Filed 5/24/23 Minser v. Collect Access CA2/1

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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION ONE

DAVID C. MINSER, JR.,

Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.

COLLECT ACCESS, LLC,

Defendant and Appellant.

 B318325, B321996

 (San Luis Obispo County

 Super. Ct. No. 16CVP0156)

APPEALS from a judgment and an order of the Superior 

Court of San Luis Obispo County, Hernaldo J. Baltodano, Judge. 

Affirmed.

Zee Law Group, Tappan Zee and Kimberly Barrientos for 

Defendant and Appellant.

The Fullman Firm, Adam C. Fullman, Christopher J. 

Peters and Sam Dehbozorgi for Plaintiff and Respondent.

_______________________
2

Under the Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act 

(the Rosenthal Act or the Act; Civ. Code,1 § 1788 et seq.), a debt 

collector may not “collect or attempt to collect a consumer debt by 

means of judicial proceedings when the debt collector knows that 

service of process, where essential to jurisdiction over the debtor 

or his property, has not been legally effected.” (§ 1788.15, subd. 

(a).) The trial court found that defendant and appellant Collect 

Access, LLC (Collect Access) violated this law in its efforts to 

collect a default judgment against plaintiff and respondent David 

C. Minser, Jr. The court set aside the underlying judgment on 

equitable grounds, awarded Minser statutory damages and

attorney fees, and ordered Collect Access to repay the amount it 

had collected from Minser as restitution.

Collect Access appeals from both the trial court’s judgment

(case No. B318325) and its order awarding attorney fees (case 

No. B321996). Collect Access alleges that it did not violate the 

Rosenthal Act because, among other reasons, it did not know that

service of process had not been legally effected. In addition, 

Collect Access contends that the award of attorney fees must be 

denied in its entirety or reduced because Minser’s attorneys did 

not sufficiently document the work they performed. We disagree

and affirm.

1 Unless otherwise specified, subsequent statutory 

references are to the Civil Code.
3

FACTUAL BACKGROUND AND PROCEEDINGS BELOW

On November 16, 2000, First Select, Inc.,

2 filed the 

underlying suit against Minser, and in February 2001 obtained a 

default judgment for $3,434.86. First Select filed a proof of 

service in which a process server attested to “personally 

delivering” the complaint and various other documents to Minser 

on November 20, 2000, at an address on Curbaril Avenue in 

Atascadero. The appellate record contains no other documents

from this initial phase of the litigation, but the parties stipulated 

to this basic sequence of events, and also agreed that at some 

later point, First Select assigned the judgment to PGMI, LLC.

In May 2008, PGMI in turn assigned the judgment to 

Collect Access. Collect Access served Minser by mail with notice 

of the assignment, as well as a copy of Collect Access’s application 

to renew the judgment for 10 years. The proof of service forms 

indicate that Collect Access mailed both of these documents to an 

address on El Camino Real in Atascadero.

In August 2015, the San Luis Obispo County Superior 

Court issued a writ of execution on the judgment, which by this 

point, with interest and fees, amounted to $10,480.71. One 

month later, Collect Access filed a notice of levy on Minser’s bank 

account. This was apparently the first attempt by any creditor to 

collect on the judgment, more than 14 years after it was entered.

Minser responded on September 22, 2015, submitting a 

declaration in which he claimed that he had not been served with 

the original complaint, and that he had learned of the judgment’s 

existence less than two weeks earlier. One month later, Minser’s 

2 First Select is a defendant in this case but is not part of 

the appeals.
4

attorney sent Collect Access a letter reiterating Minser’s 

statements and including additional information. In a new 

declaration accompanying the letter from his attorney, Minser 

stated that his mother had suffered a stroke in early November 

2000, and that he had been in San Diego taking care of her on the 

day the process server claimed to have served him with the 

complaint at his home on Curbaril Avenue. Minser’s mother 

submitted a declaration of her own confirming her son’s account,

as well as a copy of records from a hospital in San Diego stating 

that she had been a patient there from November 3 to 12, 2000. 

Minser also provided utility bills for the summer of 2008 

indicating that he resided at an address on Olmeda Avenue and 

not the one on El Camino Real where Collect Access sent the 

notices of assignment and of its application to renew the 

judgment; Minser further asserted he never lived or received mail 

at the El Camino Real address. Minser’s attorney warned that if

Collect Access continued to use judicial proceedings to collect the 

debt, “Misner will file a [c]omplaint for violations of the 

Rosenthal Act.”

