LOS ANGELES (Legal Newsline) - A labor lawyer whose dream of $300,000 in fees for helping a client win $7,600 was shattered by a Los Angeles judge is heading back to court to argue what a reasonable amount would be.
The case took four years and led to a seven-day trial and resulted in plaintiff Elinton Gramajo recovering about $19,000 less than he was seeking. Gramajo was a delivery driver for Joe's Pizza on Sunset who alleged he wasn't provided rest and meal breaks.
He also claimed Joe's failed to pay wages at the time of his termination and failed to reimburse business expenses. But though he recovered $7,659.93, his lawyer Alfredo Nava asked for $296,920 in fees, pursuant to Labor Code rules entitling employees who prevail in their disputes to reasonable litigation costs like attorneys fees.
Nava also asked for $27,000 in costs. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Jon Takasugi found that excessive, ruling Nava over-litigated the matter. The six-figure request was disproportionate to the four-figure recovery, he said.
Code of Civil Procedure section 1033 allows judges to deny litigation costs when plaintiffs file their case as an unlimited civil proceeding but only recover an amount available in a limited civil case. Gramajo sought $26,159, just over the jurisdictional amount, but recovered less than that threshold.
But on March 25, the Second Appellate District reversed, holding Judge Takasugi should have awarded "reasonable" costs and fees as required by Labor Code, remanding the case for him to figure out how much that should be.
"As a note of caution, our holding should not be read as a license for attorneys litigating minimum and overtime wage cases to over-file their cases or request unreasonable and excessive cost awards free of consequence," Justice Victor Viramontes wrote.
"Under Labor Code..., a prevailing employee is still only entitled to a reasonable fee and cost award. In assessing requests for litigation costs, trial courts must always be guided by what is reasonable and exercise their discretion to strike costs or reduce fees they find unreasonable."
Judge Takasugi doesn't seem ready to award the lawyer anywhere near what he requested, He criticized Nava for admitting only 12 exhibits at trial despite 15 sets of written discovery requests and 14 depositions noticed.
"Plaintiff's case clearly should have been brought in limited jurisdiction, was extremely straightforward, and demanded very little skill," Takasugi wrote.
"Despite this, Plaintiff's counsel repeatedly engaged in conduct which evinced a prioritization of gamesmanship over professionalism and which bore no proportional relationship to the work actually required to litigate the underlying claims."