>Tran
v. Haralambus

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed 9/4/13 
Tran v. Haralambus CA2/8

 

 

 

 

 

 

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

 

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts
and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or
ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b).  This opinion has not been certified for
publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115>.

 

 

 

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

 

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

 

DIVISION EIGHT

 

 
>

NEENAH TRAN,               Plaintiff and Respondent,               v.   HARRY HARALAMBUS,               Defendant and Appellant.

B242575         (Los Angeles County       Super. Ct. No. BC 352094)

 

 

            APPEAL
from an order of the Superior Court for the County
of Los
Angeles.  Charles F.
Palmer, Judge.  Affirmed.

 

 

            Harry
Haralambus, in pro. per., for Defendant and Appellant.

 

 

            R.
Jeffery Ward for Plaintiff and Respondent.

 

 

____________________________________




SUMMARY

            Defendant
Harry Haralambus appeals from an order awarding $143,861.87 in attorney fees to
plaintiff Neenah Tran after she prevailed at a bench trial on causes of action
for sexual harassment, assault and battery. 
Defendant contends the court abused its discretion when it awarded
plaintiff the full amount of her fees, because plaintiff recovered only $22,625
in damages, plaintiff did not prevail on other causes of action, and her
attorney fees were three times greater than defendant’s attorney fees.  Defendant has shown no abuse of discretion,
so we affirm the order.

FACTS

            Plaintiff
sued defendant and her employer, Beyond Blue, Inc., for sexual harassment in
violation of the Fair Employment and Housing
Act (FEHA; Gov. Code, § 12900 et seq.), and also alleged 12 other
causes of action, all based on the same facts. 
Plaintiff’s case was consolidated with a case filed by her sister, Tina
Tran. 

Plaintiff
prevailed on her sexual harassment claims, and on causes of action for assault
and battery, against both defendants, and also prevailed on a claim under FEHA
against Beyond Blue, Inc., for failure to prevent harassment and
discrimination.  Plaintiff did not prevail
on the nine other causes of action.href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title="">>>[1]  Plaintiff recovered
damages of $22,625, consisting of noneconomic damages of $20,000 and economic
damages for future psychotherapy of $2,625. 
Plaintiff’s sister did not prevail on any of her claims. 

Plaintiff
filed a motion for attorney fees.  On April 19, 2012, the court ruled that plaintiff was entitled to recover
attorney fees.  The court observed that,
under Code of Civil Procedure section 1033, subdivision (a), the trial court
has discretion to deny attorney fees to a plaintiff who prevails on a FEHA
claim but recovers an amount that could have been recovered in a limited
jurisdiction civil case.href="#_ftn2"
name="_ftnref2" title="">[2]  (See >Chavez v. City of Los Angeles (2010) 47
Cal.4th 970, 976 (Chavez) [“section
1033(a), interpreted according to its plain meaning, gives a trial court
discretion to deny attorney fees to a plaintiff who prevails on a FEHA claim
but recovers an amount that could have been recovered in a limited civil
case”].) 

The trial
court then stated:  “[T]he court finds
that the strong public policy in favor of access to judicial remedies for
employees seeking enforcement of rights created under FEHA, and with respect to
sexual harassment in particular, and that the nature of the conduct which the
court found to have occurred in this case[,] cause the court to exercise its
discretion to award attorneys fees to plaintiff Neenah Tran.” 

Because
plaintiff prevailed but her sister did not, the court had to allocate attorney
fees between the two plaintiffs.  The
court found it impossible to allocate the time spent on each plaintiff’s claims
with precision, and allocated 25 percent of the fees to plaintiff, concluding
that prosecution of plaintiff’s sister’s unsuccessful claims required
substantially greater attorney time.  The
court stated:  “Accordingly, the court
awards plaintiff . . . $143,861.87 in attorney fees.  There will be no multiplier in light of the
amount of the judgment obtained.”

The trial
court then allowed the parties to file briefs. 
On May 17, 2012, the court, after considering the written and oral submissions
of the parties “with respect to the court’s award of attorneys fees to
plaintiff . . . reflected in the minute order of April 19, 2012,” adopted
that order:  “[T]he court affirms and
adopts without modification the award of attorneys fees in the amount of
$143,861.87 to [plaintiff] reflected in the minute order for the reasons there
stated.”  The court found the hourly
rates reasonable and consistent with prevailing rates in the community, and
found the hours were reasonable (taking into account the allocation of fees as
between the two plaintiffs).  Further,
the court said, “The factors asserted by defendants as a basis for reducing the
award were taken into account in the absence of a multiplier and in reaching
the allocation of attorneys fees as between [plaintiff] and [her sister].”

            Defendant
filed a timely notice of appeal.

