Only $162,500 In $1.7 Million Requested Fees Were Awarded–A Result Sustained On Appeal.
Rey v. Madera Unified School Dist., Case No. F061532 (5th Dist. Feb. 28, 2012) (certified for publication) is somewhat of a sobering decision, reminding all of us that inflated fee requests can and will be severely discounted by lower courts, with appellate courts sanctioning severe reductions under the deferential abuse of discretion standard when the circumstances warrant.
First, the noncontroversial part of the opinion. Prevailing parties like plaintiffs were entitled to attorney’s fees under the California Voting Rights Act. (Elec. Code, § 14030.) However, the statute did not mean fee exposure was visited on the Madera County Board of Education in its capacity as the county committee on school district organization, because it did not violate the statute. After looking to analogies in the private attorney general statute context, the Fifth District properly concluded that County Committee was not responsible for the at-large election method successfully challenged such that it had no exposure for a fee recovery.
But, that was hardly the end of the issue. What about the 95% reduction in the fee award against the Madera Unified School District, when plaintiffs sought $1.7 million in fees and were only awarded $162,500? No abuse of discretion based on the record before the appellate court. Plaintiffs hired out-of-town attorneys charging over $700/hour, but this did not mesh with the lower court’s conclusion that $325/hour was reasonable for Central Valley attorneys. (There was conflicting evidence on whether Central Valley attorneys were available to handle the election issues, with the trial court obviously allowed to credit the District’s declarations from two local attorneys saying they would have handled the case if approached.) The 95% reduction was no problem given that the fee submissions and hourly requests appeared to be inflated in nature.