Court of Appeal Sustains Lower Court Determination That Opposition Fee Effort Does Not Have To Be Considered.
Plaintiff and defendants settled a Home Equity Sales Contract Act case that crops up frequently in this age of subprime lender fallout cases. A settlement was reached by which the trial court was imbued with discretion to award “reasonable attorneys fees and costs” under the Act. Plaintiff subsequently moved for and received all of the requested attorney’s fees in the amount of $120,673. Defendants appealed and lost.
In Reyes v. Hoekstra, Case No. H031495 (6th Dist. Sept. 4, 2008) (unpublished), the appellate court—based on concessions by the parties in their appellate briefs—reviewed the award under the abuse of discretion standard. There is a nice review of lodestar and appellate abuse of discretion principles. The Court of Appeal observed that PLCM Group, Inc. v. Drexler, 22 Cal.4th 1084, 1096 (2000) [one of our Leading Cases] is a focal decision, with a trial court determining the value of attorney services based on considering factors such as the nature of the litigation, its difficulty, the amount involved, the skill required in its handling, the skill employed, the attention given, the success or failure, and other circumstances in the case. Based on these factors, the lower court properly considered the litigiousness of the case and expertise of plaintiff’s counsel in arriving at the conclusion that requested fees were reasonable in nature.
However, the Sixth District also had a tantalizing ending response to an argument that we have blogged on before. In our June 8, 2008 post, we noted the split in judicial opinion about whether the time spent by opposing attorneys was probative in supporting the reasonableness of the value of services claimed by attorneys for the fee claimant. In Reyes, the losing opponents argued that they only spent “roughly 65%” of the amount claimed by plaintiff’s attorney as a basis to disturb the lower court’s discretion. The Sixth District was not impressed. Its response, which mirrors what we have seen from some courts (but not all by a long shot), went along these lines: “Defendants’ last point was also properly rejected. The court explained in great detail why attorneys on opposite sides do not necessarily spend the same amount of time on a case.” (Slip Opn., at p. 11.)
So, we have a recent decision weighing against discovery of opponent’s fees in fee proceedings. But, for those of you who do not like this reasoning, take heart—an unpublished Fifth District decision issued the same day dropped a footnote suggesting that it did not necessarily agree with its colleagues up North on the probative nature of opposition fee work. Stay tuned on this blog very soon for this recent countervailing view on the issue.