Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_14-cv-00850/USCOURTS-cand-3_14-cv-00850-6/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 15:1692 Fair Debt Collection Act

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United States District Court

Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

AIYANA PRICE-PAULINE,

Plaintiff,

v.

PERFORMANT RECOVERY, INC.,

Defendant.

Case No. 14-cv-00850-JD 

ORDER RE ATTORNEYS' FEES

Re: Dkt. Nos. 63, 74, 81

Plaintiff Aiyana Price-Pauline filed this action against defendants Performant Recovery, 

Inc. (“PRI”) and the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (“PHEAA”) on February 

26, 2014. Dkt. No. 1. Price-Pauline alleged violations of the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act, 

Rosenthal Fair Debt Collections Practices Act, and the California Unfair Competition Law. Id. 

Plaintiff voluntarily dismissed the claims against PHEAA on May 22, 2015, and accepted PRI’s

offer of judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 68 on July 13, 2015. Dkt. Nos. 24, 57. 

The Court entered judgment in favor of plaintiff on her Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and 

California Rosenthal Act claims on the same day. Dkt. No. 58. 

Plaintiff initially moved for $109,575.75 in attorneys’ fees for six attorneys and three legal 

interns. Dkt. Nos. 63, 64, 74.1 Defendant objected to the request for attorney fees as excessive, 

and argued plaintiff should not be granted more than $49,579.25. Dkt. No. 67. Plaintiff also seeks

reimbursement of $2,026.42 in costs. Dkt. Nos. 61, 66. Defendant originally challenged the bill 

of costs, but withdrew its objection after plaintiff revised the request. See Dkt. Nos. 65, 70. 

 

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Plaintiff re-filed her motion on September 4, 2015, after the Court denied permission to file 

certain exhibits under seal. Dkt. Nos. 71, 74. Because this later filing is more complete, the Court 

will cite to the copy of the motion at Dkt. No. 74 and its exhibits instead of the versions at Dkt. 

Nos. 63-64.

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At the December 30, 2015 hearing on this matter, the Court voiced concern about multiple 

billing entries that indicated inefficient and duplicative work by plaintiff’s attorneys and interns.

Dkt. No. 80. In response to the Court’s comments, plaintiff filed a revised request for attorneys’ 

fees on January 6, 2016, in which she “amended her motion to eliminate charges for interns/law 

students, charges for communication between counsel, and other time.” Dkt. No. 81 at 1. Plaintiff 

also explained that certain previously charged hours had been due to departures of two attorneys 

during the pendency of the case. Id. at 1-2. Plaintiff’s revised request seeks a total of $65,378.25 

in fees. Id. at 2. While the Court indicated it would take the matter under submission after 

plaintiff submitted a revised request, defendant filed an unsolicited opposition, now arguing that 

plaintiff should not receive more than $35,168 in fees. Dkt. No. 82 at 10. 

The Court finds the revised fee request to be fair and reasonable, with one modification,

and awards plaintiff $64,515.75 in fees. The Court also awards plaintiff $2,026.42 in costs. 

DISCUSSION

I. STANDARDS

The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act allows a plaintiff to recover “the costs of the action, 

together with a reasonable attorney’s fee as determined by the court.” 15 U.S.C. § 1692k(a)(3); 

Camacho v. Bridgeport Fin., Inc., 523 F.3d 973, 978 (9th Cir. 2008). A similar award is also 

available under the Rosenthal Act. Klein v. Law Offices of D. Scott Carruthers, No. C15-00490 

CRB, 2015 WL 3626946, at *2 (N.D. Cal. June 10, 2015) (citing Cal. Civil Code § 1788.30(c)).

The Court calculates an attorneys’ fees award using the “lodestar” method. Camacho, 523 

F.3d at 978. “The ‘lodestar’ is calculated by multiplying the number of hours the prevailing party 

reasonably expended on the litigation by a reasonable hourly rate.” Id. (quoting Ferland v. 