Moe Essa, a Collect Access employee, declared that, upon 

receiving the declarations, he “personally reviewed the records 

and files pertaining to . . . Minser’s account.” According to Essa,

“Collect Access relied on the [p]roof of [s]ervice filed by . . . First 

Select in [2000],”

3 and on that basis believed Minser was aware of 

the lawsuit. In addition, Essa stated that Collect Access had 

3 Essa lists the date of the First Select proof of service as 

2008, but this appears to be a typo. There is no indication in the 

record that First Select had anything to do with the case after

obtaining a default judgment in 2001.
5

used a credit report to determine Minser’s address in 2008 and 

served him by mail at that address with notice of the assignment 

and renewal of the judgment. The credit report attached to 

Essa’s declaration, however, indicated Minser lived on “El 

Camido” and not “El Camino.”

Beyond his review of the file containing the initial proof of 

service and the 2008 credit report, Essa did not claim to have 

done any additional research on the veracity of Minser’s claims. 

Nor did Collect Access cease using judicial resources to collect on 

the judgment. In December 2015, the superior court issued an 

order to garnish Minser’s wages by $350 per pay period. 

According to Essa, Collect Access received its final payment on 

the judgment in November 2016.

On June 17, 2016, Minser filed the instant suit against 

Collect Access, its attorneys, Zee Law Group, PC, and First 

Select, alleging causes of action for violating the Rosenthal Act, 

restitution and unjust enrichment, civil conspiracy, and unfair 

business practices. The suit also sought to set aside and vacate 

on equitable grounds the default judgment in the original 

lawsuit. The court entered default judgment on Minser’s 

complaint against all three defendants4 in July 2019, but Collect 

Access later obtained relief from the default judgment.

After a bench trial, the court ruled in favor of Minser on all 

the causes of action except civil conspiracy. The court vacated 

4 In the default judgment, the court found Collect Access 

and Zee Law Group jointly and severally liable for $41,424.41 in 

damages, attorney fees, and costs. Minser had named First 

Select as a defendant only for the purpose of vacating the original 

default judgment against him, and the court did not order First 

Select to pay any damages.
6

and set aside the original default judgment against Minser and 

awarded him $1,000 in statutory damages pursuant to section 

1788.30, subdivision (b); statutory attorney fees pursuant to 

section 1788.30, subdivision (c); and $10,152.59 in restitution for 

the amount wrongfully collected from him. In a separate order, 

the court fixed the fees and costs awarded to Minser as

$12,100.50 in attorney fees and $1,097.23 in costs.

Collect Access filed timely appeals from the judgment and 

from the order awarding attorney fees.

DISCUSSION

A. Because the Case Was Filed as an Unlimited Civil 

Case and Was Never Reclassified, This Court Has 

Jurisdiction over the Appeal

The appellate record contains conflicting information as to 

whether this case was a limited or unlimited civil matter. 

Minser’s complaint indicated that it was unlimited, but many of 

his later filings, as well as the trial court’s judgment, were 

labeled “limited civil.” This calls into question our jurisdiction 

over the case, in that appeals from judgments in limited civil 

cases are to the appellate division of the superior court, not to 

this court. (Code Civ. Proc., § 904.2.) If this were indeed a 

limited civil case, we would transfer the appeals to the appellate 

division of the San Luis Obispo County Superior Court for 

disposition. (See Dedication & Everlasting Love to Animals, Inc. 

v. City of El Monte (2022) 85 Cal.App.5th 113, 121-122.)

“A civil case is jurisdictionally classified as either limited or 

unlimited civil at its outset.” (Stratton v. Beck (2017) 9 

Cal.App.5th 483, 493.) A limited case allows for limited relief: 

the amount in controversy may not exceed $25,000, and only 

certain forms of relief are available. (See Code Civ. Proc., § 85.) 
7

If a plaintiff means to file a limited civil case, he must designate 

it as such in the caption of the complaint, and the parties must do 

likewise in all subsequent pleadings. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 

2.111(10); Code Civ. Proc., § 422.30.) If a case has been 

miscategorized, the trial court may reclassify it, either upon a 

petition from one of the parties or on its own motion. (Code Civ. 

