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Disproportionately Large Award of Attorney's Fees, Based Upon Claim That is Largely Unsuccessfull, is Allowed


Muniz v. United Parcel Service, Inc.. - Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals 

Facts:  Kim Muniz, Plaintiff, had been given a performance improvement plan and later demoted, based on unsatisfactory performance by her employer United Parcel Service, Inc., Defendant.  Plaintiff sued and alleged age and gender discrimination, retaliation and negligent supervision and training.  Plaintiff's age discrimination, retaliation, and negligent supervision claims were defeated and/or voluntarily dismissed prior to trial.  As a result, only Plaintiff's gender discrimination claim was tried.  At trial, the jury determined that Plaintiff's demotion was motivated by gender discrimination and awarded Plaintiff damages of only $27,000, contrary to the $700,000 that Plaintiff had asked for.    

Although the Defendant largely prevailed on the claims, Plaintiff filed a motion for recovery of attorney's fees for prevailing on a California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) discrimination claim.  Plaintiff sought attorney's fees in the amount of $1.9 million, based upon a claimed lodestar of $1.3 million and an upward enhancement of 1.5.  After considering the work done by Plaintiff's counsel, Plaintiff's counsel's inability to sufficiently prove the number of hours spent on litigation, and Defendant's argument that the award should be reduced to account for Plaintiff's limited success, the trial court awarded Plaintiff nearly $700,000 in attorney's fees. 

Holding:  The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that, as a result of the deferential standard of review that affords trial court's broad discretion to set the amount of attorney's fees awarded, the Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court's attorney's fees award.  Although the lower court could have reduced the fee award more than it had, the Ninth Circuit declined to hold that this was an abuse of discretion.  Based upon the facts, the lower court had properly considered the issues, including the time spent by Plaintiff's counsel on the litigation part of the successful part of Plaintiff's claim. 

Judgment:  The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that the trial court properly considered the issues and did not abuse its discretion in determining the amount of attorney's fees to award Plaintiff.   

Majority Opinion Judge:  Judge Singleton

Date:  December 5, 2013

Opinion:  http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2013/12/05/11-17282.pdf

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