Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Joshua and Elizabeth Marx sued FCA US LLC in state court, alleging that their 2022 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid had defects that caused it to stall, shut off, or lose power. They asserted four Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act claims and a common law fraud claim. FCA removed on diversity grounds. About eight months later, Plaintiffs moved to remand, arguing the amount in controversy did not exceed $75,000. The court denied the motion without a hearing. It found that the roughly $79,145 Plaintiffs paid for the vehicle cleared the threshold by itself, and that a civil penalty of up to twice actual damages brought the figure to about $237,436 before fees.
After nine more months of discovery, Plaintiffs accepted FCA's Rule 68 offer of judgment for $144,000 plus reasonable attorneys' fees and costs, and the clerk taxed costs of $1,062.20. Plaintiffs then sought $135,367.55 in fees, reduced in reply from $136,767.55. The request combined lodestars of $60,663 for lead counsel Strategic Legal Practices and $37,275 for co-counsel Eco Tech Law Group, a 1.35 multiplier, and $2,600 for the reply. FCA argued the case was overstaffed, hours were cumulative, rates were too high, entries were vague or block-billed, and no multiplier was warranted. Because jurisdiction rested on diversity, California law governed. Civil Code section 1794(d) allows fees based on actual time reasonably incurred, calculated by the lodestar method, and the movant bears the burden.
The Court’s Holding
The court granted the motion in part and awarded $58,396.50. It held Plaintiffs were entitled to fees as prevailing parties, so the dispute concerned amount only. Of 141 hours claimed by 16 timekeepers, it allowed 84.8. It excluded five lead-counsel timekeepers who each logged under one hour, finding that adding them to a team of eleven others was inefficient and unreasonable. It excluded time on the remand motion, which it called so lacking in merit as to be frivolous; the motion had been stricken once for violating the standing order. Under the hours chart, this reduced time for Kiewe, Larocque, Shahian and Yu. The court cut 22 of Dara Tabesh's 52.5 hours as duplicative, unnecessary, and not typically performed by senior attorneys. It noted that he billed 45 hours of discovery work and at least 11 hours of travel, and that counsel at the fee hearing could not explain the staffing. It also excluded three so-called administrative clerks because Plaintiffs did not show their education or experience.
On rates, the court approved blended rates of $637 for Carvalho and $640 for Larocque because the fee charts did not break out their work by year. It approved $595 for Claxton and $635 for Klewe. It set Shahian (who requested $910) and Tabesh (who requested $710) at $650, the top of the $225-to-$650 range commonly awarded in district lemon law cases, because Plaintiffs cited no comparable awards. It set law clerk Khanna at $200 rather than the $360 requested. The resulting lodestar was $57,096.50.
The court refused a multiplier. The case raised no novel or difficult questions, counsel showed no exceptional skill given the frivolous remand motion, and Plaintiffs did not show that counsel forwent other work. Only the contingency factor favored one. The court noted the excellent result but found it unclear how much was attributable to counsel's skill. It also declined a downward adjustment, since the reductions were already built into the lodestar. For the fee reply, it allowed 2 of the 4 requested hours at $650, or $1,300, because the reply's evidentiary objections had been struck. The total is $58,396.50. The court called this consistent with, though higher than, most lemon law awards, citing examples from about $41,847 to $54,290. It treated the larger Zargarian and Jurosky awards as outliers, and distinguished Zomorodian as a post-jury-trial award.
Key Takeaways
- Adding timekeepers who each bill under an hour can be treated as inefficient and excluded from the lodestar.
- Time spent on a remand motion the court finds frivolous is not reasonably incurred and is not compensable under section 1794(d).
- Applicants must document the qualifications of non-attorney timekeepers and justify the time of senior lawyers, and counsel at the fee hearing should be able to explain staffing decisions.
- Rates above the range commonly awarded in the district require comparable awards, and here the court treated $650 as the top of that range.
- A contingency fee arrangement alone does not justify a multiplier when the other lodestar-adjustment factors weigh against one.
Why It Matters
This is an unreported district court order applying California fee law, so it is persuasive rather than binding. It shows how closely a federal court will scrutinize staffing, duplicative work, unexplained senior-attorney time, and rate requests in routine Song-Beverly cases, and it ties the unusually high rate requests to the absence of supporting awards.
The order resolves the fee motion in full, and costs were already taxed, so no fee issue remains open. The award is an order fixing fees on a settled judgment and not a dismissal with or without leave to amend.