Proc., § 403.040.) Unless the parties have taken these steps to 

classify a case as limited, “a civil case is classified as unlimited by 

default.” (Stratton v. Beck, supra, at p. 493.)

It is undisputed that Minser initially filed the case as an 

unlimited civil case. While the parties themselves may later 

have treated the case as limited, the trial court never issued an 

order to reclassify it. It is therefore an unlimited case, and we 

have jurisdiction over the appeals.

Collect Access contends that the trial court erred by 

conducting the trial as if this were a limited civil case. Collect 

Access points to only one situation in which the court deviated 

from the rules for unlimited cases: it allowed Collect Access to 

submit a written declaration from its employee Essa in lieu of 

live testimony. Under Code of Civil Procedure section 98, this is 

permissible only in limited cases.

It does not follow, however, that this requires us to reverse 

the judgment. “A judgment of the trial court may not be reversed 

on the basis of the erroneous admission of evidence, unless that 

error was prejudicial. (Code Civ. Proc., § 475.)” (Grail 

Semiconductor, Inc. v. Mitsubishi Electric & Electronics USA, 

Inc. (2014) 225 Cal.App.4th 786, 799.) Collect Access has not 

even attempted to demonstrate it suffered prejudice. The trial 

court did not bar Essa from testifying in person; it was Collect 

Access’s decision to submit a written declaration. Furthermore, 
8

the trial court credited the facts in Essa’s statement. It seems 

unlikely that Collect Access’s case would have been stronger if

Essa had testified in person and been subject to crossexamination.

B. The Rosenthal Act

The Rosenthal Act was designed “to prohibit debt collectors 

from engaging in unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the 

collection of consumer debts and to require debtors to act fairly in 

entering into and honoring such debts.” (§ 1788.1, subd. (b).) 

The law bars debt collectors from engaging in a wide range of 

conduct, including threatening debtors (§ 1788.10), harassing 

them with profane language (§ 1788.11), and disclosing 

information about a debt to the debtor’s employer or other third 

parties (§ 1788.12). In addition, as relevant to this case, the Act 

forbids debt collectors from “collect[ing] or attempt[ing] to collect 

a consumer debt by means of judicial proceedings when the debt 

collector knows that service of process, where essential to 

jurisdiction over the debtor or his property, has not been legally 

effected.” (§ 1788.15, subd. (a).)

A debt collector who violates the Act is liable for the 

debtor’s actual damages (§ 1788.30, subd. (a)), plus reasonable 

attorney fees (id., subd. (c)). Debt collectors who “willfully and 

knowingly” violate the Act are also subject to an additional 

penalty of $100 to $1,000. (Id., subd. (b).)

Collect Access contends that the trial court erred in several 

respects in finding it violated the Rosenthal Act. First, it 

contends it is not a debt collector as defined in the Act, and it is 

therefore not subject to the Act. Next, it argues that the 

litigation privilege shields it from liability under the Act. Finally, 
9

it alleges that it did not know that Minser had not received valid 

service of process, and therefore did not violate section 1788.15.

1. Substantial Evidence Supports the Trial Court’s 

Finding that Collect Access is a Debt Collector under 

the Act

The Rosenthal Act defines “ ‘debt collector’ ” as “any person 

who, in the ordinary course of business, regularly, on behalf of 

that person or others, engages in debt collection.” (§ 1788.2, 

subd. (c).) The statute defines “ ‘debt collection’ ” as “any act or 

practice in connection with the collection of consumer debts.” 

(Id., subd. (b).) Collect Access contends that the trial court erred 

by finding that it was a debt collector under the Rosenthal Act

because “Minser did not provide any testimony or evidence that 

Collect Access regularly engages in debt collection.” The trial 

court rejected this argument, noting that Essa testified that 

“Collect Access maintains the records and files pertaining to . . . 

Minser’s debt account ‘in the regular course of business,’ that he 

personally reviewed these records, that ‘Collect Access relied on’ 

an Experian credit report ‘to communicate with Mr. Minser,’ ” 

and that Collect Access admitted in its own post-trial brief that it 

“ ‘submitted the wage garnishment to the Sheriff.’ ” (Italics 

omitted.)

