Brown v. Sonoma County Land Company

Background

Plaintiffs sued Sonoma County Land Company, LLC and E. Richard Thomas over alleged architectural barriers at Evergreen Village, a shopping center owned and operated by Defendants. Plaintiffs asserted claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and several California statutes, along with retaliation and quiet-title claims. After several Plaintiffs died, their survivors were substituted as Plaintiff Representatives.

The parties reached a settlement concerning the requested changes to the property. The court later declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining state-law claims. The parties did not resolve the amount of attorneys’ fees, costs, and litigation expenses, so Plaintiffs filed the motion addressed in this order.

Prevailing-Party Status

The court held that Plaintiffs were prevailing parties under the ADA’s fee provision. The written settlement agreements required Defendants to make specified modifications to the property. Because those agreements legally required Defendants to do something that they otherwise would not have been required to do, the settlement materially changed the parties’ legal relationship and benefited Plaintiffs.

Fee Calculation

Plaintiffs requested $679,965 in attorneys’ fees, including a requested three-times multiplier applied to a $226,655 fee calculation, plus $18,510.90 in costs and litigation expenses. Plaintiffs requested an hourly rate of $650 for attorney Thomas E. Frankovich. The court found that rate unreasonable compared with rates generally awarded in the Northern District of California, but awarded Frankovich $600 per hour in recognition of his experience and skill.

The court independently reviewed Frankovich’s billing records. It reduced the hours billed for complaints and amended complaints because those filings were substantially similar to filings in his other ADA cases. It also reduced the hours billed for the fee motion, routine docket review, administrative tasks, and work affected by Frankovich’s preexisting representation of Plaintiff Brown in other ADA lawsuits. The court calculated 292.2 compensable hours from 348.7 billed hours, producing a lodestar—the hours multiplied by the hourly rate—of $175,320.

The court rejected the requested three-times multiplier. It found that the case did not present particularly novel questions, that the routine nature of the litigation did not justify an enhancement for risk, and that the parties had each potentially contributed to delays, with some delays appearing attributable to Frankovich’s health conditions. The court applied a 30 percent reduction to the lodestar and set the adjusted fee at $122,724.

Offset and Costs

Defendants argued that they should receive a credit for any payment made under a separate monetary settlement between Plaintiffs and Read Investments, LLC. The court concluded that any offset would concern attorneys’ fees included in that settlement, but the settlement appeared to waive claims for attorneys’ fees. The court therefore found that Sonoma County Land Company, LLC and E. Richard Thomas were not entitled to an offset.

The court found the requested $18,510.90 in costs and litigation expenses reasonable and awarded that amount in full.

Disposition

Judge Robart M. Illman granted in part and denied in part Plaintiffs’ motion. The court awarded Plaintiffs’ counsel Thomas E. Frankovich $122,724 in fees and $18,510.90 in costs and litigation expenses, for a total of $141,234.90, against Sonoma County Land Company, LLC and E. Richard Thomas.