Filed 2/18/22 The Little Cottage Caregivers v. Katchko CA2/7

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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION SEVEN

THE LITTLE COTTAGE 

CAREGIVERS, LLC et al.,

Plaintiffs and Respondents,

v.

YELENA KATCHKO et al.,

Defendants and Appellants.

 B306133

(Los Angeles County

Super. Ct. No. 19STCV02797)

APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los 

Angeles County, David Sotelo, Judge. Affirmed.

Reif Law Group, Brandon S. Reif, Marc S. Ehrlich and 

Ohia A. Amadi for Defendants and Appellants.

Law Offices of JT Fox and J.T. Fox; Law Office of Kathryn 

M. Davis and Kathryn M. Davis for Plaintiff and Respondent

The Little Cottage Caregivers, LLC.

_______________________
2

Attorney Yelena Katchko and her law firm Katchko, 

Vitiello & Karikom, P.C. (KVK; collectively, the Katchko 

defendants) appeal from an order denying their motion for 

attorneys’ fees and costs after the trial court granted their special 

motion to strike (Code Civ. Proc., § 425.16; anti-SLAPP statute)1

the complaint for fraud and related claims filed by Adie Meiri, 

Vietnam Nguyen, and Little Cottage Caregivers, LLC (Little 

Cottage; collectively,the Little Cottage plaintiffs). The Katchko 

defendants contend section 425.16, subdivision (c), mandates that 

a prevailing defendant on a special motion to strike “shall”

recover its attorneys’ fees, and the trial court did not have 

discretion to deny fees entirely. Little Cottage argues the trial 

court had discretion to deny an unreasonable fee request, and the 

court did not abuse its discretion because the Katchko 

defendants’ fees motion was inflated and unsupported.2 We agree 

the trial court had discretion to deny an unreasonable request for 

fees and conclude the Katchko defendants waived any challenge 

to the court’s exercise of discretion. We affirm.

1 “‘“SLAPP”is an acronym for “strategic lawsuit against 

public participation.”’” (Monster Energy Co. v. Schechter (2019) 

7 Cal.5th 781, 785, fn. 1.) All further undesignated statutory 

references are to the Code of Civil Procedure.

2 The respondent’s brief is filed on behalf of only Little 

Cottage. Meiri and Nguyen have not appeared in this appeal.
3

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

A. The Underlying Lawsuits3

The parties’ dispute concerns competing claims to 

ownership of Little Cottage, a medical cannabis collective

founded by Nguyen in 2006. In June 2016 Tzehou Kung retained 

the Katchko defendants to assist him in purchasing Little 

Cottage from Don Yoo for $1.2 million. Yoo had acquired Little 

Cottage in 2014 from Yun Taek “Scott” Kang, who had acquired it 

from Nguyen sometime between 2012 and 2014. However, in late 

2016—while Kung and the Katchko defendants were finalizing 

Kung’s acquisition—Meiri asserted he was the true owner of

Little Cottage, having purchased 50 percent of the business from 

Nguyen in 2010 and another 35 percent through exercise of an 

option in 2011. Meiri claimed Kang’s 2012 purchase had been 

fraudulent and the documents demonstrating his ownership of 

Little Cottage were false. 

In January 2017 the Katchko defendants represented Kung 

in filing a lawsuit against Meiri for conversion and declaratory 

relief, among other claims, seeking to establish Kung as the 

owner of Little Cottage. (Little Cottage Caregivers, LLC v. Meiri

(Super. Ct. L.A. County, No. SC126909) (Little Cottage I).) After 

a bench trial, in August 2018 the trial court4found Meiri owned 

85% of Little Cottage and was its managing member, and the 

court enjoined Kung from operating Little Cottage and using its 

3 Our summary is based on the undisputed facts in the trial 

court’s August 22, 2019 order granting the Katchko defendants’ 

special motion to strike and the exhibits to the October 25, 2019 

declaration of Ohia Amadi in support of the fees motion. 

