Martinez v. Ford Motor Co.

PAUL CORTEZ MARTINEZ, et al., Plaintiffs, v. FORD MOTOR COMPANY, Defendant.

No. 1:18-cv-01607-NONE-JLT

United States District Court, E.D. California

July 22, 2021

ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND DENYING IN PART PLAINTIFFS' MOTION FOR ATTORNEYS' FEES, COSTS, AND EXPENSES (DOC. NOS. 24, 25)

In November 2018, defendant Ford Motor Company removed this lemon law^[1] action from the Kern County Superior Court to this federal court. (Doc. No. 1.) This action arose from plaintiffs Paul and Estella Martinez's purchase, for $26 093.92, of a 2010 Ford Escape manufactured by defendant which subsequently developed “serious defects and nonconformities to warranty.” (Doc. Nos. 1-1 ¶¶ 8-9, 13; 30-1 ¶ 3.) After defendant failed to properly repair the vehicle, plaintiffs brought this lemon law action under California law to recover damages for the defects. (Doc. No. 1-1 ¶¶ 15-55.) Approximately a year after the case was removed to this court, the parties filed a joint notice of settlement agreeing to settle this case for $48, 442.27, plus attorneys' fees and costs. (Doc. Nos. 20 at 2; 25-2 ¶ 19; 29-1 ¶ 3.) The joint notice conditions the amounts of attorneys' fees and costs “to be determined by agreement of the Parties or by noticed motion.” (Doc. No. 20 at 2.)

Apparently unable to agree on the appropriate amounts of attorneys' fees and costs to be awarded, plaintiffs filed a motion for attorneys' fees, costs, and expenses along with a corresponding bill of costs.^[2] (Doc. Nos. 24, 25.) Defendant has opposed the motion and objected to plaintiffs' bill of costs, and plaintiffs have replied. (Doc. Nos. 27-30.) For the reasons set forth below, the court will grant plaintiffs' motion in part and deny it in part and approve plaintiffs' bill of costs in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs' complaint asserts three claims under the Song-Beverly Act against defendant: (1) breach of express warranty, (2) breach of implied warranty, and (3) violation of § 1793.2 of the Act. (Doc. No. 1-1.) Approximately seven months after the complaint was filed, plaintiffs offered to settle this case for $48, 442.27, but defendant declined. (Doc. Nos. 1-1 at 2; 25-2 ¶ 15.) About six months thereafter, defendant finally agreed to settle the case for that same amount. (Doc Nos. 25-2 ¶ 19; 29-1 ¶ 3.) Over the approximately thirteen-months between the filing of the complaint and the settlement of the action, plaintiffs' attorneys from the Knight Law Group, LLP (“KLG”) litigated this case on behalf of their clients. Their legal services included an unsuccessful attempt to remand this case to state court preparing discovery responses; propounding discovery requests on defendant; taking depositions of relevant persons; and drafting the complaint and the instant motion, among others. (Doc. No. 25-2 ¶¶ 11-19.) In sum, eleven attorneys representing plaintiffs have reported spending a total of 109.5 hours on this case, with requested hourly rates varying from $200 to $550. (Doc. No. 25-2, Ex. A at 6.) In all plaintiffs ask for an award of $33, 325 in attorneys' fees, plus a 50% lodestar multiplier or $16, 662.50, totaling $49, 987.50. (Doc. No. 25-1 at 16-19.) Plaintiffs also ask for $5, 868.37 in costs, most of which are related to the depositions their attorneys took in the case. (Doc. No. 25-2, Ex. B.)

LEGAL STANDARD

Because defendant removed this action under diversity jurisdiction (Doc. No. 1 ¶¶ 3-7), “the law of the state in which the district court sits determines whether a party is entitled to attorney fees, ” but “the procedure for requesting an award of attorney fees is governed by federal law.” Carnes v. Zamani, 488 F.3d 1057, 1059 (9th Cir. 2007) (emphasis added) (citation omitted). Thus, California law is determinative “not only [of] the right to fees, but also in the method of calculating the fees.” Mangold v. Cal. Pub. Utilities Comm'n, 67 F.3d 1470, 1478 (9th Cir. 1995) (alteration in original) (citations omitted).

Under the well-established American rule, “we follow ‘a general practice of not awarding fees to a prevailing party absent explicit statutory authority.'” Buckhannon Bd. & Care Home, Inc. v. W.Va. Dep't of Health & Human Res., 532 U.S. 598, 602 (2001) (citation omitted). As an exception to the American rule, however, the California legislature enacted California Civil Code § 1794(d), part of the Song-Beverly Act, which states:

If the buyer prevails in an action under this section, the buyer shall be allowed by the court to recover as part of the judgment a sum equal to the aggregate amount of costs and expenses, including attorney's fees based on actual time expended, determined by the court to have been reasonably incurred by the buyer in connection with the commencement and prosecution of such action.^[3]

Cal. Civ. Code § 1794(d). This fee provision was designed to provide “injured consumers strong encouragement to seek legal redress in a situation in which a lawsuit might not otherwise have been economically feasible.” Murillo v. Fleetwood Enterprises, Inc., 17 Cal.4th 985, 994 (1998).