Conrad Credit Corp., 244 F.3d 1145, 1149 n.4 (9th Cir. 2001)) (internal quotations omitted); see 

also Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 433 (1983). The fee applicant bears the burden of 

documenting the appropriate hours expended in the litigation. Klein, 2015 WL 3626946, at *2

(citing Hensley, 461 U.S. at 433). The Court may reduce the award “[w]here the documentation of 

hours is inadequate,” and may “exclude from a fee request hours that are excessive, redundant, or 

otherwise unnecessary.” Hensley, 461 U.S. at 433-34. The Court determines a reasonable hourly 

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rate by considering “the experience, skill, and reputation of the attorney requesting fees.” Klein, 

2015 WL 3626946, at *2 (quoting Chalmers v. City of Los Angeles, 796 F.2d 1205, 1210 (9th 

Cir.1986)). The Court has “‘a great deal of discretion in determining the reasonableness of the 

fee.’” Camacho, 523 F.3d at 978 (quoting Gates v. Deukmejian, 987 F.2d 1392, 1398 (9th Cir.

1992)).

II. HOURLY RATES

Price-Pauline has persuasively shown that the rates sought for her legal staff are within the 

rates “prevailing in the community for similar work performed by attorneys of comparable skill, 

experience, and reputation.” See Camacho, 523 F.3d at 979 (internal quotation omitted). PricePauline supports the hourly rate of $600 sought for attorney Scott Borison with a declaration from 

Borison, Dkt. No. 74-4, and a declaration from a local consumer protection lawyer Balam Letona 

attesting to prevailing rates in the bay area. Dkt. No. 74-7. Borison details his 28 years of legal 

experience, including at least 20 concentrating on consumer finance issues, cites his $550 per hour 

rate in non-contingent cases, and cites local caselaw where attorneys with 14-16 years of 

experience earn $450. Dkt. No. 74-4 ¶¶ 1, 3, 10. Declarant Letona cites local cases in which 

hourly rates up to $560 were provided to attorneys with only fourteen years experience, and states 

that the market rate for consumer law cases in the bay area ranges from $300-$700 or more per 

hour based on “skill, experience and reputation.” Dkt. No. 74-7 ¶¶ 13-15.

Price-Pauline seeks an hourly rate of $500 per hour for her former lead attorney Joseph 

Jaramillo, previously of the Housing and Economic Rights Advocates (“HERA”). Dkt. No. 74-5 

¶ 7. The request is supported by a declaration from Noah Zinner of HERA, attesting to Jaramillo’s 

20 years of experience in litigation. Id. Zinner also details his own eight years as an attorney in 

consumer litigation in support of the $400 per hour rate sought for his work. Id. ¶¶ 2-5, 8. These 

rates are in line with the market rates cited by Letona. Dkt. No. 74-7 ¶¶ 13-15, 17, 19. 

Finally, Price-Pauline requests an hourly rate of $375 for her former attorney Megan Ryan, 

whose six years of practice were attested to by her former supervisor, East Bay Community Law 

Center Director Sharon Djemal. Dkt. No. 74-6 ¶ 6. This rate is supported by Djemal and 

commensurate with the rates cited by Letona, which show a rate of $364 per hour awarded to an 

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attorney with five years experience, and a rate of $350 per hour awarded to an attorney with seven 

years experience. Dkt. No. 74-7 ¶¶ 13-15. 

Defendant rather frivolously characterizes the requested rates as excessive, Dkt. No. 67 at 

11, based on old and out-of-district cases that hold little relevance to this case. See Camacho, 523 

F.3d at 979, 981 (noting the “general rule” that the “reasonable hourly rate” is determined by the 

“forum in which the district court sits,” and that “a district court abuses its discretion to the extent 

it relies on cases decided years before the attorneys actually rendered their services”). Defendant 

also misses the mark in arguing for a rate reduction because this case was not particularly 

complicated. While this case was not an all-out war, it required 16 months of litigation involving 

written discovery, six depositions, discovery disputes, and a mediation before it settled. See Dkt. 

Nos. 32, 67 at 1; Dkt. No. 74 at 4-6. The Court is also unpersuaded by defendant’s unsupported 

suggestion that the plaintiff’s attorneys needed to demonstrate specific FDCPA expertise to 

warrant the rates sought. 

Overall, the Court is satisfied that the evidence provided by the plaintiff establishes the 

length of experience of her attorneys in the consumer litigation field, and that their rates sought are 

commensurate with and reasonable in light of the prevailing rates in the Northern District of 

California for similar work by similarly situated attorneys. See Camacho, 523 F.3d at 980-81. 

III. HOURS EXPENDED

Plaintiff supported the $65,378.25 in attorneys’ fees with a revised spreadsheet detailing 

which fee requests were abandoned in light of the Court’s concerns. See Dkt. No. 81-1. The 

Court is satisfied that these revisions, which reduce the original fee request by approximately 

40%, fully resolve the Court’s concerns. 

