Attorneys seeking more than $600,000 in legal fees after they failed to secure a successful outcome for their clients have been reprimanded by a federal judge for assuming they still deserved a big payday after the plaintiffs netted far less than they sought.
The order from Senior U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer of the Northern District of California was issued on June 20 on a motion for attorney fees and costs in product liability litigation against Volkswagen.
Some of the plaintiffs rejected the company’s settlement offer, then sought a significantly higher amount at trial.
“That decision did not turn out well,” Breyer wrote. “Three Plaintiffs received nothing, and three Plaintiffs recovered far less than what Volkswagen offered to settle. As a result, these Plaintiffs paid Volkswagen more than $110,000 in costs under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 68. Only one case—the Sanwicks’—scraped by, and they walked away with $249 more than what Volkswagen had offered four years ago. The average person would say trial was not an unalloyed success for the Plaintiffs.”
The court said the post-settlement-offer litigation “largely was wasted,” singling out the Knight Law Group.
“The Plaintiffs’ attorneys, however, praised their own performance—saying the results were, in their own words, ‘superlative’ and ‘excellent by any measure,’" Breyer wrote. "The attorneys found the results so outstanding that they now come to court asking for over $623,000 in fees and costs.”
Breyer reduced the request by 85 percent.
“To give the Plaintiffs’ attorneys what they’ve asked for would reward their gamesmanship in racking up unnecessary work and hours,” Breyer wrote.
The lawyers in a stipulated order on July 6 submitted new fees, roughly 90 percent less than what they first sought.
The reduction was warranted and should discourage others from overcharging when it wastes the court’s time and people’s money, Tom Manzo, founder and president of the California Business and Industrial Alliance (CABIA) told the Northern California Record.
“It costs taxpayers money to fund the judicial system, and finally we’ve got somebody saying we’ve got a problem here with inflated fees,” Manzo said.
Knight Law Group, the lead firm representing the plaintiffs, did not return a request for comment from the Record. Nor did Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles (CAALA) or Consumer Attorneys Association of California (CAOC), which do legal advocacy work in Sacramento and throughout the state.
“In reviewing the Plaintiffs' invoices spanning 363 pages,” Breyer wrote, “the Court is troubled by some lavish spendings of the attorneys and experts alike.”
In addition to first class flights between Los Angeles and San Francisco, their expenses included executive van service that cost $250 to travel four blocks.
While courts can order attorney fee reductions, one of this magnitude isn’t common, Manzo said.
“I haven’t seen it before at all,” Manzo said. “There’s just not enough oversight and not enough people saying wait a minute, this is a problem; we need more of that. We need more of this from our elected judges, from our appointed judges; people need to be reasonable when it comes to these kinds of cases.”
Judge Breyer, who is the younger brother of retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, was nominated to the federal bench by President Bill Clinton in 1997.