Still, “[a] trial court may not rubberstamp a request for attorney fees.” Donahue v. Donahue, 182 Cal.App.4th 259, 271 (2010). “The plain wording of [§ 1794(d)] requires the trial court to base the fee award upon actual time expended on the case, as long as such fees are reasonably incurred-both from the standpoint of time spent and the amount charged.” Robertson v. Fleetwood Travel Trailers of Cal., Inc., 144 Cal.App. 4Th 785, 817 (2006) (alteration in original). In enacting § 1794(d), the California legislature “envisioned an objective, nonarbitrary, and easy to administer calculation of attorney fees based on the ‘lodestar[]' method (reasonable hours and rates plus a multiplier), in order to fix the fee at the fair market value for the legal services provided.”^[4] Reynolds v. Ford Motor Co., 47 Cal.App. 5th 1105, 1117 (2020) (citation omitted). Once the reasonable number of hours multiplied by the reasonable hourly rates have been ascertained, “[t]he amount of attorney fees awarded pursuant to the lodestar adjustment method may be increased or decreased.” Mikhaeilpoor v. BMW of N. Am., LLC, 48 Cal.App. 5th 240, 247 (2020).

“In order for the trial court to determine a reasonable rate and a reasonable number of hours spent on a case, a party must present some evidence to support its award request.” Cruz v. Fusion Buffet, Inc., 57 Cal.App. 5th 221, 237 (2020). The prevailing party bears “the burden of showing that the fees incurred were reasonably necessary to the conduct of the litigation, and were reasonable in amount.” Robertson, 144 Cal.App.4th at 817-18. If the prevailing party meets his initial burden, “[t]he party opposing the fee award can be expected to identify the particular charges it considers objectionable.” Gorman v. Tassajara Dev. Corp., 178 Cal.App.4th 44, 101 (2009). “A reduced award might be fully justified by a general observation that an attorney overlitigated a case or submitted a padded bill or that the opposing party has stated valid objections.” Id.

Generally, the district court must provide a “detailed account of how it arrives at appropriate figures for ‘the number of hours reasonably expended' and ‘a reasonable hourly rate.'”^[5] Hiken v. Dep't of Def., 836 F.3d 1037, 1044 (9th Cir. 2016). But when the district court imposes “a small reduction, no greater than 10 percent-a ‘haircut'-based on its exercise of discretion, ” “a more specific explanation” is unnecessary. Moreno v. City of Sacramento, 534 F.3d 1106, 1112 (9th Cir. 2008).

ANALYSIS

The parties do not dispute that plaintiffs are entitled to attorneys' fees under § 1794(d) as the prevailing parties in this action;^[6] at issue, rather, is whether plaintiffs' request for $49, 987.50 in attorneys' fees is reasonable. As for costs, the parties disagree not only about whether the request for $5, 868.37 in costs is reasonable, but also whether federal or state law should control the allowable costs. Before turning to the merits of these issues, the court will address plaintiffs' evidentiary objections.

A. Plaintiffs' Objections to Part of Michael D. Mortenson's Declaration

In the opposition, defendant's counsel states that plaintiffs' “counsel filed a near identical fee motion in Arias v. Ford Motor Company, No 5:18-cv-01928-PSG-(SPx) (C.D. Cal. 2020), based on a near identical declaration of Steve Mikhov, ” plaintiffs' lead attorney. (Doc. No. 29-1 ¶ 5.) In Arias, the district court declined to award attorney Mikhov's request for a 1.5 lodestar multiplier and reduced the hourly rates of attorney Mikhov and other attorneys in his law firm. (Id.) In reply, plaintiffs object to defense counsel's statement (including the assertion that the court should follow the court in Arias' reduction of the hourly rates of attorney Mikhov) by citing various boilerplate federal rules of evidence without any analysis or explanation. (Doc. No. 30-2 at 2); Burgess v. Premier Corp., 727 F.2d 826, 835 (9th Cir. 1984) (“[M]ere statement of objection without stating grounds was insufficient to preserve error, where the specific grounds were not apparent”). The court finds plaintiffs' objections unpersuasive in general. Moreover, the records in Arias are judicially noticeable, notwithstanding plaintiffs' boilerplate objections. See Harris v. Cnty. of Orange, 682 F.3d 1126, 1132 (9th Cir. 2012) (“We may take judicial notice of undisputed matters of public record, including documents on file in federal or state courts.”). Having reviewed the records in Arias, the court notes that the fee motion and related papers that plaintiffs filed in that case are indeed nearly identical to the instant motion and accompanying papers. (See Arias, 5:18-cv-01928-PSG-(SPx), Doc. No. 45.) For the above reasons, pl...