In 2017, Michael Cash worked as a captain in the Los Angeles County Fire Department and also served as a training captain for the Department’s training academies. When plaintiff complained to the Department’s battalion chief of training that the chief should have terminated a female recruit for failing a test that ordinarily results in automatic termination from a training academy, plaintiff was removed as a training captain in future academies.

Cash thereafter sued the County of Los Angeles (the County), alleging that his removal constituted (1) retaliation for reporting gender discrimination in violation of the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) (Gov. Code, § 12940 et seq.), (2) a failure to take reasonable steps to prevent such etaliation in violation of FEHA, and (3) retaliation for whistleblowing in violation of Labor Code section 1102.5.1

The matter proceeded to a 20-day jury trial in the spring of 2023. The jury found for plaintiff on all three claims and awarded him $450,000.

The County filed a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV) or, alternatively, for a new trial. After a round of briefing, which included an opposition from plaintiff that included 28 exhibits encompassing 385 pages, the trial court denied the motion.

In August 2023, plaintiff filed a motion requesting $705,730 in attorney fees. In support of that motion, plaintiff’s attorney declared that the law firm’s hourly rates were (1) $600 for partners, (2) $400 for associates, and (3) $150 for paralegals; however, the invoices submitted in support of the $705,730 total reflected a higher hourly rate of $500 for associates and $200 for paralegals. In October 2023, plaintiff filed a supplemental request, seeking an additional $29,580 in attorney fees related to (1) additional hours opposing the County’s post-trial motions, (2) filing the motion for attorney fees, and (3) opposing the County’s motion to tax costs. This brought plaintiff’s request to a total of $735,310.

Following a hearing, the trial court awarded plaintiff $455,546 in attorney fees. The court started from plaintiff’s originally proffered lodestar of $705,730, declining to include plaintiff’s supplemental request in the lodestar calculation. From that amount, the court deducted $54,950 to reflect the lower billing rates for associates and paralegals set forth in plaintiff’s attorney’s declaration. The court deducted a further $195,234—that is, an “across-the-board percentage cut” of 30 percent from the adjusted $650,780 lodestar – because the court’s “review of the billing records” indicated that “there has been unreasonable padding” because “[s]ome of the work appeared to have been duplicative” and because plaintiff’s attorneys unnecessarily prolonged trial with unnecessary prefatory statements during witness questioning. That resulted in the adjusted lodestar fee award of $455,546. The court declined to further reduce the award based on the County’s other arguments.

Also in August 2023, plaintiff filed a memorandum of costs seeking $132,445.32. The County moved to tax those costs, challenging several items including $4,300 associated with one of plaintiff’s expert witnesses, Donald Lassig (Lassig). Following a hearing, the trial court denied much of the County’s motion, but did tax $4,300 in plaintiff’s costs associated with Lassig.

Plaintiff timely appealed the attorney fees and costs orders. The Court of Appeal affirmed the reduced attorney fee award for the plaintiff in the published portion of the case in Cash v. County of Los Angeles CA2/5 – B336980 – (May 2025),and in the unpublished portion of this opinion also affirmed the trial court’s denial of a motion to tax the plaintiff’s costs.

“Until recently, appellate courts in California uniformly “review[ed] attorney fee awards on an abuse of discretion standard” (Laffitte v. Robert Half Internat. Inc. (2016) 1 Cal.5th 480, 488 (Laffitte)), and would infer findings and defer to a trial court’s “general observation that an attorney overlitigated a case” or otherwise overcharged for fees (Karton v. Ari Design & Construction, Inc. (2021) 61 Cal.App.5th 734, 744; California Common Cause v. Duffy (1987) 200 Cal.App.3d 730, 754-755 (Duffy)).”

“Recently, however, a handful of California courts have employed “heightened scrutiny” – imported from federal cases interpreting a federal civil rights statute (namely, 42 U.S.C. § 1988) – and on that basis have demanded that a trial court articulate “case-specific reasons for [any] percentage reduction,” including a “clear[]” “expla[nation of] its reasons for choosing the particular negative multiplier [or percentage] that it chose.” (Warren v. Kia Motors America, Inc. (2018) 30 Cal.App.5th 24, 37, 41 (Warren); Snoeck v. ExakTime Innovations, Inc. (2023) 96 Cal.App.5th 908, 921 (Snoeck); see Kerkeles v. City of San Jose (2015) 243 Cal.App.4th 88, 101-104 (Kerkeles)).”

“Other courts have declined to employ this importation of federal law (Morris v. Hyundai Motor America (2019) 41 Cal.App.5th 24, 37 & fn. 6 (Morris)), and we join them in doing so.“

“Importing the federal standard exceeds the federal courts’ rationale for employing heightened scrutiny of specific fee awards and is inconsistent with our State’s longstanding policy that “[t]he ‘experienced trial judge is the best judge of the value of professional services rendered in [their] court.’” (Serrano v. Priest (1977) 20 Cal.3d 25, 49 (Serrano).)”