$16,000 Deduction for Unnecessary Collaboration Showed No Abuse of Discretion.
McCoy v. Walczak, Case No. A129671 (1st Dist., Div. 4 Oct. 21, 2011) (unpublished) involved a situation where a trial court denied a timely filed fee motion by a winning SLAPP defendant in a defamation suit “without prejudice,” but later awarded $92,898 to two sets of attorneys when the motion was filed soon after the first ruling. Losing plaintiff was miffed, and appealed.
Result?
Fee order affirmed on appeal.
Although the second fee motion was filed outside of the 60-day deadline after notice of entry of the SLAPP order, the lower court discussed timing of a new fee motion and plaintiff did not raise untimeliness as a ground for objection at the hearing where the motion was denied without prejudice. The thrust of the lower court’s comments at the first hearing suggested it was going to allow the renewed motion, which showed that it was effectively extending the time for the motion filing–something it could do under California Rules of Court, rule 3.1702.
Plaintiff’s challenge that the fees were excessive did not succeed. Evidence was actually presented about the hourly rates being reasonable for attorneys in the San Francisco Bay Area. As far as using two sets of attorneys, collaboration does not necessarily amount to duplication (Premier Medical Management Systems, Inc. v. California Ins. Guarantee Assn., 163 Cal.App.4th 550, 564 (2008)), although the trial judge did deduct nearly $16,000 from the requested amount to eliminate duplicative, inefficient and inappropriately claimed hours. No abuse of discretion in the award amount ruled the appellate court, given this type of record of what happened.