Source: https://www.calattorneysfees.com/cases_paralegal_time/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 15:43:18+00:00

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Fee Claimants Would Need To Show That The Summer Clerk Work Resulted In Efficiencies Contributing To The Value Of The Case For Fee Purposes.
We had an interesting question posed by Reynaldo Fuentes as to whether summer clerk work could be compensated on a fee motion by California state courts, presumably a non-licensed law student who was studying and awaiting California State Bar results. We would hazard a “yes,” but with an important caveat.
There is no California case precisely on point. However, the reasoning in Ellis v. Toshiba America Information System, Inc., 218 Cal.App.4th 853, 888-889 (2013) is helpful. There, it was found that the time by a lawyer’s staff, especially non-certificated paralegals, could be compensable under the right circumstances.
Out-of-state authority similarly is instructive. We think that the guiding standard might be provided by Ramos v. Lamm, 538 F. Supp. 730, 751 (D. Colo. 1982), where a district judge found that law clerk time is compensable if it enhances and contributes to a billing attorney’s time, although there would be scrutiny to make sure there was supervision and contribution as far as a case was concerned.
That is our read, but certainly this is an issue which can be litigated in our state court system.
However, Appellate Court Provides Remand Guidance On Allocation, Paralegal Compensation, And Reasonableness Issues.
In Samuelson v. Dept. of State Hospitals, Case No. A143149 (1st Dist., Div. 2 Oct. 28, 2016) (unpublished), plaintiff was awarded $1 million in damages against defendants Dept. of State Hospitals and three psychologists hired by Napa State Hospital based upon employer retaliation and whistleblower protection claims. She was then awarded attorney’s fees totaling $1,231,188.70 based on fee entitlement statutes, namely, the whistleblower fee-shifting provision allowing recovery against individual defendants, but not the employer (Gov’t Code, § 8547.8(c)), and the private attorney general statute as against Dept. of State Hospitals (CCP § 1021.5). Defendants appealed the fee award.
In a prior appeal, the appellate court reduced the $1 million judgment down to $695,000. Based on this reversal, the appellate court then reversed and remanded the fee award based on the merits reduction. However, it did offer some guidance to the trial judge having to adjudge fees upon remand.
First, the trial judge did not apportion fees as between the two substantive claims based upon confusing conduct by the State which suggested no apportionment was necessary under the whistleblower fee-shifting provision (given the whistleblower fees were only assessable against the individual defendants and the private attorney general fees only against the State defendant). Although no “prejudging” was done by the reviewing court, it did remand for the trial judge to look at the allocation decision again, but stressing that State’s prior positions about no need for an allocation and unified defense of the case might lead to the same result.
Second, the work for pre-litigation administrative work that was intertwined with the subsequent court proceeding happened to be compensable, in line with what the trial judge did previously.
Paralegals, Even Uncertificated Ones, Are Compensable In Fee Proceedings.
The Fourth District, Division 3, in Alcone v. SLV Associates, LLC, Case No. G051813 (4th Dist., Div. 3 Aug. 30, 2016) (unpublished), dealt with a trustee under a lease who prevailed where there was a broad “arising out of lease” fees clause. Trustee then moved to recover over $95,527.50 in fees. The lower court’s tentative was to grant most of them, but not some billed paralegal work. After some more briefing, the lower court did grant fees for the paralegal work and awarded $95,200 jointly and severally against two individual defendants signing a lease addendum.
The losing parties’ appeal was unsuccessful, in a 3-0 opinion authored by Justice Thompson. Our local appellate court determined that the unlawful detainer was for a holdover tenancy and was in the nature of a tort, covered under the broad fees clause. It did not have to wade into the issue pending for determination by the California Supreme Court in Mountain Air about whether a contractual affirmative defense is tantamount to an “action” for purposes of a fees clause. (See our November 21, 2014 and August 30, 2015 posts on Mountain Air.) The individuals were individually liable because they signed the lease addendum.
With respect to paralegals, the Court of Appeal recognized that paralegal work has been recognized as compensable (Guinn v. Dotson, 23 Cal.App.4th 262, 269 (1994)), and nothing showed that the paralegal did not meet the Business and Professions Code requirements despite being uncertificated for a period of time.