4 Judge Gerald Rosenberg. 
4

name and goodwill and ordered Kung removed from its corporate 

documents and licenses. Kung appealed the judgment.5 

On January 28, 2019 Little Cottage, Meiri, and Nguyen 

filed the instant action against the Katchko defendants, Kung, 

Yoo, Kang, and eight other parties involved in Kung’s acquisition 

of Little Cottage. The complaint asserted nine causes of action

against the Katchko defendants:theft by false pretenses, fraud, 

negligent misrepresentation, intentional interference with 

contractual relations, intentional interference with prospective 

business advantage, conversion, defamation, unlawful business 

practices, and for an accounting. The complaint alleged Katchko 

was the “mastermind” behind Kung’s scheme to steal Little 

Cottage from Meiri in that despite learning of Meiri’s claim of 

ownership in July 2016, the Katchko defendants prepared the 

purchase agreement and corporate documents to transfer Little 

Cottage to Kung and establish Kung as the company manager. 

The Katchko defendants also “prepared and filed numerous 

fraudulent documents with various government entities 

misrepresenting the ownership of [Little Cottage].” They joined 

in the fraud so they could receive a $346,000 commission on the 

transaction. 

5 After the instant appeal was filed, Division Three of this 

district reversed the judgment in Little Cottage I, holding that 

substantial evidence did not support the trial court’s findings

that Kung had constructive notice of Meiri’s interests and was 

not a bona fide purchaser of Little Cottage. The Court of Appeal 

ordered the trial court to enter a judgment declaring Kung a 50 

percent owner of Little Cottage (which was not disputed), but it 

remanded for further proceedings as to Meiri’s claim he owned an 

additional 35 percent of the company. (Little Cottage Caregivers 

v. Meiri (Aug. 21, 2020, B294533) [nonpub. opn.].) 
5

B. The Katchko Defendants’ Anti-SLAPP Motion

On April 25, 2019 the Katchko defendants filed a 16-page 

special motion to strike the complaint under section 425.16. They 

argued the Little Cottage plaintiffs’ claims were all based on 

protected activity under section 425.16, subdivision (e)(1) and 

(2),

6 because the claims were “based entirely on the alleged prelitigation and litigation conduct as counsel for Kung in [Little 

Cottage I].” Specifically, the complaint “admits that the [Katchko 

defendants] represented Kung in connection with his purchase of 

[Little Cottage], that they filed documents with various state and 

city regulatory bodies to protect Kung’s interest in [Little 

Cottage], that they disputed Meiri’s ownership interest in [Little 

Cottage], and that they filed [Little Cottage I] to resolve the 

controversy with respect to the ownership of [Little Cottage].” 

(Citations omitted.) The Katchko defendants further argued the 

Little Cottage plaintiffs would be unable to demonstrate a 

probability of prevailing on the merits because the litigation 

privilege (Civ. Code, § 47) barred all of the claims in the 

complaint, and moreover, the claims had other legal defects. 

Katchko submitted a five-page declaration in support of the 

motion describing her and KVK’s work on behalf of Kung in 

6 Section 425.16, subdivision (e), defines an act protected by 

the anti-SLAPP statute to include, among other acts, “(1) any 

written or oral statement or writing made before a legislative, 

executive, or judicial proceeding, or any other official proceeding 

authorized by law” and “(2) any written or oral statement or 

writing made in connection with an issue under consideration or 

review by a legislative, executive, or judicial body, or any other 

official proceeding authorized by law.” 
6

acquiring Little Cottage, her communications with Meiri and his 

affiliates, and the Little Cottage I litigation. KVK partner 

Giandominic Vitiello submitted a four-page declaration covering 

similar topics. Both Katchko and Vitiello submitted documentary 

evidence with their declarations.

In their opposition, the Little Cottage plaintiffs argued the

complaint did not arise from protected activity and the Katchko 

defendants’ conduct did not fall within the litigation privilege

because the allegations were not limited to litigation activity but 

more broadly alleged a criminal scheme in which “Katchko 

orchestrated the entire chain of events necessary to steal TLCC’s 

license.” The Little Cottage plaintiffs also addressed the asserted 

infirmities in each cause of action and submitted declarations 

from Nguyen, Meiri, Meiri’s father, and their attorney, Reza 

Sina.

