Opinion ID: 2244131
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: Disproportionate Financial Burden

Text: `An award on the private attorney general theory is appropriate when the cost of the claimant's legal victory transcends his personal interest, that is, when the necessity for pursuing the lawsuit placed a burden on the plaintiff out of proportion to his individual stake in the matter.' ( Marini v. Municipal Court (1979) 99 Cal.App.3d 829, 836, 160 Cal. Rptr. 465.) Even if a litigant is initially motivated by his or her own economic interests, if the burden of litigation is disproportionate to the individual stake, and the other requirements of section 1021.5 are met, fees may be awarded. ( Citizens, supra, 181 Cal.App.3d at pp. 229-230, 226 Cal.Rptr. 265.) Here, respondent had a personal interest in preventing confirmation of the arbitration award. However, the burden of challenging the petition proceedings was not insignificant. The transcript of the August 9, 2005 hearing reflects that the trial court continued the hearing and requested further briefing on various topics. The declaration of respondent's counsel submitted in support of the motion for fees includes complete time records for the work respondent performed in this matter, which the trial court found to be reasonable and necessary. These necessary attorney's fees almost tripled the amount of debt at issue in this lawsuit. Thus, there is substantial evidence to support the trial court's finding that respondent's financial burdens transcended his personal stake. Furthermore, prevailing in the petition proceeding did not guarantee respondent any ultimate pecuniary benefit. At the March 23, 2006 hearing, appellant informed the trial court that it intended to file a separate lawsuit against respondent to collect on the underlying debt. Thus, the successful enforcement of respondent's right to trial by jury in the instant matter does not necessarily absolve him of the obligation to pay the underlying debt at some later point in time. Considering the fact that respondent has already incurred litigation expenses that nearly triple the amount of a debt he may still have to pay, the trial court reasonably found that the financial burden of enforcing his right to a jury trial was out of proportion to his personal stake. (See Baggett, supra, 32 Cal.3d at p. 143, 185 Cal.Rptr. 232, 649 P.2d 874 [police officers' financial burden in enforcing their right to appeal reassignments was out of proportion to their personal stake because there was no guarantee that securing the appeal would reverse the reassignments]; Otto v. Los Angeles Unified School Dist. (2003) 106 Cal. App.4th 328, 333, 130 Cal.Rptr.2d 512 [police officer's financial burden in enforcing right to appeal placement of a punitive document in his personnel file was out of proportion to his personal stake because there was no guarantee that securing the appeal would lead to removal of the document from his file].) For these reasons, we affirm the award of attorney's fees under section 1021.5. The next issue is whether the trial court erred in calculating the amount of the attorney's fees awarded.