California Court of Appeal

Judgment in favor of plaintiff-attorney, who brought an action against defendant-client for the reasonable value of the services he rendered in two divorce cases and a Marvin action, awarding plaintiff-attorney $7.8 million in attorney fees, is reversed and remanded, where: 1) plaintiff-attorney represented defendant-client without a statutorily required written hourly or contingency fee agreement; 2) under the circumstances of this case, there was no legal or equitable justification for applying a multiplier to the lodestar amount of attorney fees found by the jury; 2) the trial court erred by instructing the jury that it could apply a multiplier to the lodestar amount; 3) the jury award was excessive and inequitable; and 4) the trial court is instructed to enter a new judgment on the special verdict form awarding plaintiff-attorney a $1.8 million lodestar amount, minus certain deductions made in the original judgment, based on the jury findings of $1,000 per hour as the reasonable hourly rate and 1,800 hours as the reasonable number of hours expended on the two divorce cases and the Marvin action.

Appellate Information

• Decided 06/18/2014
• Published 06/18/2014

Judges

• MOSK

Court

• California Court of Appeal

Counsel