The Katchko defendants filed a 10-page reply brief, 

evidentiary objections to plaintiffs’ declarations, and a request for 

judicial notice. 

After a hearing, on August 22, 2019 the trial court7 granted 

the Katchko defendants’ special motion to strike. In its order, the 

court held that all of the Little Cottage plaintiffs’ causes of action 

involved protected activities under section 425.16, subdivision 

(e)(1) and (2), because the alleged conduct “include[d] Defendants’ 

filing of the underlying action and the filing of documents with 

state entities to formalize Kung’s ownership of [Little Cottage].” 

The court rejected the Little Cottage plaintiffs’ argument the 

Katchko defendants’ conduct was illegal and therefore not 

protected under the anti-SLAPP statute, explaining that “[a]t 

7 Judge David Sotelo.
7

most Plaintiffs’ documentary evidence would demonstrate that 

Defendants were not diligent in verifying the contents of the

documents.” As to the second prong of the anti-SLAPP analysis, 

the court found the litigation privilege applied to all of the 

Katchko defendants’ activities and the Little Cottage plaintiffs

“cannot establish that their claims have minimal merit.”8 

C. The Katchko Defendants’ Motion for Attorneys’ Fees

On October 25, 2019 the Katchko defendants filed a motion 

for attorneys’ fees and costs pursuant to section 425.16, 

subdivision (c). They sought $169,476 in fees, comprised of 

$126,587 for the special motion to strike and $42,889 for

preparing the fees motion, plus $2,222 in costs. They argued the 

trial court should apply the lodestar method for calculating fees 

by multiplying the number of hours their lawyers at Reif Law 

Group, P.C. (RLG) reasonably expended by the prevailing market

rates for similar work set by the Laffey Matrix.

9

 They claimed 

8 On June 19, 2020 the Little Cottage plaintiffs filed a 

motion for reconsideration, which the trial court denied on 

September 1, 2020. On September 14, 2021 we denied the 

Katchko defendants’ motion to augment the record to include the 

trial court’s order on the reconsideration motion because the 

order was issued after the appeal was filed. 

9 The Laffey Matrix is “a general schedule and pay table for 

attorneys put out by the Department of Justice.” (Nemecek & 

Cole v. Horn (2012) 208 Cal.App.4th 641, 650-651; accord, Prison 

Legal News v. Schwarzenegger (9th Cir. 2010) 608 F.3d 446, 454 

[“[T]he Laffey matrix is an inflation-adjusted grid of hourly rates 

for lawyers of varying levels of experience in Washington, D.C.”]; 

see Villanueva v. Account Discovery Systems, LLC (D.Colo. 2015) 

77 F.Supp.3d 1058, 1080 [“Although the matrix can be adjusted 

for different regions, courts in other districts have found that the 
8

hours billed by four RLG partners as follows: Ohia Amadi (141.8 

hours at $661 per hour); Rebecca MacLaren (33.3 hours at $747 

per hour); Brandon Reif (6.9 hours at $747 per hour); and Marc 

Ehrlich (1 hour at $889 per hour). They also claimed hours for 

paralegal Cian Williams (9.5 hours at $203 per hour). The 

Katchko defendants argued their requested fees were reasonable 

in light of the number of causes of action, the high “stakes” of the 

case given the accusations of “illicit and fraudulent conduct,” the 

potential damages sought in the complaint (exceeding 

$18 million), the skill required, the complete success of the 

motion to strike, the attorneys’ experience and education, and the 

specialized nature of anti-SLAPP practice. 

Lead counsel Amadi submitted a supporting declaration 

that attached a five-page table of billing entries for the four 

attorneys and paralegal who worked on the special motion to 

strike, with each entry identifying the date, billing attorney, 

number of hours billed, and a description of the work; for many 

entries, the work description was partially redacted. The Amadi 

declaration also included a printout of the Laffey Matrix from the 

website www.laffey.matrix.com and a one-page list of costs with 

the date, amount, and a brief description for each cost item.10 

Amadi declared, “In view of the foregoing and based on my 

experience working on Anti-SLAPP matters, I believe the number 

Laffey Matrix is not ‘more helpful than the rates actually used by 

other courts or the rates of law firms.’”].)