In Green v. County of Riverside, Case No. D067424 (4th Dist., Div. 1 July 29, 2015) (published), plaintiff lost an unreasonable police force civil rights case. Later, the trial judge awarded defendants $66,453.02 in costs, $40,610.68 of which constituted paralegal fees for helping prepare/present electronic evidence at trial—deposition video testimony and audio recording exhibits/excerpts. Plaintiff’s challenge to the award of paralegal fees as costs was not successful on appeal.
On the merits, the paralegal fees were neither authorized nor prohibited as costs, which meant the trial judge had discretion to award them if they were found to be “reasonably necessary” to the litigation. Given that use of technicians to monitor electronic equipment is commonplace, Bender v. County of Los Angeles, 217 Cal.App.4th 968, 990 (2013), the lower court was within reason to award paralegal fees as costs for the tasks relating to presentation of electronic evidence at trial.
Reason Was Failure to File a Noticed Motion or Submit Costs Memo With an Affidavit.
Arth v. Raine, Case No. C071303 (3d Dist. Nov. 25, 2014) (unpublished) is a somber reminder to follow Code of Civil Procedure section 1033.5 dictates when seeking attorney’s and paralegal fees under statutory fee-shifting provisions.
Here, a prevailing party was awarded discretionary attorney’s fees, paralegal fees, and costs totaling $15,449.06 under fee-shifting provisions of the Brown Act (Government Code section 54960.5) and the Political Reform Act of 1974 (Government Code section 91003). However, all but a small portion of the costs award was salvaged after the losing party substantially obtained a reversal on appeal.
However, not all was lost. Losing party challenged a $90 “CourtCall” expense, but that challenge was rejected because losing party waived it by not raising the argument in his motion to tax costs. So, in the end, prevailing party ended up with $645 in costs, rather than the previous more beefy costs award including attorney’s and paralegal fees.
Fee Clause Was Broad, But Lower Court Correctly Reduced Paralegal Hourly Rates—Finding $330 Per Hour Too High.
Royalty Alliance, Inc. v. Tarsadia Hotels, Case Nos. D062537/D063402 (4th Dist., Div. 1 May 29, 2014) (unpublished) was a case where plaintiffs lost summary judgment motions challenging a developer’s retention of purchase deposits under various theories, including breach of contract/invalid liquidated damages/state securities theories with a broadly worded fees clause in the germane purchase agreements (fee clause applied “in any suit by either party against the other arising out of this contract”). Then, the lower court awarded prevailing defendants $1,146,682 (out of requested $1,171,682) in fees, reducing only hourly paralegal rates of $330 as too high.
Plaintiffs’ appeal did not result in anything different.
Appellate Court Finds that Paralegals Do Not Necessarily Have to Meet California B&P Educational/Certification Requirements in Order to Obtain Compensation.
This next case, Ellis v. Toshiba America Information System, Inc. (Sklar), Case Nos. B220286/B227078 (2d Dist., Div. 1 Aug. 7, 2013) (published), is a wild one authored by Justice Johnson on behalf of a 3-0 panel.
Briefly summarized (if that can be done on this one), one class counsel (Ms. Sklar) was hit with monetary sanctions for failure to allow a forensic inspection of her computers (mainly to obtain her billing records) given that she was claiming $24.7 million in fees for prosecuting the class action, later reduced to $12 million even though defendant Toshiba only agreed in the settlement agreement to pay other class counsel’s fees of $1.125 million and indicated it would contest Ms. Sklar’s requests. Ms. Sklar’s office was hit with discovery sanctions of $165,000, which order was affirmed on appeal. The lower court also denied in entirety Ms. Sklar’s fee request, except it did award $176,900 for work effort by her law firm staff. (By the way, the other class counsel got an award of $1,050,000 in fees and $75,000 in costs in line with the Toshiba settlement agreement “clear-sailing” provision with respect to these attorneys’ fees.) The lower court did not rule on Ms. Sklar’s request for $114,900 in costs, which was contained in a class notice.
Well, all of this prompted an appeal by Ms. Sklar on the sanctions/fee/costs awards, as well as a Toshiba cross-appeal contesting the $176,900 award to Ms. Skalr’s law office staff.
The appellate court affirmed the sanctions and fee denial awards with respect to Ms. Sklar. In the fee area, it especially credited that her credibility had been tarnished in not producing documents/reducing her fee request in half and that the inflated nature of her requests could be weighed greatly in an adverse way by the trial judge, as it was.
Because the lower court failed to rule on the $114,900 costs request, that required a remand in order to consider it.
