Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-2_13-cv-01001/USCOURTS-caed-2_13-cv-01001-4/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 446
Nature of Suit: Americans with Disabilities Act - Other
Cause of Action: 42:12101 Americans with Disabilities Act

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

ALEKSEY NECHITAYLO,

Plaintiff,

v.

THE WEDUM FAMILY LIMITED 

PARTNERSHIP, a California 

partnership,

Defendant.

No. 2:13-CV-01001-JAM-JFM

ORDER AWARDING FEES AND COSTS

Plaintiff Aleksey Nechitaylo (“Plaintiff”) sued Defendant 

The Wedum Family Limited Partnership (“Defendant”) for 

architectural barriers at its grocery store in violation of the 

Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) and California law. The 

parties proceeded to a bench trial and the Court entered judgment 

for Plaintiff in the amount of $20,000. Plaintiff now moves for 

fees and costs.1

 

///

 

1 This motion was determined to be suitable for decision without 

oral argument. E.D. Cal. L.R. 230(g). The hearing was 

scheduled for November 18, 2015.

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I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Plaintiff is disabled and uses a wheelchair for mobility.2 

He visited Defendant’s store frequently between at least 2011 and 

2013, as it was half a mile from Plaintiff’s home and it sold 

items that he bought frequently. Other stores in the area sold 

similar products, but those stores also posed accessibility 

problems. 

Plaintiff sued Defendant in May 2013. The parties were 

unable to settle or stipulate as to the barriers. As late as 

August 2015, there were apparently no alterations done on the 

property, and Defendant continued to contest the presence of 

barriers. In the intervening two years, the parties also 

litigated Plaintiff’s ability to file an amended complaint (Doc. 

#19), which the Court allowed (Doc. #22), and Defendant moved for 

summary judgment (Doc. #36), which the Court denied (Doc. #46). 

Both motions were fully briefed and went to hearing. 

At trial, Plaintiff’s expert witness, Bassam Altwal, 

testified as to the barriers. The parties ultimately stipulated 

to the presence of barriers and corresponding injunctive relief

during a break in trial. The trial proceeded as to damages under 

California law, and the Court awarded Plaintiff $20,000.

Plaintiff now moves for attorneys’ fees and costs (Doc. #97) 

and Defendant opposes the motion (Doc. #98). 

II. OPINION

The loadstar method is appropriate for calculating fees in 

this case. See Hall v. City of Fairfield, 2014 WL 1286001, at *3 

 

2 The Court has set forth its factual findings more fully in its

findings of fact and conclusions of law (Doc. #91).

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(E.D. Cal. Mar. 31, 2014) (citing Kerr v. Screen Extras Guild, 

Inc., 526 F.2d 67, 69-70 (9th Cir. 1975)). 

A. Reasonable Hourly Rates

Plaintiff has requested that the hourly rates in this case 

be set at $300 per hour for Ms. Karbelashvili, $225 per hour for 

Mr. Karbelashvili, and $125 per hour for Ms. Melnik. Mot. at 

6-7. Defendant disputes all three rates, and urges the Court to 

set them at $175, $150, and $75, respectively. Opp. at 5-6. 

“A court awarding attorney fees must look to the prevailing 

market rates in the relevant community.” Bell v. Clackamas Cty., 

341 F.3d 858, 860 (9th Cir. 2003). The Court finds that the 

prevailing rate for an ADA barriers case in Sacramento for an 

attorney with experience commensurate to that of Ms. 

Karbelashvili is $260. See Hall, 2014 WL 1286001, at *7; Knox v. 

Chaing, 2013 WL 2434606, at *10 (E.D. Cal. June 5, 2013). 

However, based on the Court’s observations throughout this 

litigation, Ms. Karbelashvili demonstrated skill far below the 

level expected of an attorney with over ten years of experience. 

At trial for instance, Ms. Karbelashvili, the lead attorney on 

this case, did not draw out enough evidence from her client on 

direct examination to support his damages claims. Much of the 

relevant information only came out on cross examination through 

questioning by defense counsel. To make matters worse, near the 

end of Mr. Nechitaylo’s testimony, Ms. Karbelashvili attempted to 

strike his testimony – the only evidence offered as to damages –

in its entirety. As an attorney with multiple years of 

experience in disability rights cases, Ms. Karbelsahvili should 

know what evidence she is required to elicit to support her case

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and she should be able to in fact elicit it during trial. The 

results obtained for Mr. Nechitaylo here were indeed successful. 

