Fourth District, Division 3 Finds Sufficient Substantiation in Attorney Declaration Attesting to Actual Number of Hours Worked and Attorney’s Billing Rate.
Many practitioners might think that itemized billing statements and evidence on reasonableness of rates/hours expended are essentials in a fee petition proceeding. Although highly advisable, the next case reinforces that such detailed substantiation is not required in state fee proceedings.
In Maas v. Coastal Animal Services Authority, Case No. G040536 (4th Dist., Div. 3 Apr. 24, 2009) (unpublished), defendant won $5,500 in attorney’s fees as the prevailing party on an anti-SLAPP motion, because the SLAPP statute has a mandatory fee-shifting provision favoring prevailing defendants. The trial court made the fee award based on submission of defendant’s attorney’s declaration attesting to the actual number of hours worked and the attorney’s billing rate. The submitted substantiation did not include the itemized billing statements or evidence that the billing rate and hours spent were reasonable. Plaintiff challenged this substantiation as being inadequate.
The Fourth District, Division 3, in a 3-0 decision authored by Acting Presiding Justice O’Leary, disagreed.
Plaintiff argued that fee awards cannot be based solely on declarations of counsel as to the total fees incurred, but must be supported by more specific substantiation such as itemized time sheets/billings records and by declarations detailing the experience/expertise of the attorney and attesting to the reasonableness of the fees charged.
The Court of Appeal’s response: “Not so.”
Rather, detailed billing records are not required to affirm an attorney’s fees award. (Martino v. Denevi, 182 Cal.App.3d 553, 559 (1986); Steiny & Co. v. California Electric Supply Co., 79 Cal.App.4th 285, 293 (2000); Weber v. Langholz, 39 Cal.App.4th 1578, 1587 (1995).) Although both Christian Research Institute v. Alnor, 165 Cal.App.4th 1315, 1320 (2008) (authored by Justice Aronson from the same Court of Appeal) and Maughan v. Google Technology, Inc., 143 Cal.App.4th 1242, 1253 (2006) (authored by Justice Mallano of the Second District) reduced fees to the prevailing party due to the lack of detailed records, “neither case held detailed billing records were a requisite to supporting any award at all.” (Slip Opn., at 5.) Also, Justice O’Leary did note that ComputerXpress, Inc. v. Jackson, 93 Cal.App.4th 993, 1020 (2001) indicated that a trial court legitimately may require specific substantiation and has discretion to reduce compensation on account of any failure to maintain appropriate time records.
The attorney declaration submitted in Maas also described the type of activities undertaken so that it had more detail than just a “flat fee” request found too bare boned in Martino, supra, 182 Cal.App.3d at 559-560.
BLOG OBSERVATION—The result in Maas was likely influenced by the relatively small amount of requested attorney’s fees, with Justice O’Leary even observing that there were no hints of overreaching based on the “quite modest” fees sought for winning a SLAPP motion. Co-contributors Marc and Mike would suggest that specific substantiation is the better approach in any case involving significant fees. Even Weber v. Langholz, supra, 39 Cal.App.4th at 1587 agreed: “Although a fee request ordinarily should be documented in great detail, it cannot be said in this particular case that the absence of time records and billing statements deprived the trial court of substantial evidence to support an award ….” Also, we find that federal courts require much more specific substantiation in fee petition proceedings when compared to what is necessary in state court fee battles.