The question of whether Collect Access met the definition of 

a debt collector is predominantly factual in nature, and we 

therefore review the trial court’s determination for substantial 

evidence. (Crocker National Bank v. City and County of San 

Francisco (1989) 49 Cal.3d 881, 888.) Under that deferential 

standard and the “very broad” definition of debt collector under 

the Rosenthal Act (In re Ganas (Bankr. E.D.Cal. 2014) 513 B.R. 

394, 404), we cannot say the trial court erred.
10

2. The Litigation Privilege Does Not Apply to Collect 

Access’s Conduct

Collect Access contends the trial court erred by holding that 

the litigation privilege does not apply to its efforts to collect on

the judgment against Minser. We disagree. Collect Access is 

correct that the litigation privilege “has been broadly applied” 

(Jacob B. v. County of Shasta (2007) 40 Cal.4th 948, 955) and, 

where it does apply, provides “ ‘absolute[ ] immun[ity] from tort 

liability’ ” for communications made in connection with litigation. 

(Rusheen v. Cohen (2006) 37 Cal.4th 1048, 1057.) The privilege 

has been held not to apply, however, when it conflicts with 

another statute “more specific than the litigation privilege,” when 

the second statute “would be significantly or wholly inoperable if 

its enforcement were barred when in conflict with the privilege.” 

(Action Apartment Assn., Inc. v. City of Santa Monica (2007) 41 

Cal.4th 1232, 1246.)

The court in Komarova v. National Credit Acceptance, Inc.

(2009) 175 Cal.App.4th 324 (Komarova) held that, under this 

rule, the litigation privilege “cannot be used to shield violations of 

the [Rosenthal] Act.” (Id. at p. 337.) Collect Access attempts to 

distinguish Komarova on the ground that in this case, unlike in 

Komarova, “There are no contentions of repeated threatening 

phone calls or any other similar conduct specifically excluded by 

the Rosenthal Act.” We disagree. First, Minser did allege that 

Collect Access engaged in conduct specifically prohibited by the 

Rosenthal Act. The sole purpose of section 1788.15, subdivision 

(a), which is part of the Act, is to bar debt collectors from 

continuing judicial proceedings to collect a debt while knowing 

there was no valid service of process, as the court found Collect 

Access did in this case. Second, the Komarova court did not base 
11

its decision on the specific allegation that the debt collector 

engaged in harassing phone calls, but rather on the ground that, 

“ ‘Were the privilege to apply broadly to Rosenthal Act claims . . .

it would effectively immunize conduct that the Act prohibits.’ ” 

(Komarova, supra, at p. 338, quoting Oei v. N. Star Capital 

Acquisitions, LLC (C.D.Cal. 2006) 486 F.Supp.2d 1089, 1100.) 

This is particularly true here, where the statute Collect Access 

was accused of violating specifically bars debt collectors from 

using “judicial proceedings” when the debt collector knows service 

was not legally effected. (§ 1788.15, subd. (a).) Applying the 

litigation privilege to the judicial proceedings here would

essentially render section 1788.15 null and void. Collect Access 

complains that the trial court’s ruling “would effectively bar 

application of the litigation privilege to any communications or 

filings related to consumer debt collection actions.” But that 

indeed appears to have been the Legislature’s intent in 

regulating debt collectors’ use of judicial proceedings to collect 

debts.

3. Section 1788.15 Does Not Require Actual Knowledge 

of No Effective Service of Process

A debt collector is liable under section 1788.15, subdivision 

(a) if it uses judicial proceedings to collect a debt when it “knows

that service of process . . . has not been legally effected” (italics 

added). Relying solely on the statutory language, Collect Access 

argues that the word “knows” should be interpreted to mean 

actual knowledge, and contends that it therefore did not violate 

the statute when it continued to collect from Minser after 

learning of Minser’s declarations.

We are not persuaded. “[T]he Act is ‘a remedial statute 

[that] should be interpreted broadly in order to effectuate its 
12

purpose.’ ” (Komarova, supra, 175 Cal.App.4th at p. 340.) In 

general, the use of the term “ ‘knowledge’ ” in a statute without 

further qualification “encompasses both actual knowledge and

constructive knowledge.” (Tsasu LLC v. U.S. Bank Trust, N.A.

(2021) 62 Cal.App.5th 704, 718 (Tsasu LLC).) The Tsasu LLC

court defined these terms as follows: “ ‘Actual’ knowledge exists 

when a person is subjectively aware of a fact. (E.g., In re A.L.

