Lemberg v. San Francisco Opera Association

Background

The Opera filed a motion to enforce a confidential settlement agreement that it said it had entered with Lemberg. It also requested attorney’s fees incurred in connection with that motion. In an earlier order, the court found that the parties had entered an enforceable settlement agreement and that the settlement required the prevailing party in an enforcement action to receive all attorney’s fees and costs reasonably incurred. The court denied part of the Opera’s original fee request, deferred ruling on $14,750, and directed the Opera to provide a detailed breakdown of the additional hours claimed.

The Opera’s supplemental submission stated that its lawyer had spent more than 68.9 hours on the enforcement motion and related matters at a rate of $295 per hour. The Opera sought $20,325.50. The court applied the “lodestar” method, which calculates fees by multiplying reasonably necessary hours by a reasonable hourly rate.

Court’s Analysis

The court found the $295 hourly rate reasonable based on counsel’s experience. It did not, however, find all the claimed time reasonably necessary to enforce the settlement.

The court reduced the 18.3 hours spent reviewing hundreds of emails and voicemails concerning historical settlement negotiations to two hours. The enforcement motion relied primarily on the Opera’s December 31, 2019 offer, Lemberg’s acceptance that day, and a small number of later clarifying communications. The court found that the remaining 17.8 hours spent outlining, researching, drafting, and supporting the enforcement motion—including drafting an accompanying sealing motion—were reasonably expended.

The court reduced by one-third the 10.4 hours spent reviewing Lemberg’s opposition and preparing the reply because approximately one-third of the reply addressed procedural defects in Lemberg’s filings. The court noted that Lemberg was representing herself and was entitled to some latitude concerning procedural rules.

The court found that most time spent on out-of-court communications concerned peripheral disputes, other motions, or efforts to resolve the case outside the enforcement motion, and therefore was not reasonably expended on enforcing the settlement. Of the time concerning ancillary motions, the court found 1.5 hours reasonably expended. Those motions included Lemberg’s motions to amend, the Opera’s motion to strike, Lemberg’s requests for more time to oppose, and the Opera’s motions to seal Lemberg’s filings.

The court also reduced by half the 4.3 hours attributed to preparing the fee request because more than half of the underlying entries concerned unnecessary motions and communications. Finally, the court rejected Lemberg’s argument that her financial circumstances warranted denying or reducing the contractual fee award. It relied on the reasoning that a losing party’s financial condition should not be considered when setting fees required by contract and stated that the parties should be bound by the settlement terms they accepted.

Ruling

Judge Maxine M. Chesney found that the Opera was entitled to fees for 31.5 hours of work at $295 per hour. The court granted the Opera’s request for attorney’s fees and awarded it $9,292.50.