Despite these voluntary reductions, and without the Court’s permission, defendant filed an 

unsolicited opposition to press for even deeper cuts than it sought in its first opposition to 

plaintiff’s fee request. Compare Dkt. No. 67 at 1 (“this is a simple case, and should not have 

taken more than $40,000 to $50,000”), and Dkt. No. 67 at 14 (recommending fees between 

$39,369.76 and $49,579.25), with Dkt. No. 82 at 10 (arguing proper fees in this case would range 

from $13,188 to $35,168).

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The Court rejects defendant’s requests for cuts to specific time entries. See Dkt. No. 67 at 

5-10; Dkt. No. 82 at 4-8. For the most part, the requests are nitpicky complaints that are totally 

unwarranted, particularly after plaintiff’s own significant reductions. To address some of the 

entries defendant carps about, the 0.1 hours spent by Jaramillo on 8/12/14 to confirm receipt of the 

mediation brief may be clerical time but does not rise to the level of needing correction. 

Jaramillo’s time on 5/28/14 will not be reduced because defendant has misquoted the time entry. 

See Dkt. No. 67 at 5; Dkt. 74-5 at 8. The Court also does not reduce Jaramillo’s time on 12/10/14 

or Zinner’s time on 1/14/15, which appear to involve case memoranda and 30(b)(6) deposition

planning, respectively, which reasonably require attorney attention. See Dkt. 74-5 at 11-12. 

The Court will not reduce Jaramillo’s time preparing a motion on 8/13/2014 simply on 

defendant’s decree that it was unnecessary. See Dkt. No. 67 at 6. The hours claimed for initial 

research and preparing the complaint in this matter also appear reasonable, especially given that 

the time the legal interns spent on these tasks has already been eliminated. See Dkt. No. 67 at 8-9. 

The Court disagrees with defendant’s contention that all co-counsel intercommunication is noncompensable, see Dkt. No. 67 at 9, and declines to reduce these hours in light of the apparently 

unavoidable attorney turnover in this case and in light of the deep concessions plaintiff has already 

made. The Court will, however, reduce the hours claimed by attorney Ryan to attend the 

5/29/2014 case management conference to 0.7, to match the hours claimed by the other attorney 

that attended. See Dkt. No. 67 at 8. The Court will not reduce the hours further based on alleged 

block-billing, as the disputed entries all contain sufficient detail for the Court to determine the 

reasonableness of hours expended. See O’Bannon v. Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Ass’n, No. 09-CV03329-CW (NC), 2015 WL 4274370, at *7 (N.D. Cal. July 13, 2015).

Defendant also makes a number of requests for percentage-wise or across-the-board cuts, 

which the Court denies as unwarranted. The Court will not reduce the time spent on the 

Complaint by 20% to account for fees allocable to PRI’s co-defendant. See Dkt. No. 67 at 7. The 

claims against both defendants involved a “common core” of facts, and are properly charged 

against PRI in their entirety. Stonebrae L.P. v. Toll Bros. Inc., 521 Fed. App’x. 592, 594-95 (9th 

Cir. 2013) (affirming award of attorneys’ fees related to dismissed claims because they were 

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related to and “arose from the same course of conduct” as those on which plaintiff prevailed). The 

Court also declines to reduce the award by 50% based on plaintiff’s alleged “limited success” in 

this action. See Dkt. No. 67 at 12. To the contrary, plaintiff’s $12,500 recovery here soundly 

exceeds the $1,000 statutory damages generally provided by a FDCPA action, and clearly speaks 

to her success in this matter. Even a $1,000 recovery in an FDCPA case does not render a 

plaintiff’s success “limited.” See De Amaral v. Goldsmith & Hull, No. 12-CV-03580-WHO, 2014 

WL 1309954, at *5 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 1, 2014).

In summary, the Court approves these fees:

Attorney Hours Rate Amount

Scott Borison 49.47 $600 $29,682

Joseph Jaramillo 44.9 $500 $22,450

Noah Zinner 14.6 $400 $5,840

Megan Ryan 19.75 - 2.3 = 17.45 $375 $6,543.75

Total $64,515.75

CONCLUSION

Price-Pauline’s motion for attorney fees and costs is granted with one slight modification. 

The Court grants Price-Pauline $64,515.75 in fees and $2,026.42 in costs.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: January 26, 2016

________________________

JAMES DONATO

United States District Judge

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