But that success was in spite of, and not because of, Ms. 

Karbelashvili’s conduct at trial. For these reasons, the Court 

reduces Ms. Karbelashvili’s rate to $150 per hour.

As to Mr. Karbelashvili, he was only admitted to practice 

law two months before appearing for trial in this case. Irakli 

Karbelashvili Decl. ¶ 2. The Court finds that the prevailing 

rate for him is $175 per hour, rather than the $225 per hour rate 

requested herein. See Hall, 2014 WL 1286001, at *8. 

Finally, although there has been some dispute in this 

district as to paralegal rates, the Court applies a rate of $125 

for Ms. Melnik, based on her eight years of experience. See

Melnik Decl. ¶ 3; Diego v. Golden Valley Health Centers, 2015 WL 

4112276, at *3 (E.D. Cal. July 8, 2015) (awarding rate of $100 

per hour); Hall, 2014 WL 1286001, at *8 (collecting cases setting 

rates between $75 and $150).

B. Reasonable Hours Expended

Defendant requests that the Court reduce a significant 

portion of the hours Plaintiff’s attorneys’ billed. Defendant 

makes 94 separate objections. See Opp. Exhs. A-C. In the face 

of voluminous timekeeping records and objections, the Court “is 

not required to set forth an hour-by-hour analysis of the fee 

request.” Californians for Disability Rights v. Cal. Dep't of 

Transp., 2010 WL 8746910, at *15 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 13, 2010))

(quoting In re Smith, 586 F.3d 1169, 1174 (9th Cir. 2009) report 

and recommendation adopted 2011 WL 8180376 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 2, 

2011). “[R]ather than meticulously discuss[ing] each time 

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entry,” the Court may assess the reasonableness of the hours 

expended and then “make an across-the-board percentage cut in the 

number of hours claimed.” Id.

The Court has examined Plaintiff’s requested hours as well 

as Defendant’s objections and Plaintiff’s replies to those 

objections. The Court agrees with some of Defendant’s arguments

and disagrees with others. 

Many of these arguments assert that a task was “clerical” 

and therefore should not be billed. Defendant is correct that 

clerical tasks should not be billed because they are “covered or 

subsumed by an attorney’s hourly rate[.]” Californians for 

Disability Rights, 2010 WL 8746910, at *16. The Court agrees 

with Defendant that some of the tasks billed were clerical - for 

instance, “Prepare complaint and related documents for service 

and dispatch for service of process with OneLegal.” See Irene 

Karbelashvili Decl. Exh. B at 2; Opp. Exh. A at Obj. 15. The 

Court however disagrees with Defendant that other tasks were

clerical, such as tasks involving legal research. See, e.g., 

Irene Karbelashvili Decl. Exh. B at 2; Opp. Exh. A at Obj. 16. 

Defendant also challenges the several hours billed for the 

motion to amend the complaint. See Opp. Exh. A. Objs. 26-30. 

Plaintiff in turn blames Defendant for these fees, because 

Defendant failed to stipulate to the amended complaint. Mot. at 

2. But at least some of the blame is attributable to Plaintiff’s 

attorneys as well, because, as discussed at the motion hearing,

they could easily have amended the complaint earlier as of right 

or at any time before the pretrial scheduling order became final. 

The hours billed for this motion are therefore not entirely 

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reasonable.

In accordance with the above conclusions, the Court finds it 

reasonable to reduce Plaintiff’s attorneys’ overall hours by 25

percent.3

C. Expenses: Expert Fees

Defendant challenges the hourly rate and the tasks billed by

Plaintiff’s expert, Mr. Altwal. Opp. at 6-7. As to Mr. Altwal’s 

hourly rate, Defendant does not dispute the rate Plaintiff 

proposes of $240 per hour for tasks prior to trial. Opp. at 6. 