DISCUSSION

Defendant
contends the trial court abused its discretion by awarding plaintiff the entire
amount of attorney fees allocated to her claims.  Abuse of discretion is shown, he claims, by
plaintiff’s recovery of less than the jurisdictional amount of damages in an
unlimited civil case, by her failure to prevail on her other causes of action,
and by the fact that her fees were three times greater than the fees of all the
defendants.  (Defendant also contends the
trial court erred in issuing amended judgments after this appeal was filed, but
does not say how or why those amended judgments have any relevance to his
appeal of the court’s attorney fee order. 
We therefore do not address this point.)

Defendant’s
claim of abuse of discretion in the attorney fee award has no merit.

Defendant
relies on Chavez, supra, 47 Cal.4th
970, where the court found no abuse of discretion when the trial court denied
attorney fees to a plaintiff who recovered only $11,500 on a FEHA claim.  (Chavez,
at p. 976.)  In Chavez, the Supreme Court examined the extent of the plaintiff’s
success, observing his “single successful claim apparently was not closely
related to or factually intertwined with plaintiff’s many unsuccessful claims .
. . .”  (Chavez, at p. 990.)  >Chavez found the trial court could
reasonably conclude the plaintiff’s request for more than $870,000 in fees was
“grossly
inflated when considered in light of the single claim on which plaintiff
succeeded, the amount of damages awarded on that claim, and the amount of time
an attorney might reasonably expect to spend in litigating such a claim.  This fact alone was sufficient, in the trial
court’s discretion, to justify denying attorney fees altogether.”  (Id. at
p. 991.) 

Further, Chavez found that the trial court “could, and did, reasonably
conclude that this action should have been brought as a limited civil
case.”  (Chavez, supra, 47 Cal.4th at p. 991.)  The court continued:  “The trial court was familiar with all of the
trial proceedings and with the evidence presented at trial.  It was therefore in a much better position
than this court, or the Court of Appeal, to determine whether this action could
fairly and effectively have been litigated as a limited civil case and also
whether plaintiff’s attorney should have realized, well before the action
proceeded to trial, that plaintiff’s injury was too slight to support a damage
recovery in excess of $25,000.  We have
no reason to question the trial court’s implied determinations on these
points.”  (Ibid.) 

Here, as in Chavez, plaintiff recovered less than the jurisdictional amount on
a FEHA claim in an unlimited civil case. 
But the likeness ends there.  In
this case, plaintiff’s successful and unsuccessful claims were all based on the
same facts.  A reduced fee award is
appropriate when a claimant achieves limited success, but “fees are not reduced
when a plaintiff prevails on only one of several factually related and closely
intertwined claims . . . .”  (>Chavez, supra, 47 Cal.4th at p. 989; see
Bell v. Vista Unified School Dist. (2000)
82 Cal.App.4th 672, 687 [“fees need not be apportioned when incurred for
representation on an issue common to both causes of action in which fees are
proper and those in which they are not”].) 
Even on appeal, defendant has not articulated the manner in which the
court should have allocated attorney fees as between claims plaintiff prevailed
on and those she did not. 

More importantly, the point in >Chavez is that the trial court has >discretion to deny fees in a FEHA case
that could have been brought as a limited jurisdiction case – not that it >must do so.  Indeed, Chavez
specifically stated that, “[i]n exercising that discretion, . . . the trial
court must give due consideration to the policies and objectives of the FEHA in
general and of its attorney fee provision in particular.”  (Chavez,
supra, 47 Cal.4th at p. 976.) 

That is exactly what the trial court did in
this case.  After acknowledging its
discretion to award or deny fees, the court concluded it would exercise its
discretion to award fees, both because of “the
strong public policy in favor of access to judicial remedies for employees
seeking enforcement of rights created under FEHA, and with respect to sexual
harassment in particular,” and
because of “the nature of the conduct which the court found to have occurred in
this case . . . .”  After so deciding,
the court gave the parties another chance to brief the attorney fees
issue.  Defendant then made the same
arguments to the trial court that it now makes on appeal:  “limited success,” “disproportionate fee
requests in relation to the amount of the damages obtained,” attorney fees
several times higher than defense counsel’s fees, and that counsel should have
anticipated a verdict less than $25,000.

The trial
court considered defendant’s arguments, but adopted without modification the
award of fees as stated in its April 19, 2012 minute order, “for the reasons
there stated.”  Further, the trial court
addressed defendants’ arguments for reduced fees:  “The factors asserted by defendants as a
basis for reducing the award were taken into account in the absence of a
multiplier and in reaching the allocation of attorneys fees as between
[plaintiff] and [her sister].”

On these
facts, no abuse of the trial court’s discretion has been or can be shown.

DISPOSITION

            The
order awarding attorney fees is affirmed. 
Plaintiff shall recover her costs on appeal.

 

                                                                                                GRIMES,
J.

 

            We
concur:

 

 

                        RUBIN,
Acting P. J.

 

 

                        FLIER,
J.