(2019) 38 Cal.App.5th 15, 21 . . . .) ‘Constructive’ knowledge 

exists when a person is deemed in the eyes of the law to be aware 

of a fact, either because (1) the person has ‘ “knowledge of 

circumstances which, upon reasonable inquiry, would lead to that 

particular fact [citations]” ’ (Melendrez[ v. D & I Investment, LLC.

(2005)] 127 Cal.App.4th [1258,] 1252, quoting First Fidelity Thrift 

& Loan Assn. v. Alliance Bank (1998) 60 Cal.App.4th 1433, 1443

. . .), or (2) the fact is contained in a document that has been 

‘ “recorded as prescribed by law.” ’ [Citations.]” (Tsasu LLC, 

supra, at p. 719.)

We agree with Collect Access that Minser’s declaration was 

not sufficient to supply actual knowledge in this instance. The 

documentation from the hospital showed only that Minser’s 

mother was a patient there from November 3 to November 12, 

2000. The only evidence that Minser himself was away from 

home on November 20, and therefore unable to receive service of 

process, came from the declarations of Minser and his mother. 

As Collect Access notes, both of these declarations were selfinterested. They did not prove conclusively that the service of 

process form was false.

Nevertheless, this was not a case with a bare denial by a 

debtor seeking to escape a judgment. The hospital records show

that Minser’s mother suffered a stroke in November 2000, and it 
13

would be entirely natural for Minser to remain in San Diego to 

care for her after she was released. Minser also provided 

evidence in the form of utility bills that he did not live on El 

Camino Real in Atascadero in July 2008 when Collect Access 

tried to serve him by mail with notice of the assignment and 

renewal of the judgment; the credit report relied upon by Collect 

Access for Minser’s address further indicated a different street 

name (El Camido Real) than the one to which Collect Access sent 

notice (El Camino Real). This was sufficient and substantial

evidence to support a finding of constructive knowledge, in that 

Collect Access was aware of circumstances which upon 

reasonable inquiry would have shown service of process essential 

to jurisdiction over Minser and his property had not been legally 

effected. Instead of conducting any inquiry, Collect Access 

continued to rely on the questionable information in its original 

file. Even now, after years of litigation and with every incentive 

to find evidence of the validity of the proof of service, Collect 

Access remains empty-handed. It was reasonable for the trial 

court to infer that had Collect Access undertaken a reasonable 

inquiry at the time, it would have likely concluded that Minser 

never received service of process of the underlying lawsuit or the 

notice of assignment and renewal of the judgment.

In Tsasu LLC, the court interpreted the term “knowledge” 

as encompassing both actual and constructive knowledge not only 

because of the plain language of the statute, but also as a matter 

of public policy. (Tsasu LLC, supra, 62 Cal.App.5th at pp. 719-

720.) Tsasu LLC concerned the interpretation of Code of Civil 

Procedure section 764.060, which allows a purchaser of property 

to rely on the validity of a quiet title judgment on the property so 

long as the purchaser “act[s] in reliance on the judgment without 
14

knowledge of any defects or irregularities in the judgment or the 

proceedings.” (Ibid.) The court reasoned that if knowledge as 

used in the statute were interpreted to mean only actual 

knowledge, it would create “perverse incentives [by] . . .

discourag[ing] prospective buyers from checking the record of 

title or from heeding ‘warning signs’ necessitating further 

inquiry.” (Tsasu LLC, supra, at p. 720.)

The same is true here. The Rosenthal Act was designed “to 

ensure that debt collectors and debtors exercise their 

responsibilities to one another with fairness, honesty and due 

regard for the rights of the other” (§ 1788.1, subd. (a)(2)), and “to 

prohibit debt collectors from engaging in unfair or deceptive acts 

or practices in the collection of consumer debts.” (Id., subd. (b).) 

If section 1788.15 were interpreted in the manner Collect Access 

urges, it would encourage creditors to behave as Collect Access 

did in this case—to wait until 14 years of interest have accrued, 

and evidence regarding the circumstances of the initial debt has 

disappeared, before finally seeking to collect. If not for the 

coincidence that Minser’s mother suffered a stroke less than a 

month before First Select purportedly served Minser, it is 

questionable whether Minser would have succeeded in this suit. 

