Heifetz v. Monas Burgers Clayton LLC.

Background

Shelby Gail Heifetz, who is legally blind, sued Mona’s Burgers Clayton LLC under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, and other state statutes. She alleged that she could not safely navigate the restaurant or reasonably reach its restroom because of access barriers.

The restaurant made a Rule 68 offer of judgment for $8,001. The offer did not include injunctive relief because the restaurant had completed its remediation work. Heifetz accepted the offer, and the court entered judgment in her favor. The remaining dispute concerned attorney’s fees and expert costs. Heifetz requested $44,150 in attorney’s fees and $4,193.75 in expert costs.

Legal Standard

The court explained that the Americans with Disabilities Act and California law authorize fee awards. A prevailing plaintiff in an Americans with Disabilities Act case ordinarily should receive reasonable attorney’s fees unless special circumstances would make an award unjust. The court used the lodestar method, which calculates fees by multiplying reasonable hours by a reasonable hourly rate.

Hourly Rate

Heifetz’s counsel requested an hourly rate of $400 for Irene Karbelashvili. Mona’s Burgers argued that the appropriate rate was $325. The court adopted the $325 rate, relying on other decisions in the district that awarded Karbelashvili that amount and on the prevailing rate for similar work in the community. The defendant did not challenge Irakli Karbelashvili’s $250 hourly rate.

Hours and Costs

The court reduced the compensable hours in several categories:

- It disallowed all hours spent on pleadings after the initial complaint because those hours corrected errors, including deficient claims and claims concerning barriers the defendant was remediating. - It applied a 10-percent reduction to the hours spent preparing the initial complaint because the complaint duplicated an earlier complaint. - It reduced mediation-related fees by 5 percent because the billing records did not show an exercise of billing judgment. - It disallowed fees for pursuing injunctive relief concerning remediated barriers. The court declined to disallow the expert costs, however, because the Americans with Disabilities Act claims were not entirely moot and the plaintiff remained a prevailing party. - It disallowed costs associated with serving the landlords, who were later dismissed. - It disallowed fees incurred in preparing the fee request, sometimes called “fees on fees.”

The court criticized the plaintiff’s counsel’s handling of the case and concluded that the plaintiff had acted unreasonably in pursuing fees and costs. Even so, the court did not find that the plaintiff lost prevailing-party status for purposes of recovering the expert costs.

Disposition

The court granted in part the motion for attorney’s fees and expert costs. It awarded $3,156.75 for pleadings work, $3,400.53 for mediation work, and $4,193.75 in expert costs. The total award was $10,751.03, consisting of $6,557.28 in attorney’s fees and $4,193.75 in expert costs.