Court: ‘No Way on Earth’ Should Lawyers Get Fee of $46K for $45 Error
An off-duty police officer sought class action status for his lawsuit after he was shorted $45 in pay for crowd control, and following a settlement, his law firm sought $46,000 in attorney fees.
That’s not going to happen. “No way on earth,” says a California appeals court, which slashed the fees to $500, according to a story in the Recorder.
“At the risk of understatement,” Justice Miriam Vogel wrote for the court, “there is no way on earth this case justified the hours purportedly billed” by lawyers at the Los Angeles law firm of Harris & Ruble.
The plaintiff, Michael Harrington, settled the case for $10,500 after a Los Angeles judge ruled that “neither the facts nor the law” support class action certification. The appeals court quoted the trial judge, William Fahey, who wrote that Harrington “has been paid a windfall of $10,500, which can and should be shared with his many attorneys.”