A construction that adds the word “actual” to section 1788.15’s 

requirement of what the debt collector “knows” would not

accomplish the Legislature’s purposes in enacting the Rosenthal 

Act, and would encourage debt collectors to rely on suspect 

documentation regarding service by discouraging if not outright 

excusing the consideration of any compelling contrary evidence.

We note that such an interpretation of section 1788.15, 

subdivision (a) would not unjustly impose liability on a debt 

collector confronted with contradictory evidence about service of 
15

process given other safeguards in the Rosenthal Act. The Act 

elsewhere provides an affirmative defense to debt collectors that 

unintentionally violate the Act through a bona fide error. 

Specifically, section 1788.30, subdivision (e) provides that “A debt 

collector shall have no civil liability to which such debt collector 

might otherwise be subject for a violation of [the Act], if the debt 

collector shows by a preponderance of evidence that the violation 

was not intentional and resulted notwithstanding the 

maintenance of procedures reasonably adapted to avoid any such 

violation.” Here, Collect Access did not assert this affirmative 

defense, nor adduce any evidence to support it.

4. It Is Irrelevant that No Court Had Declared the 

Judgment Against Minser Void

Collect Access argues that it did not violate the Rosenthal 

Act by relying on the validity of the default judgment against 

Minser because no court had yet declared the judgment void. But 

section 1788.15 does not depend on whether a judgment has been 

declared void; rather, it focuses on whether the debt collector 

knew service of process had not been legally effected. Whether a 

court has taken action to set aside the default judgment is 

irrelevant.

C. The Trial Court Did Not Err by Finding Collect

Access Liable under the Unfair Competition Law

Collect Access contends the trial court erred by finding it 

violated the Unfair Competition Law (the UCL; Bus. & Prof.

Code, § 17200 et seq.). We disagree. The UCL “ ‘establishes 

three varieties of unfair competition—acts or practices which are 

unlawful, or unfair, or fraudulent.’ [Citation.] . . . [¶] . . . [¶]

Under its ‘unlawful’ prong, ‘the UCL borrows violations of other 

laws . . . and makes those unlawful practices actionable under the 
16

UCL.’ [Citation.] Thus, a violation of another law is a predicate 

for stating a cause of action under the UCL’s unlawful prong. . . .” 

(Berryman v. Merit Property Management, Inc. (2007) 152 

Cal.App.4th 1544, 1554.) A violation of the Rosenthal Act can 

serve as a predicate offense for the UCL (see Alborzian v. 

JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. (2015) 235 Cal.App.4th 29, 35-37), 

and we see no reason to make an exception for Collect Access’s 

violation of section 1788.15.

D. The Attorney Fees Award Was Not an Abuse of 

Discretion

A debtor who prevails in an action under the Rosenthal Act 

is entitled to recover reasonable attorney fees and costs.

(§ 1788.30, subd. (c).) In this case, the trial court awarded 

Minser $12,100.50 in attorney fees and $1,097.23 in costs. We

review an award of statutory attorney fees after trial for abuse of 

discretion. (Connerly v. State Personnel Bd. (2006) 37 Cal.4th 

1169, 1175.) Collect Access contends the trial court’s award was 

an abuse of discretion because Minser failed to submit sufficient 

documentation of the work his attorneys performed. We 

disagree.

In support of his claim for attorney fees, Minser submitted

two declarations from Christopher Peters, an attorney at the firm 

that represented him. The first declaration, dated 2018, showed 

the firm’s work leading up to a default judgment against Collect 

Access from which Collect Access later obtained relief. The 

declaration stated that Peters and two other attorneys worked on 

the case, with Peters billing 6.1 hours at $350 per hour, another 

attorney billing 0.6 hours at $400 per hour, and a third attorney 

working 10.55 hours at $250 per hour. In addition, according to 

the declaration, a legal secretary worked 11 hours at $90 per 
17

hour. The declaration described the tasks each person 

performed, but did not include a breakdown of the amount of 

time each person spent on each task, nor did it list specific dates.

In all, the declaration claimed the firm had billed $6,002.50 in

attorney fees and incurred $1,037.23 in costs.

