a 1.5 positive multiplier request.
Defendant did not win its appeal of the amount of the fee award.
The lower court properly awarded attorneys respective hourly rates of $440/$410/$335 and paralegal rates of $120 per hour especially in light of a 1993 which had awarded lead counsel $450 per hour in an employment case. (Bihun v. AT&T Information Systems, Inc., 13 Cal.App.4th 976, 997-998 (1993).)
Although the defense argued that San Mateo was the precise venue, the appellate court had no problem using hourly rates for the general San Francisco Bay area, crediting plaintiffs’ lead attorney’s declarations about what rates were proper in this general community area.
Defendant simply could not surmount the abuse of discretion standard in this one.