Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-2_14-cv-01117/USCOURTS-caed-2_14-cv-01117-2/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Scott Johnson
Plaintiff
Midtown Gas and Food Mart, LLC
Defendant

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

SCOTT JOHNSON,

Plaintiff,

v.

MIDTOWN GAS AND FOOD MART, 

LLC,

Defendant.

No. 2:14-cv-01117-JAM-DAD

ORDER AWARDING FEES AND EXPENSES

Plaintiff Scott Johnson (“Plaintiff”) sued Defendant Midtown 

Gas and Food Mart (“Defendant”) for architectural barriers in 

violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and California 

law. The Court granted summary judgment for Plaintiff, who now 

moves for an award of fees.1

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Plaintiff suffers from quadriplegia and uses a wheelchair 

 

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 December 16, 2015.

Case 2:14-cv-01117-JAM-DB Document 20 Filed 01/05/16 Page 1 of 4
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for mobility. Johnson Decl. (Doc. #11) ¶ 2. He visited 

Defendant’s store to buy cigarettes in January 2014 and 

encountered multiple accessibility barriers in the parking lot, 

on the entrance doors, and inside the store. Id. ¶¶ 5-15. He 

returned to the store multiple times in February 2014. Id. ¶ 18. 

In October 2015, the Court granted summary judgment for 

Plaintiff and awarded $4,000 in statutory damages (Doc. #14). 

Plaintiff now requests attorneys’ fees (Doc. #16) and Defendant 

opposes the request in part (Doc #17).

II. OPINION

Plaintiff is entitled to reasonable attorneys’ fees and 

expenses. See 42 U.S.C. § 12205; Cal. Civ. Code § 52(a). The 

parties agree that the loadstar method is appropriate for 

calculating fees in this case. See Hall v. City of Fairfield, 

2014 WL 1286001, at *3 (E.D. Cal. Mar. 31, 2014) (citing Kerr v. 

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

Defendant argues that Mr. Potter’s hourly rate is too high 

and that many of the tasks he completed should have been done by 

a less senior attorney. Opp. at 2. Defendant also discusses a 

settlement offer it made to Plaintiff. Opp. at 1. Defendant 

refers to this offer as a “FRCP Rule 68 Offer of Judgment.” Id. 

Defendant does not argue that the offer should have cut off 

Plaintiff’s attorneys’ fees,2 but rather refers to the offer only 

as a means of arguing that “[the] case could have settled a year 

 

2 Plaintiff argues at length against this proposition in his 

reply. See Reply at 1-7. But because Defendant did not make 

this argument in the first place, the Court will not address the 

arguments in response.

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ago[.]” Id. at 1:27. All in all, Defendant contends that the 

Court should award “something in the $9,000 range[.]” Id. at 

2:25.

Plaintiff’s motion requests $13,680, but his reply reduces 

the request to $10,030. The reduction acknowledges that the 

requested hourly rate of $350 is too high and also changes the 

eight hours billed for the anticipated reply and hearing in this 

matter to one hour. Mot. at 13; Reply at 9-10.

As to the settlement offer, the Court recently ruled that a 

nearly identical offer did not cut off fees and that the 

Plaintiff acted reasonably in not accepting the offer. See

Johnson v. Lanza, 2:14-cv-00217-JAM-DAD (Doc. #27) (Dec. 2, 

2015); Opp. Exh. A. Unlike in Lanza, the parties here have not 

presented to the Court the context of this settlement offer; 

Defendant only provides a copy of the two-sentence offer itself, 

does not explain what efforts Defendant made to settle, and does 

not even provide evidence of how Plaintiff responded to the 

offer. The Court therefore sees no basis for concluding that the 

case should have settled long ago. 

Instead, the Court finds that the hours billed and tasks 

completed over the course of this litigation are reasonable. The 

Court agrees with Plaintiff’s revised request for an hourly rate 

of $300 per hour for Mr. Potter. See Johnson v. Lanza, 2:14-cv00217-JAM-DAD (Doc. #27) (Dec. 2, 2015); Johnson v. Wayside 

Prop., Inc., 2014 WL 6634324, at *5 (E.D. Cal. Nov. 21, 2014), 

appeal dismissed (Apr. 27, 2015). Defendant does not challenge 

rates for the other attorneys on this case and the Court finds 

them to be reasonable. Finally, the Court will not reduce fees 

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on the basis that tasks completed by Mr. Potter should have been 

done by another attorney. See Moreno v. City of Sacramento, 534 

F.3d 1106, 1115 (9th Cir. 2008) (“The court may permissibly look 

to the hourly rates charged by comparable attorneys for similar 

work, but may not attempt to impose its own judgment regarding 

the best way to operate a law firm, nor to determine if different 

staffing decisions might have led to different fee requests.”). 

The tasks completed by Mr. Potter are reasonable. 

III. ORDER

For these reasons, Plaintiff’s motion for attorneys’ fees 

and expenses is GRANTED. The Court awards $10,030.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: January 4, 2016

Case 2:14-cv-01117-JAM-DB Document 20 Filed 01/05/16 Page 4 of 4