Finally, Toshiba challenged the law firm staff award on the basis that many of the “paralegals”/legal assistants did not meet the Business & Professions Code educational/certification requirements, so compensating them was not allowed. The appellate court rejected this argument, finding that no California state authority bound the trial judge to require these type of requirements for compensation, finding two unpublished federal decisions to be unpersuasive in this area. It did, however, remand for some small arithmetic error corrections in the law firm staff work award.
Public Hearings Remand Was a Limited One, At Best; Attorney/Paralegal Work Stricken From Cost Award In County’s Favor.
A nonprofit organization out to save blue oak woodlands from the consequences of a development appealed a denial of a requested fee recovery under CCP § 1021.5 after they won a limited public hearings remand under CEQA to reconsider the financial feasibility of a greater fee to mitigate traffic impacts on Interstate Highway I-5. It also appealed a costs award of $25,565 in favor of Tehama County as prevailing party.
Blue oaks. Flickr creative commons license. Miguel Vieira, photographer.
The appeal did not overturn the fee award, but a substantial portion of the costs award was ordered to be subtracted in California Oak Foundation v. County of Tehama, Case No. C066415 (3d Dist. May 25, 2012) (unpublished).
The problem was that nonprofit lost the blue oak woodlands issue and five of the six remaining mitigation issues. The financial feasibility remand issue resulted in sparsely-attended public hearings and the County arrived at the same position it reached previously with respect to the project. Under these circumstances, no “significant benefit” was achieved for section 1021.5 purposes such that the lower court did not abuse its discretion in denying the fee request.
The County’s cost award was another matter altogether. $15,771.25 of the costs award comprised a JD/prospective attorney’s work in summarizing a PowerPoint presentation for trial which, at a $185 hourly rate, could only be characterized as attorney/paralegal fees not recoverable as costs. (Science Applications Internat. Corp. v. Superior Court, 39 Cal.App.4th 1095, 1104 (1995); Code Civ. Proc., § 1033.5(a)(10).) This amount was subtracted, with the remaining judgment affirmed by the appellate court.
Remand to Determine What Portion of Attorney and Paralegal Time Was “Administrative” in Nature.
Collins v. City of Los Angeles, Case No. B228882 (2d Dist., Div. 3 Apr. 20, 2012) (certified for publication) is a class action case where two class representatives on behalf of a class obtained a judgment-based common fund recovery for emergency response costs for persons driving under the influence of alcohol/drugs. Although requesting a lodestar of $634,761 and an additional $150,000 delay enhancement, plaintiff was awarded attorney’s fees of $577,691 under California’s private attorney general statute (CCP § 1021.5). The lower court ordered that 40% of the fees should be paid from the class restitution fund and the remaining 60% should be paid by City of Los Angeles. However, the trial court did exclude certain fees requested for attorney and paralegal work on the ground they were only “administrative” and non-recoverable.
The private attorney general fee apportionment was sustained on appeal. The necessity, financial burden requirements, and “interests of justice” elements of CCP § 1021.5 justified this allocation, especially where fees should be paid by the opposing party rather than from a common fund recovery in the right circumstances. (Slip Opn., p. 20.) The appellate court also has an interesting discussion of whether the court in a § 1021.5 case must peg the possible class action benefits to the actual recovery versus the estimated value of the case (or, realistic expected recovery), opting to go with the latter approach--departing company from Robinson v. City of Chowchilla, 202 Cal.App.4th 382, 402 and fn. 6 (2011) in the process. Finally, the “full monetary value of the judgment” had to be considered--which might include actual monetary recovery and other direct financial benefits provided to the plaintiff.
That brought the appellate court to a reduction for “administrative” tasks by attorneys and paralegals. Here, the appellate court believed that the trial court did abuse its discretion by denying compensation for attorney and paralegal time of a normally compensable nature. Simply because an expert labeled the tasks as “administrative” was too overbroad to deny compensation altogether. Remand on this point.
Proof of Paralegal Status and Compliance with Education/Certification Requirements Are Musts.
In our June 4, 2008 post, we discussed federal and state decisions that generally allowed paralegal time to be compensated under the EAJA or many California fee-shifting statutes. An interesting article, authored by Kirstin Simonson, has appeared in the November 2008 issue of the Orange County Lawyer. We briefly review the article—"Paralegal Requirements and Fee Recovery”—found at pages 42-45 of the November 2008 edition.
