Messih v. Mercedes-Benz USA, LLC
- William Orrick
- 3:21-cv-03032
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 5
In Messih v. Mercedes-Benz, Judge Orrick granted Messih’s fee motion, awarding $38,516.40 in fees and $1,821.43 in costs.
Gamil Messih received an award of $38,516.40 in attorney fees and $1,821.43 in costs from Mercedes-Benz USA, LLC after their vehicle-warranty case settled. The ruling also denied Messih’s requested fee multiplier.
What happened
Messih v. Mercedes-Benz USA, LLC involved attorney fees after Messih’s vehicle-warranty case settled. Mercedes-Benz had paid Messih $95,000, and he had surrendered the vehicle, but the parties disagreed about fees and costs.
Messih requested $71,914.18, including a 1.5 multiplier on his attorney-fee request. Mercedes-Benz argued that many billed hours were clerical, administrative, duplicative, or otherwise unrecoverable, and that no multiplier was justified.
Judge William Orrick granted the fee motion but awarded $38,516.40 in attorney fees and $1,821.43 in costs, for a total of $40,337.83. He applied reductions for clerical and administrative work and for inefficiency and block billing, and he denied the requested multiplier.
The detailed version
- Messih v. Mercedes-Benz USA, LLC · No. 3:21-cv-03032
- William Orrick
- Jan. 9, 2023
Background
Gamil Messih sued Mercedes-Benz USA, LLC under California’s Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act, alleging that Mercedes-Benz sold him a defective vehicle and failed to repair, replace, or repurchase it. Mercedes-Benz removed the case from state court to the Northern District of California.
Mercedes-Benz moved to compel arbitration, and Messih moved to send the case back to state court. The court denied both motions without oral argument and referred the case to private alternative dispute resolution. The parties later reported a settlement. Mercedes-Benz paid Messih $95,000, and Messih surrendered the vehicle, but they could not agree on attorney fees and costs.
The Fee Requests
Messih requested a lodestar of $46,728.50, a 1.5 multiplier of $23,364.25, and $1,821.43 in costs and expenses, for a total request of $71,914.18. A lodestar is the reasonable number of hours worked multiplied by reasonable hourly rates. Mercedes-Benz argued that the award should be no more than $10,600 in attorney fees, separate from costs and expenses.
The court found that the attorneys’ hourly rates were reasonable. It agreed, however, that some billing entries covered clerical work, such as calendaring, filing documents, and receiving emails, which generally is not separately recoverable as attorney fees. Because the billing was grouped together in blocks, the court could not determine precisely how much of the challenged work was clerical, so it removed half of the $7,365 in challenged entries, or $3,682.50.
The court also excluded $250 for administrative tasks involving petitions for attorneys to appear in the court and registration with the court’s electronic notification system. These reductions left a lodestar of $42,796.
Multiplier and Additional Reduction
The court reduced the remaining lodestar by 10%. It described the case as straightforward, involving little discovery and only two substantive motions that were resolved without oral argument. The court found no novel or particularly difficult legal questions and no indication that the litigation prevented counsel from taking other work. It also concluded that the hourly rates already compensated counsel for the contingent risk of the litigation.
The court denied a multiplier. It found that using six attorneys, four paralegals, and one legal assistant in a simple case created inefficiencies. Block billing also made it impossible to determine with certainty what work was performed on each task.
Disposition
The court granted Messih’s motion for attorney fees in the amount of $38,516.40. It also awarded $1,821.43 in costs, for a total award of $40,337.83.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.