Peterson v. Sutter Medical Foundation

Background

Sutter Bay Medical Foundation and Sutter Bay Hospitals moved for attorney fees after the court previously granted their motion to strike under California’s anti-SLAPP law. Anti-SLAPP laws provide a procedure for challenging claims based on protected speech or petitioning activity. The court had also granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss in part. The defendants sought fees for the anti-SLAPP motion, certain overlapping work on the motion to dismiss, and their attorney-fee motion.

The defendants initially requested $187,158.86 in fees and $194.85 in costs. Peterson argued that the hours and hourly rates were unreasonable and requested an award of no more than $25,000. Peterson did not oppose the request for costs. The court also granted Peterson’s request for judicial notice of a state-court attorney-fee award.

Attorney-Fee Standards

The court explained that an award of attorney fees to a prevailing defendant on an anti-SLAPP motion is mandatory under California law. It used the lodestar method, which calculates fees by multiplying reasonable hours by a reasonable hourly rate. The party seeking fees must provide evidence supporting both the hours worked and the rates requested. Hours that are excessive, redundant, or unnecessary must be excluded.

Overlapping Work on the Motion to Dismiss

The court ruled that the defendants could recover fees for work on the motion to dismiss only when that work involved common issues of fact and law with the anti-SLAPP motion. They could not recover fees for work performed solely on the motion to dismiss or for work involving only common facts but different legal theories.

The court found 1.4 hours of scheduling work and 15 additional hours of clearly overlapping work, with the latter reduced by 50 percent. It also awarded fees for 13.2 hours of the remaining work, after finding the time records too general to establish that more of the work involved qualifying overlapping issues. In total, the defendants received fees for 21.4 hours of overlapping work.

Hours on the Anti-SLAPP Motion

The defendants requested fees for 103.5 hours spent on the anti-SLAPP motion, reply, and hearing. The court found that the motion involved numerous claims and statements but that the legal issues were relatively straightforward. It reduced certain research and drafting hours by 25 percent because of redundancy and reduced other hours for editing, revising, formatting, and preparing a binder because those tasks did not reasonably require the time billed.

The court awarded 16.3 hours for Michael Abraham and 57.6 hours for Chad DeVeaux on the substantive anti-SLAPP motion.

Hours on the Fee Motion

The defendants requested 56.4 hours for litigating the attorney-fee motion. The court found the requested time excessive given the straightforward nature of the work. It awarded 35 hours for Marisa Livesay and 1.5 hours for DeVeaux.

Hourly Rates

The defendants requested hourly rates of $997.30 for Abraham and DeVeaux and $899.63 for Livesay. The court found Abraham’s requested rate reasonable because of his extensive experience. It reduced DeVeaux’s rate to $900 per hour and Livesay’s rate to $650 per hour because their requested rates exceeded prevailing market rates for the work involved.

Disposition

The court’s final lodestar calculation was $105,331.16 in attorney fees: $29,121.16 for Abraham, $53,460 for DeVeaux, and $22,750 for Livesay. The court granted the motion for attorney fees at the reduced lodestar and awarded $194.85 in costs, for a total award of $105,526.01.