10 Although the Katchko defendants did not include the 

Amadi declaration in their designation of the record, on 

September 14, 2021 we granted their motion to augment the 

record to include the declaration, as well as Vitiello’s reply 

declaration.
9

of hours expended on the Anti-SLAPP motion was reasonable as

are the billing rates for this case.” 

In their opposition, the Little Cottage plaintiffs argued the 

fees requested by the Katchko defendants were excessive,

unreasonable, and duplicative, and they should be reduced 

significantly or denied entirely. For example, 10.5 hours were 

billed for reviewing the complaint; 12.9 hours for legal research 

on the special motion to strike; 17.2 hours for “strategy” on the 

motion; 69.2 hours for outlining and preparing the motion; 13.6 

hours for preparation of the declarations; and 9.3 hours to 

prepare for the hearing. Sina stated in his declaration that his 

firm, by comparison, spent 65 hours on the entire case, including 

15 hours opposing the special motion to strike. 

The Little Cottage plaintiffs also asserted, based on an 

analysis of the billing records detailed in the declaration of their 

attorney J.T. Fox, that the Katchko defendants billed 23.1 hours 

for work unrelated to the special motion to strike, including 

“evaluating the complaint, initial case strategy, filing case 

management statements and jury fees, correspondence about 

service of documents/pleadings, carrier reports, work on criminal 

matters, and other matters unrelated to the SLAPP motion.”11 

Further, 24.1 hours of billing entries were vague, ambiguous, or 

uncertain, due to excessive redactions. For example, an entry of 

2.5 hours by Amadi was redacted to contain only the description 

11 For example, the timesheets included several entries 

relating to service of the complaint, such has “Call with R. Sena, 

opposing counsel, re service of complaint and opposing counsel 

providing an acknowledgment of service.” Williams also billed for 

time to “Prepare Notice of Jury Fees Deposit,” and the Katchko 

defendants included the jury fees in their cost request. 
10

“[a]nalyze potential arguments.” In addition, the Katchko 

defendants submitted no billing records for the $42,889 in 

attorneys’ fees sought for the fees motion. Moreover, the 192.5 

hours spent by the Katcho defendants were unreasonable because 

the litigation was not complex and “the only issue in the motion[]

was disproving plaintiffs’ probability of prevailing” because there 

was no substantial issue whether the lawsuit was subject to a 

special motion to strike. 

Finally, the Little Cottage plaintiffs argued that because 

the fees requested were “unusually inflated,” the Katchko 

defendants’ “motion should be denied outright, and no attorney 

fees or costs awarded,” citing the Supreme Court’s statement in 

Serrano v. Unruh (1982) 32 Cal.3d 621, 635 (Serrano) that “[a] 

fee request that appears unreasonably inflated is a special 

circumstance permitting the trial court to reduce the award or 

deny one altogether.” 

In their reply, the Katchko defendants argued that courts 

have drastically reduced an award of attorneys’ fees only in cases 

where “evidence of padding [was] pervasive,” which was not 

applicable to their motion. They did not, however, argue a trial 

court has no discretion to deny a prevailing anti-SLAPP 

defendant’s fees motion altogether. Nor did they respond to any

of the Little Cottage plaintiffs’ challenges to individual time 

entries, and they did not seek to introduce further evidence 

regarding their attorneys’ bills or fees incurred on the fees 

motion. 

