Garrick v. Garrick

Background

Owen Garrick brought a civil-rights case against the County of Alameda, Alameda County Emergency Medical Services, the Alameda County Public Health Department, and Jocelyn Freeman Garrick in her official capacity, collectively called the County Defendants in the opinion. The County Defendants filed motions to dismiss and motions under California’s anti-SLAPP statute, which allows a defendant to seek early dismissal of claims based on protected speech or petitioning activity.

The court later granted the motion to dismiss the federal claims in Garrick’s second amended complaint, declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining state-law claims, and denied the second anti-SLAPP motion without prejudice. The County Defendants then sought $34,033.12 in attorney’s fees and costs. The request included work on both anti-SLAPP motions, motions to dismiss, the fee motion, and related tasks.

In a December 23, 2024 order, the court denied the fee request without prejudice and allowed the County Defendants to submit a revised request. The court directed them to exclude time that was not compensable and explain how they did so.

Legal standard

Under California law, a defendant who prevails on a special motion to strike generally may recover attorney’s fees and costs. Recoverable fees can include work on the underlying anti-SLAPP motion and work enforcing the right to fees. But defendants seeking fees must document the hours and rates and provide a proper basis for determining how much time was spent on particular claims. Fees for work unrelated to the anti-SLAPP or fee motions may be deducted, while fees for work involving overlapping legal issues may be recoverable.

The court’s analysis

The County Defendants’ revised request excluded work on the motions involving the second amended complaint and work related to requested dismissals of Karl Doe and John Doe. But they continued to seek fees for their Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss Garrick’s first amended complaint. They argued that all of Garrick’s claims arose from the same factual theory involving Jocelyn Freeman Garrick’s alleged use of her position with the County in ongoing divorce proceedings.

The court rejected that reasoning because the relevant question was whether the defendants used overlapping legal theories, not merely whether the claims involved common facts. The court identified several arguments from the motion to dismiss—including claim splitting, the sufficiency of the conspiracy claim, failure to satisfy California Government Code claim-presentation requirements, and lack of factual support for a California Bane Act claim—and found that the County Defendants had not shown those arguments overlapped with their anti-SLAPP arguments.

The court also found that the proposed 10% reduction was inadequate. The County Defendants did not show that 10% reasonably estimated the fees for the non-overlapping portions of the motion to dismiss. The explanation that their attorneys’ rates were already below reasonable Northern District of California rates did not address the court’s concern about awarding fees for work not closely connected to the anti-SLAPP motion.

Disposition

The court found that the County Defendants had not given it a way to determine which fees were closely connected to the anti-SLAPP motion. It therefore denied the County Defendants’ motion for attorney’s fees.