Peters submitted a second declaration in 2022, after the 

court entered judgment in favor of Minser. In the new 

declaration, Peters stated that he had billed 9.5 additional hours 

on the case, and anticipated spending three more hours to draft a 

reply brief and appear in court to argue the attorney fee motion, 

for a total of 12.5 hours. At Peters’s new billing rate of $400 per 

hour, the total bill for his work was $5,000. He also asserted that 

two of the firm’s paralegals had spent a total of 12.2 hours on the 

case at a billing rate of $90 per hour, for a total of $1,098. Peters 

also claimed $60 in costs based on the court fees for filing the 

motion. In all, Peters claimed $6,098 in fees and $60 in costs. In 

the new declaration, Peters listed several documents his firm had 

filed, but he did not break down the amount of time he and the 

paralegals had spent at each step.

Collect Access argues that Minser’s claim of attorney fees is 

unsubstantiated because he did not provide any billing 

statements, and included a declaration from only one of the three 

attorneys who worked on the case. Collect Access acknowledges 

that “an award of attorney fees may be based on counsel’s 

declarations, without production of detailed time records” 

(Raining Data Corp. v. Barrenechea (2009) 175 Cal.App.4th 1363, 

1375), but argues that in the absence of billing statements, “the 

hours spent must be substantiated.” (Copenbarger v. Morris 

Cerullo World Evangelism, Inc. (2018) 29 Cal.App.5th 1, 15.) The 

court in Copenbarger suggested that attorneys may substantiate 
18

their claims by “testif[ying] about their hourly rates, the work 

performed, and the amount of time spent on various tasks.” 

(Ibid.) It does not follow, however, that each attorney who 

worked on the case must testify or submit a separate declaration. 

We see no functional difference in the method followed here, in 

which a single attorney who worked on the case and is familiar 

with his firm’s billing rates submits a declaration under penalty 

of perjury as to how much each attorney worked.5

Collect Access also contends the attorney fee award must 

be reversed because Minser’s attorneys presented the hours they 

worked in the form of “block billing without any way to determine 

how much time was spent on each task.” Collect Access is correct 

that the trial court may, in its discretion, reduce an award of 

attorney fees if the attorney’s bills are too vague to allow the 

court to determine if the hours spent on a case were justifiable. 

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

1315, 1325.) In this case, some of the claims in Peters’s 

declarations were indeed vague. In the first declaration, Peters

5 In its reply brief, Collect Access additionally argues the 

trial court erred by including fees for work performed before 

vacatur of the July 2019 default judgment against Collect Access. 

This argument was not made in Collect Access’s opening brief, 

and “[w]e do not consider arguments raised for the first time in a 

reply brief.” (Committee to Relocate Marilyn v. City of Palm 

Springs (2023) 88 Cal.App.5th 607, 636, fn. 8.) Even if we were 

to consider this argument, the trial court found the pre-July 2019 

work was properly included in the fee award given Minser’s 

unrebutted “contention that [Collect Access’s] intentional evasion 

of service of process caused the additional fees.” Collect Access 

fails to demonstrate any abuse of discretion in this 

determination.
19

listed the tasks each person performed, but did not specify the 

time spent on each task. In the second declaration, he did not 

even list the specific tasks he and his paralegals did, apart from 

3.5 hours Peters asserted he had spent or would spend on the 

attorney fee motion itself.

Collect Access made the same argument before the trial 

court, which rejected it by awarding Minser the full amount of 

attorney fees he requested. The court did not abuse its discretion 

in doing so. Block billing, though discouraged, is “not 

objectionable per se.” (Christian Research Institute v. Alnor, 

supra, 165 Cal.App.4th at p. 1325.) In a complex case with 

dozens of attorneys billing hundreds of hours, it would be 

particularly inappropriate to submit bills with no indication of 

how much time each attorney spent on which task. In this case, 

however, Minser’s attorneys billed only around 30 hours in 

aggregate, along with approximately 23 more hours from support 

staff, to prosecute a case from the initial complaint through trial. 

“A trial court’s attorney fee award will not be set aside ‘absent a 

showing that it is manifestly excessive in the circumstances.’

[Citation.]” (Raining Data Corp. v. Barrenechea, supra, 175 

Cal.App.4th at p. 1375.) Given the efficiency in the billable time 

expended by Minser’s counsel to prosecute the case, Collect 

Access has not come close to meeting this standard.
20

DISPOSITION

The judgment is affirmed, as is the trial court’s order

awarding attorney fees and costs. Minser is awarded his costs on 

appeal.

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED.

WEINGART, J.

We concur:

ROTHSCHILD, P. J.

CHANEY, J.