D. The Trial Court’s Order 

At the March 2, 2020 hearing on the attorneys’ fees motion, 

the trial court issued a tentative ruling to award the Katchko 
11

defendants $95,777 in fees and costs.12 The tentative ruling 

included a finding “it was excessive for so many senior attorneys 

to work on this motion, especially considering[] Amadi’s own 

substantial knowledge and experience in anti-SLAPP matters,” 

and although “the complaint involved nine causes of action, the 

anti-SLAPP issue was not particularly complex.” Accordingly,

the court indicated it would credit only the 141.8 hours Amadi 

billed to the special motion to strike at his standard hourly rate 

of $460 (rather than $661 per hour requested under the Laffey 

Matrix) and exclude the fees billed by the other attorneys, for a 

total fee award of $65,228 on the special motion to strike. With 

respect to the fees motion, the court stated it intended to credit 

RLG’s full hours spent on that motion at the firm’s standard 

blended hourly rate of $425, for a total of $28,327. The court

tentatively stated it would award the requested $2,222 in costs.13

At the hearing, Amadi argued for the Katchko defendants

that the trial court should award the 33.3 hours billed by 

12 On February 26, 2021 we granted the Katchko defendants’ 

motion to augment the record to include the trial court’s tentative 

ruling. 

13 The trial court stated in its tentative ruling that the Little 

Cottage plaintiffs did not dispute the $2,222 in costs claimed by 

the Katchko defendants. In fact, the Little Cottage plaintiffs 

argued in their opposition that “the cost entries contained in 

defendants’ itemized request for costs. . . are insufficiently 

certain to inform the plaintiff and the Court as to the exact 

nature of the costs incurred and whether or not these costs were 

connected to the SLAPP Motion. For this reason, defendants 

should not receive the full amount of costs requested in their 

moving papers and any costs award [should be] reduced 

accordingly.” 
12

MacLaren because MacLaren was experienced in anti-SLAPP 

matters and “was brought in to help prepare . . . the anti-SLAPP

motion itself while [Amadi] did the day-to-day on the case.” 

Further, the special motion to strike was not straightforward and 

included “substantial evidentiary objections.” Amadi stated 

RLG’s two associate attorneys “were, I think, busy on other 

matters,” so the firm “tried to staff it as leanly as we could” with 

the firm’s four partners. Finally, he argued the court should 

apply the prevailing market rates instead of RLG’s standard 

rates because the prevailing market rate is presumptively 

reasonable. 

Fox argued on behalf of the Little Cottage plaintiffs that 

the tentative ruling to award 141.8 hours for Amadi’s work was 

grossly excessive, and the “huge difference” between Amadi’s

hours and the 75 hours the plaintiffs’ attorneys collectively spent 

on the matter showed the fees motion was “completely devious 

and beyond reality” and would result in a “windfall” for the 

Katchko defendants. Further, it was “highly unlikely” that the 

Katcho defendants spent five full weeks to prepare their special 

motion to strike, and their fees motion was simply a “cut and 

paste.” He reiterated his argument that specific billing entries 

were excessive or did not exist, citing the 17 hours the Katchko 

defendants spent on “strategy”to prepare the special motion to 

strike in addition to the time billed to prepare the motion. Asked 

by the court what the Little Cottage plaintiffs believed would be 

an appropriate amount of attorneys’ fees to award, Fox 

responded, “[O]ur request is that this court determine that 75 

hours be the reasonable time spent in calculating its fees.” Fox

did not argue the motion should be denied altogether, and neither 

party addressed the requested costs. 
13

The court took the motion under submission to “look at 

these numbers one more time.” On March 23, 2020 the court 

issued a one-page minute order denying the motion, in which it 

did not state the basis for its ruling. The Katchko defendants 

timely appealed. 

DISCUSSION

A. Applicable Law and Standard of Review

“[A] prevailing defendant on a special motion to strike shall 

be entitled to recover his or her attorney’s fees and costs.” 

