A Mistake By The Trial Court Did Not Affect The Outcome. Client Nussbaum and attorney Liberty had a fee dispute that they arbitrated pursuant to the Mandatory Fee Arbitration Act (MFAA). The arbitration panel awarded Liberty $75K in fees and $30K in interest. After the notice of the award was mailed and more than 30 […]
Waiver, Invited Error, And Sharp Practices Doom The Appeal. Justice Ikola grabs the reader by the lapels in the opening lines of Diaz v. Professional Community Management, Inc., G053909 (4/3 certified for pub. 11/8/17) (Ikola, O'Leary, Aronson): "A 'sharp practice' is defined as a 'dealing in which advantage is taken or sought unscrupulously. […]
Reasonableness Of Award Did Not Need To Be Addressed, Because Entitlement, Which Parties Agreed To, Was The Real Issue. Once a case is settled, some issues need not be litigated, even though the parties may want to do so. Such was the case in Medina v. South Coast Car Company, Inc., D069820 (4/1 […]
Attorney Charged Discounted Rate, Delayed Collection, And Accepted Hybrid Free Structure Due To Client's Limited Cash. Attorney James D. Daily helped the Stueve Brothers Farms, LLC (Stueve) recover some $20M in property. Stueve and others (Claimants) then sought to arbitrate their fee dispute with Daily. After the arbitrator awarded Daily $1.35 in hourly fees, and […]
The Case Is Heimlich v. Shivji, Case No. H042641 (6th Dist. May 31, 2017). Ordinarily, a prevailing party's request for fees and costs in an arbitration is presented to the arbitrator, before an award is rendered, unless the arbitrator and the parties agree to address fees and costs after an interim award is […]
Absence Of A Record Was A Major Problem For Appellant. Law Offices of Mark Waecker, APC v. Pius Kim, B268212 (2/5 12/1/16) (Turner, Kriegler, Kumar) (unpublished) illustrates the proposition that an arbitrator’s decision is generally not reviewable for factual or legal errors. Moncharsh v. Heily & Blase, 3 Cal.4th 1 (1992). Therefore, the Court […]
Fees Request Treated As “Hot Potato” By Arbitrator And Judge. A nice post dated October 20, 2016 in California Attorney’s Fees summarizes the convoluted procedure in Miceli v. Staples, Inc., Case No D070676 (4th Dist., Div. 1 Oct. 20, 2016) (unpublished), describing the case as one “where the arbitrator and court tossed an attorney’s […]
Sour Wine To Drink? Miners panning gold by Anton Refregier at Rincon Annex Post Office located near the Embarcadero at 101 Spear Street, San Francisco, California. Carol M. Highsmith, photographer. 2012. Library of Congress. California Attorney’s Fees, the blawg that my colleague Mike Hensley and I have contributed to since 2008, has an […]
Interview In Orange County Lawyer Is Summarized Today In California Attorney’s Fees Blawg. My colleague Mike Hensley and I publish a blawg about California Attorney’s Fees. A post today (July 10, 2016) in that blawg summarizes highlights of an interview appearing in the July 2016 edition of the Orange County Lawyer, in which the […]
Presiding Justice Turner Respectfully Dissents. The Fifth Circuit, Division Two, holds that because a law firm’s cause of action to compel arbitration with its client “admitted the existence of a binding agreement to arbitrate the fee dispute, the trial court’s jurisdiction over the merits of plaintiff’s claims was initially limited to a determination of […]