Defendant also apparently does not dispute the rate of $120 per 

hour for travel time. But Defendant argues that the rate of $350 

per hour during trial was unreasonable. Opp. at 7. The Court 

disagrees and finds that this modest increase in rate for trial 

testimony is reasonable. See D'Lil v. Riverboat Delta King, 

Inc., 2015 WL 5092714, at *17 (E.D. Cal. Aug. 28, 2015) (holding 

that more than quadrupling hourly rate for trial testimony was 

unreasonable).

Defendant also disputes the reasonableness of the number of

hours Mr. Altwal billed. Mot. at 7. The Court agrees in part

with these disputes. For example, the Court agrees that it would 

be unreasonable to require Defendant to pay for extensive travel

time. See Hernandez v. Grullense, 2014 WL 1724356, at *15 (N.D. 

 

3 At the conclusion of its objections to Ms. Karbelashvili’s 

fees, Defendant “requests adjustment in accordance with the fee 

ratio reduction approved in the Thompson v. Gomez case.” Opp. 

Exh. A at 25. Thompson held that fees related to preparing a fee 

application should be reduced by the same percentage as the 

district court reduced fees for merits-related tasks. 45 F.3d 

1365, 1368 (9th Cir. 1995). The Court need not reach this issue, 

because the same result has been accomplished by reducing all 

fees herein by 25 percent.

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Cal. Apr. 30, 2014) (“The defendants should not be responsible 

for Hernandez's choice to employ an access consultant requiring 

extensive travel time that would be compensated at his regular 

expert fee rate.”). Mr. Altwal billed seventeen hours of driving 

time at $120 per hour. See Altwal Decl. Exhs. B, C. The Court 

finds this travel time excessive and reduces the hours billed for 

driving by fifty percent. 

The Court also agrees with Defendant that certain hours are 

too vague for the Court to determine reasonableness, and the 

Court therefore does not award the hours recorded for these 

entries. Specifically, “Communication with lawyer” and “Verbal 

communication with lawyer” are too vague. See Altwal Decl. Exh. 

B; Santiago v. Equable Ascent Fin., 2013 WL 3498079, at *5 (N.D. 

Cal. July 12, 2013) (“Courts in the Northern District of 

California have been unable to determine whether billing entries 

were reasonable because the entries description only consisted of 

‘conferences,’ ‘telephone calls,’ or ‘review of documents’ 

without describing the subject of the call or correspondence.”). 

The Court therefore reduces the expert fees by the 1.5 hours

billed under these two entries. See Altwal Decl. Exh. B. 

Finally, the Court agrees that Plaintiff’s counsel has 

failed to provide an adequate explanation for why sending Mr. 

Altwal to a second site visit was reasonable, especially when no 

changes had apparently been made to the barriers since the first 

inspection. Finding no basis for the reasonableness of this 

second visit, the Court reduces the expert fess by the $960 spent 

on that visit. See id. 

The Court disagrees as to the other reductions Defendant 

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requests, and finds Mr. Altwal’s remaining fees reasonable.

D. Other Costs and Expenses

Defendant does not dispute Plaintiff’s other costs and 

expenses (Doc. #96). Opp. at 8. The Court has reviewed those 

costs and expenses and finds them reasonable.

E. Conclusion

Based on the foregoing analysis, the Court awards fees and 

costs as follows:

Type of Fees 

or Costs

Amount 

Requested

Amount of Reduction Amount 

Awarded

Fees for Ms. 

Karbelashvili

$47,130 Rate reduced to $150; hours 

reduced by 25%

$17,673.75

Fees for Mr. 

Karbelashvili

$4,590 Rate reduced to $175; hours 

reduced by 25%

$2,677.50

Fees for Ms. 

Melnik

$3,425 Hours reduced by 25% $2,568.75

Expert fees $8,420 Driving hours reduced by 

50%; hours for second site 

visit and 1.5 hours for 

vague entries excluded

$6,080.00

Other costs $1,945.93 None $1,945.93

Total:

$30,945.93

III. ORDER

For the reasons set forth above, the Court awards Plaintiff

reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs in the following amounts:

Attorneys’ Fees: $22,920.00

Expert Fees and Costs: $ 8,025.93

Total: $30,945.93

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: December 10, 2015

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