(§ 425.16, subd. (c)(1); accord, Barry v. State Bar of California

(2017) 2 Cal.5th 318, 322.) “It is well established that ‘[t]he 

amount of an attorney fee award under the anti -SLAPP statute 

is computed by the trial court in accordance with the familiar 

“lodestar” method. [Citation.] Under that method, the court 

“tabulates the attorney fee touchstone, or lodestar, by 

multiplying the number of hours reasonably expended by the 

reasonable hourly rate prevailing in the community for similar 

work.’”” (569 East County Boulevard LLC v. Backcountry Against 

the Dump, Inc. (2016) 6 Cal.App.5th 426, 432 (569 East); accord, 

Christian Research Institute v. Alnor (2008) 165 Cal.App.4th 

1315, 1321 (Christian Research).) “[T]rial courts must carefully 

review attorney documentation of hours expended; ‘padding’ in 

the form of inefficient or duplicative efforts is not subject to 

compensation.” (Ketchum v. Moses (2001) 24 Cal.4th 1122, 1132

(Ketchum); accord, Christian Research, at p. 1321.) Moreover, “a 

fee award under the anti-SLAPP statute may not include matters 

unrelated to the anti-SLAPP motion, such as ‘attacking service of 

process, preparing and revising an answer to the complaint, [or] 
14

summary judgment research.’” (569 East, at p. 433; accord, 

Christian Research, at p. 1325.) “‘[A]s the parties seeking fees 

and costs, defendants “bear[] the burden of establishing 

entitlement to an award and documenting the appropriate hours 

expended and hourly rates.’” (569 East, at p. 432; accord, 

Christian Research, at p. 1320.)

We generally review a trial court’s ruling on a motion for 

attorneys’ fees under section 425.16, subdivision (c), for an abuse 

of discretion. (569 East, supra, 6 Cal.App.5th at p. 433; see

Russell v. Foglio (2008) 160 Cal.App.4th 653, 661 [“‘The 

reasonableness of attorney fees is within the discretion of the 

trial court, to be determined from a consideration of such factors 

as the nature of the litigation, the complexity of the issues, the 

experience and expertise of counsel, and the amount of time 

involved.’”].) However, the Katchko defendants contend their 

appeal raises “a purely legal issue” whether a trial court may

deny attorneys’ fees entirely under section 425.16, subdivision (c), 

and they argue we “need not and should not reach the question of 

whether the amount of the attorney fees sought by the [m]otion 

was ‘reasonable.’” Accordingly, we review the legal question 

whether a trial court may deny a prevailing defendant’s fees 

motion under section 425.16 de novo. (See City of Vallejo v. 

NCORP4, Inc. (2017) 15 Cal.App.5th 1078, 1085 [“‘“when 

reviewing the interpretation and application of a statute where 

the ultimate facts are undisputed”’ an appellate court exercises 

its independent judgment”]; accord, Dobos v. Voluntary Plan 

Administrators, Inc. (2008) 166 Cal.App.4th 678, 683 [“proper 

interpretation of a statute, and its application to undisputed 

facts, presents a question of law that the appellate court reviews

independently”].)
15

B. The Trial Court Had Discretion To Deny the Attorneys’ Fees 

Motion

The Katchko defendants contend that because 

section 425.16, subdivision (c), provides that a prevailing 

defendant on a special motion to strike “shall” recover its fees and 

costs, the trial court had no discretion to deny their fees motion 

in its entirety. Contrary to their contention, the Supreme Court 

and Courts of Appeal have consistently recognized that a trial 

court has discretion under the anti-SLAPP statute to deny an 

unreasonably inflated attorneys’ fees motion.

In Ketchum, supra, 24 Cal.4th at page 1137, the Supreme

Court held a trial court may include a multiplier when awarding 

attorneys’ fees to a prevailing party under section 425.16, 

subdivision (c), observing that “attorney fees may be awarded 

only for hours reasonably spent, thus discouraging unnecessary or 

frivolous litigation. . . . ‘A fee request that appears unreasonably 

inflated is a special circumstance permitting the trial court to 

reduce the award or deny one altogether.’” (Quoting Serrano, 

supra, 32 Cal.3d at p. 635 [examining fee-shifting in a privateattorney-general action under section 1021.5 in light of federal 

case law and recognizing that if trial courts “‘were required to 

award a reasonable fee when an outrageously unreasonable one 

has been asked for, claimants would be encouraged to make

unreasonable demands, knowing that the only unfavorable 

consequence of such misconduct would be reduction of their fee to 

what they should have asked in the first place. To discourage 

such greed, a severer reaction is needful.’”].) The Ketchum court 

underscored, “To the extent a trial court is concerned that a 

particular award is excessive, it has broad discretion to adjust the 
16

fee downward or deny an unreasonable fee altogether.” 

