Operating Engineers Health And Welfare Trust Fund For Northern California v…

Background

Plaintiffs included Operating Engineers Local Union No. 3, related employee benefit plans governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), and the Heavy and Highway Committee, a trust established under the Labor Management Relations Act. Plaintiffs alleged that an agreement with defendants required defendants to make payments based on employee work hours, maintain timecards, permit audits, and reimburse audit-related costs.

After defendants allegedly failed to comply with an audit request, plaintiffs sent a demand letter in December 2018. Plaintiffs filed this action in April 2019 seeking to compel the audit and recover unpaid costs the audit might reveal. Defendants did not respond to the complaint or amended complaint and did not appear at two case-management conferences. The court ordered an audit. The audit, apparently completed with defendants’ cooperation, found no payment discrepancies, but plaintiffs continued to seek attorney’s fees and audit-related costs.

Analysis

Plaintiffs requested $3,772.00 in attorney’s fees and $980.61 in other litigation costs. The court stated that the order concerned the assignment of fees and costs, not the substance of the parties’ agreement, and therefore did not decide whether plaintiffs correctly interpreted the agreement’s fee provisions.

Instead, the court relied on Section 1132(g) of Title 29, which permits a court to award reasonable attorney’s fees and costs to either party in an ERISA action, subject to the statute’s terms. The court considered factors including defendants’ culpability or bad faith, their ability to pay, deterrence, whether plaintiffs sought to benefit an ERISA plan’s participants and beneficiaries or resolve a significant ERISA question, and the relative merits of the parties’ positions. The court found that defendants’ failure to respond to plaintiffs’ demand, pleadings, and court orders, including their failure to attend two conferences, supported an award.

The court used the lodestar method, which calculates fees by multiplying reasonable hours by reasonable hourly rates. It found reasonable the 20.5 hours billed by two attorneys and two paralegals, as well as their hourly rates. The requested attorney’s fees were $329.00 for Michele Stafford, $2,093.00 for Luz Mendoza, $1,066.50 for Nargis Shaghasi, and $283.50 for Alicia Wood, totaling $3,772.00. The court also found the requested $980.61 in litigation costs reasonable.

Disposition

The court granted plaintiffs’ motion for attorney’s fees and costs totaling $4,752.61. The opinion does not identify the judge by name.