In California, paralegals must meet certain educational and certification requirements, including continuing education requirements, pursuant to Business and Professions Code sections 6450-6456. Although this legislation did not create a governing body for the paralegal profession, courts are patrolling violations through scrutiny of fee petitions seeking reimbursement for paralegal work.
Ms. Simonson, in her article, surveys three federal decisions involving claims brought under the American with Disabilities Act or the Unruh Civil Rights Act. In the first case, Sanford v. GMRI, Inc., Civ. No. S-04-1535 (E.D.Cal. Nov. 14, 2005), plaintiff was denied compensation for several so-called "paralegals" because they did not have the qualifications required by Business and Professions Code section 6450. Instead, the federal judge classified them as "legal assistants" and substantially reduced the fee award requested based on their work. The same federal judge, in a follow-up second case (White v. GMRI, Inc., Civ. No. S-04-0620 (E.D.Cal. April 12, 2006), denied a motion for reconsideration denying all fees to a so-called paralegal because the plaintiff did not provide a written declaration from a supervising attorney attesting about the person's qualifications under section 6450(c)(4). In the third case, Martinez v. G. Maroni Co., Civ. No. S-06-1399 (E.D.Cal. May 2, 2007), a federal court found the paralegals duly qualified but reduced requested fees for copying, faxing, and mailing documents based on finding these tasks were more appropriately handled by a secretary.
Mr. Simonson concludes with this synopsis of the lessons contained in the three surveyed federal cases: "Make sure that anyone who is hired for a paralegal position has met the education and experience requirements of section 6450(c). Keep on file copies of the paralegal's certificate, diploma or transcript, and the written supervising attorney declaration where relevant; and verify the paralegal's MCLE compliance and keep records of certifications of completed MCLE hours. Then you will be ready to respond if your paralegal's qualifications are questioned."
Petitioner Richlin prevailed against the Government on a claim before the Department of Transportation’s Board of Contract Appeals, and then filed an application for reimbursement, among other things, of paralegal fees pursuant to the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA). Both the Transportation Board and Federal Circuit concluded the term “fees” only embraced recovery of fees of attorneys, experts, and agents at prevailing market rates under EAJA.
The United States Supreme Court, in an unanimous decision (except for some segments not joined in by Justices Scalia and Thomas), reversed and remanded for considering the inclusion of the proper amount of paralegal fees in the fee award to petitioner.
The case makes interesting reading, almost sounding at times like an equal protection analysis. The high court found that paralegals are surely more analogous to attorneys, experts, and agents than to mere studies, analyses, reports, tests, and projects that are labeled expenses compensable at the reasonable rate paid by the attorney with no overhead mark-up. The Court further reasoned that “incurred by that party” language in the EAJA left no doubt that Congress even intended the “reasonable cost” items to be calculated from the litigant’s perspective. The end result is pragmatic, because paralegal use should be encouraged and frequently makes litigation more economically palatable for clients.
CALIFORNIA’S VIEWPOINT—Under many California statutory fee grants, paralegal fees have been found to be a proper component of an attorney’s fees award. See, e.g., Guinn v. Dotson, 23 Cal.App.4th 262, 267-270 (1994) [paralegal fees within the meaning of “attorney’s fees” for Code of Civil Procedure section 411.35(h), the certificate of merit statute]; Sundance v. Municipal Court, 192 Cal.App.3d 268, 274 (1987) [attorney’s fees award for paralegal time appropriate under Code of Civil Procedure section 1021.5, the public right enforcement statute]; accord, Benson v. Kwikset Corp., 152 Cal.App.4th 1254, 1280 (2007) [citing Guinn and Sundance].) Although Guinn is a good case on paralegal compensation, its one questionable aspect is relying on Bussey v. Affleck, 225 Cal.App.3d 1162 (1990), which has been severely criticized and abrogated by the same court initially deciding Bussey. (This will be the subject of a future post.) However, Guinn also noted that paralegal time is compensable under the civil rights attorney’s fees statute, 42 U.S.C. § 1988, and citing Missouri v. Jenkins, 491 U.S. 274, 284-288 (1989) in support—a good analogy and one used by the Richlin Security Court when holding that paralegal time is awardable under the EAJA.
For a nice website collecting both California and national cases on entitlement to compensation for paralegal time, see California Alliance of Paralegal Associations, Recovery of Legal Fees.

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