(Ketchum, at p. 1138.)

Since the Supreme Court decided Ketchum, courts have 

recognized a trial court’s discretion to dramatically reduce or 

deny an unreasonable fees motion in connection with anti-SLAPP 

motions and motions made under other fee-shifting statutes. In 

Christian Research, supra, 165 Cal.App.4th at pages 1319 

through 1320, the Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s order 

reducing a prevailing anti-SLAPP defendant’s compensable hours 

from 639 hours to 71 hours (of which only 31 hours were incurred 

in the trial court proceedings). The court acknowledged, 

“Because the Legislature specified the prevailing defendant ‘shall 

be entitled to recover his or her attorney’s fees and costs’

(§ 425.16, subd. (c)), an award is usually mandatory.” (Christian 

Research, at p. 1321, citing Ketchum, supra, 24 Cal.4th at 

pp. 1131, 1137-1138.) “The Legislature, however, did not intend 

recovery of fees and costs as a windfall. [Citations.] . . . [¶] 

Inflated fee requests constitute a special circumstance. In 

emphasizing that a trial court retains the discretion to award 

attorney fees in an amount that is less than the lodestar amount, 

the Ketchum court noted, ‘“To the extent a trial court is concerned 

that a particular award is excessive, it has broad discretion to 

adjust the fee downward or deny an unreasonable fee 

altogether.”’” (Christian Research, at pp. 1321-1322.) “When the 

trial court substantially reduces a fee or cost request, we infer the 

court has determined the request was inflated. [Citation.] The 

trial court is not required to issue a statement of decision.” 

(Id. at p. 1323.) Applying these principles, the Christian 

Research court concluded the trial court did not abuse its 

discretion in reducing the defendant’s fees by nearly 90 percent 
17

in light of findings the special motion to strike “was not 

particularly complicated for an anti-SLAPP motion” and was 

“overstaffed” with five attorneys, and “the court could reasonably 

determine counsel’s fee request was unreasonably padded, vague, 

and worthy of little credence.” (Id. at p. 1326.) 

In 569 East, supra, 6 Cal.App.5th at pages 440 to 441, the 

Court of Appeal similarly affirmed the trial court’s reduction of a 

prevailing anti-SLAPP defendant’s request for attorneys’ fees by 

almost 80 percent, explaining, “[T]he court could conclude many 

of the hours represented work unrelated to either the merits 

motion or the fees motion, such as work on discovery, ex parte 

appearances, work surrounding the case management conference, 

and conferring with cocounsel. The court could also have 

concluded downward adjustment was necessary because many 

billings involved entries that were either vague or were 

blockbilled time entries, and represented padding. [Citation.] 

Finally, the court could have concluded a substantial number of 

the hours claimed by [defendant] were unnecessary.” 

In Chavez v. City of Los Angeles (2010) 47 Cal.4th 970, 991,

the Supreme Court held the trial court did not abuse its 

discretion in denying entirely a motion for prevailing party 

attorneys’ fees on a workplace retaliation claim under the Fair 

Employment and Housing Act (FEHA; Gov. Code, § 12900 et 

seq.). Citing Ketchum, supra, 24 Cal.4th at page 1137 and 

Serrano, supra, 32 Cal.3d at page 635, the Supreme Court held 

“the trial court reasonably could and presumably did conclude 

that plaintiff’s attorney fee request . . . was grossly inflated when 

considered in light of the single claim on which plaintiff 

succeeded, the amount of damages awarded on that claim, and 

the amount of time an attorney might reasonably expect to spend 
18

in litigating such a claim. This fact alone was sufficient, in the 

trial court’s discretion, to justify denying attorney fees 

altogether.” (Chavez, at p. 991; see Guillory v. Hill (2019) 

36 Cal.App.5th 802, 812, 814-815 [affirming trial court order 

denying in its entirety prevailing plaintiffs’ request for $3.8 

million in attorneys’ fees on civil rights claim under 42 

U.S.C.§ 1988 where trial court found the attorneys’ time entries 

were overinclusive, redundant, and padded,thereby “‘destroying 

the credibility of the submission and . . . justifying a severe 

reduction’”].)

