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Stevens v. 396 Investment Co.5/17/2005
question of whether the fees awarded were reasonable. The Salyers' attorney declared that his law firm had expended 5,117 hours on the case over a period of seven years. In reviewing the Salyers' fee request, the court remarked that there had been two trials, the first one lasting three months and the second lasting six to eight weeks. After discounting some of the hours worked, to a total of approximately 3,300 approved hours, and allocating 1,100 hours to each of the three groups of plaintiffs that had been represented collectively, the court concluded that the fee was reasonable at a rate of approximately $350 per hour.
As this shows, the court did not apply a mathematical offset formula of the type Anaheim desires. Rather, it looked at the total number of hours worked, the stature of the law firm, the number of years involved, the number of trials involved, and the length of the trials. These are all appropriate factors for consideration. (See Salton Bay Marina, Inc. v. Imperial Irrigation Dist., supra, 172 Cal.App.3d at pp. 957-958.) Anaheim makes no mention of the court's analysis and makes no effort to state why the fees as so awarded are unreasonable. In short, it fails to show either that the trial court abused its discretion in making the award of attorney fees to the Salyers or that award was not reasonable. (See id. at p. 950 [award of attorney fees in inverse condemnation action within sound discretion of trial court]; Andre v. City of West Sacramento, supra, 92 Cal.App.4th at pp. 536-539 [in inverse condemnation action, attorney fees must be actually incurred and reasonable].) The attorney fee award is affirmed.
(8) Stevenses
The Stevenses sought $403,329.30 in attorney fees. They explained that they had agreed to pay their attorney a contingency fee amount equal to one-third of their recovery. They multiplied the fair market value of their property, as stated in the special verdict, by one-third to arrive at the amount of their fee request.
Although Anaheim cites no portion of the appellant's appendix containing a copy of any order awarding attorney fees to the Stevenses, it does cite a portion of the reporter's transcript in which the court announced an award of $362,996. The Stevenses do not contend that the court ordered otherwise. It appears the court applied a reduction of $40,333.30 to the amount sought.
Anaheim claims the Stevenses were entitled to no attorney fees at all. Anaheim asserts that the proper attorney fee award should have been calculated in this manner: (1) a net real property award amount of $562,399 should have been multiplied by the one-third contingency fee amount for a resulting figure of $187,466 in fees actually incurred, and (2) an offset in the amount of $427,990 should have been applied to the $187,466 fee amount, for an attorney fee award amount of zero.
While Anaheim does not take the time to explain, in its opening brief, how it came up with the $562,399 figure for the net real property award, the explanation is contained in its opposition to the Stevenses' attorney fees motion. In the opposition, Anaheim stated that the (approximate) judgment amount of $1,233,100 (which already reflected offsets), minus the amount of relocation expenses and emotional distress damages, was equal to $562,399. Also, we observe that if one subtracts the amount of the total offset as indicated in the judgment from the fair market value of the Stevenses' property as reflected in the special verdict, one arrives at a figure of $562,399.12. However, Anaheim fails to cite any authority dictating that the determination of the attorney fee award must be made by multiplying the figure so obtained by the contingency fee am
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