Reasonableness Of Fees/SLAPP: Appellate Court Scales Back $19,500 Fee Award To $10,700

 

Case Was Simple; Fees Were Excessive.

     Reasonableness of a fees request, we have found, is often an “I know it when I see it” judgment call by a jurist. This next case demonstrates that even appellate panels will scale back fee requests that are too high when compared to the nature of the case.

     Defendant won a SLAPP motion based on small claims activities, which we all know carries a mandatory fee-shifting provision in these circumstances. There was the rub: the $19,500 fee award — out of a requested $35,442.25 — was still too high in Bourke v. Castaneda, Case No. D057870 (4th Dist., Div. 1 Dec. 22, 2011) (unpublished).

    That meant the appellate court had to slash it down to $10,700. The overriding reason? The action was not complex such that a court does not have to sanction a high fee award. (1 Wilkin Cal. Procedure (5th ed. 2008) Attorneys, § 206, p. 276; see also Boquilon v. Beckwith, 49 Cal.App.4th 1697, 1722-1723 (1996) [only a 50% fee award justified where a lot of time spent in portraying defendant as a “bad actor’]; Consumer Defense Group v. Rental Housing Industry Members, 137 Cal.App.4th 1185, 1217 (2006) [Proposition 65 action so easily as to make $500,000 fee request “objectively unconscionable”].) “ . . . given the simplicity of the case, the hours incurred were simply too high.” (Slip Opn., p. 10, reducing fee award to $10,700.)

     HAT TIP–Ben Shatz, an appellate specialist with Manatt Phelps, sent a copy of the decision to us. Mr. Shatz is an avid follower of the blog and a fine lawyer in his own right; Happy Holidays to you, Ben, and all of our readers during this Holiday season.

Blaney's extravaganza success. c1898.  Library of Congress

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