The Katchko defendants do not cite any contrary authority, 

nor is there, for their contention a trial court lacks authority to

deny a prevailing defendant’s unreasonable motion for attorneys’ 

fees in its entirety. They are correct that Christian Research

involved a reduction of fees, not an outright denial, and Guillory 

concerned prevailing plaintiff attorneys’ fees under FEHA, which 

are discretionary (as are attorneys’ fees under 42 U.S.C. 

section 1988 at issue in Chavez). But we find persuasive the 

application by Christian Research and 569 East of the Supreme 

Court’s unequivocal language in Ketchum, supra, 24 Cal.4th at 

page 1137 that a trial court has authority to deny an 

“unreasonably inflated” fees motion under section 425.16, 

subdivision (c). We recognize it was unusual (and not a favored 

practice) for the trial court to issue a detailed tentative ruling 

analyzing and cutting in half the requested attorneys’ fees, then 

to deny all attorneys’ fees without an explanation, especially 

given that the Little Cottage plaintiffs did not press the court at 

the hearing to deny all attorneys’ fees. But Little Cottage 

presented evidence and argument that the Katchko defendants’ 

attorney bills were “completely devious and beyond reality” and 
19

would result in a “windfall,” and the trial court stated it intended 

after taking the fees motion under submission to “look at these 

numbers one more time.” In further reducing the fees to zero, we 

infer the trial court found the request was inflated. (Christian 

Research, supra, 165 Cal.App.4th at p. 1323.) 

C. The Katchko Defendants Waived Any Challenge to the Trial

Court’s Exercise of Discretion 

As discussed, the Katchko defendants maintain in their 

reply brief that “this Court need not and should not reach the 

question of whether the amount of attorney fees sought by the fee 

[m]otion was ‘reasonable.’ That question is outside the scope of 

the purely legal issue in this appeal.”14 However, they also argue 

that “[i]f this Court nonetheless addresses the ‘reasonableness’ of 

the trial court’s decision to award zero attorney fees (i.e., by the 

outright denial of the Fee Motion), it should find that the trial 

court’s ‘award’ of zero attorney fees was unreasonable, arbitrary, 

and an abuse of discretion.” 

The Katchko defendants have waived the argument their 

request for attorneys’ fees and costs was reasonable and thus the

trial court abused its discretion in denying their fees motion,

14 The Katchko defendants did not include in their 

designation of record their fee declarations and other supporting 

evidence, although they later moved to augment the record to 

include these documents, which motion we granted. Little 

Cottage argued in its respondent’s brief that “[b]ecause [the 

Katchko defendants] failed to rely on the omitted evidence to 

demonstrate an abuse of discretion or prejudicial error in denying 

fees (instead, arguing only that the court lacked legal power to do 

so), the evidence is not directly relevant to [their] sole contention 

on appeal, and any unbriefed argument is waived.” 
20

because they failed to raise the argument in their opening brief

and affirmatively argued in their reply brief we should not reach 

this issue. (See People v. Duff (2014) 58 Cal.4th 527, 550, fn. 9, 

[“the claim is omitted from the opening brief and thus waived”]; 

People v. Bryant, Smith and Wheeler (2014) 60 Cal.4th 335, 363 

[“If a party’s briefs do not provide legal argument and citation to 

authority on each point raised, ‘“the court may treat it as waived, 

and pass it without consideration.”’”].) We therefore affirm the 

trial court’s order denying the Katcho defendants’ motion for 

attorneys’ fees and costs. 

DISPOSITION

The order denying the Katchko defendants’ motion for 

attorneys’ fees and costs is affirmed. Little Cottage is to recover 

its costs on appeal.

FEUER, J.

We concur:

PERLUSS, P.J.

SEGAL, J.