All About the Lodestar

Warren v. Kia Motors Am., Inc., No. E068348 (D4d2 Dec. 12, 2018)

Plaintiff won a jury verdict for about $17 grand on a Song-Beverly Act claim over a defective Kia Forte. That gave her a statutory right to attorneys’ fees under the Act. She submitted a fee motion for $350k in lodestar from 16 different lawyers, requesting a 1.5 multiple. The trial court ultimately awarded only $115k citing a “disconnect” between the damages and the billed time, giving an effective lodestar multiple of .33.

A Bunch of Stuff After a Class Action Trial

Espejo v. The Copley Press, No. D065397 (D4d1 Jul. 7, 2017)

This is a post-trial appeal after a bench trial in an employment class action brought by newspaper delivery persons. The big substantive issue is whether the class were employees of the Newspaper or independent contractors. Having found they were employees, the court awarded about $3 million in restitution under the UCL, plus $1.7 million in prejudgment interest and $6 million in attorneys’ fees ($1.25 of which was to be paid out of the award, the remainder by defendants). There are a lot of issues, a good number of them with some procedural bearing.