Excessiveness Of Request Justified Entire Denial Of Fees Motion Demand.
If you request an excessive fee award, you can be slammed entirely under a lot of California fee-shifting statutes. One of the big cases is Chavez v. City of Los Angeles, 47 Cal.4th 970 (2010) [our Leading Case No. 13], where a FEHA request was denied to a civil rights plaintiff because it was deemed excessive in nature.
Well, that motif echoed through with respect to the result reached in Pachecho v. Tuttle, Case No. B272171 (2d Dist., Div. 3 Nov. 20, 2018) (unpublished).
There, a defendant successfully opposed civil restraining orders, which did give rise to fee shifting under a prevailing party statute in the form of CCP § 527.6. However, defendant requested fees of $94,934. The lower court denied the fee request, and the appellate court found it was no abuse of discretion to find the request excessive in nature. Although arguing there was inconsistency between clerk transcript documents and the reporter’s transcript, the lower court’s pronouncements made it clear that the entire request was denied because it was excessive based on what was said at the fee hearing.