Wash. Court of Appeals published opinion — 877801 orderandopinion.pdf

Citation: Wash. Court of Appeals published opinion — 877801 orderandopinion.pdf
Jurisdiction: Washington (state)
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Original Source: https://www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/pdf/877801%20orderandopinion.pdf ↗

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Wn. App. 665, 690-91, 82 P.3d 1199 (2004). However, where a plaintiff’s claims for

relief involve a common core set of facts or are based on related legal theories, a trial

court should not view a lawsuit as a series of discrete claims and therefore should not

segregate the claims in determining an award of fees. Fiore v. PPG Indus., Inc., 169

Wn. App. 325, 352, 279 P.3d 972 (2012) (citing Brand v. Dep’t of Lab. & Indus., 139

Wn.2d 659, 672-73, 989 P.2d 1111 (1999)).

Thus, a trial court must first determine if claims are reasonably segregable, and if

so, the court must separate the time spent on claims or theories essential to the cause

of action for which fees are authorized and counsel time spent on theories relating to

other causes of action. Loeffelholz, 119 Wn. App. at 690-92; Travis v. Wash. Horse

Breeders Ass’n, 111 Wn.2d 396, 410-11, 759 P.2d 418 (1988). “‘This must include, on

the record, a segregation of the time allowed for the [separate] legal theories.’”

Loeffelholz, 119 Wn. App. at 691 (alteration in original) (quoting Travis, 111 Wn.2d at

411); see, e.g., Chuong Van Pham, 159 Wn.2d at 539-40 (upholding trial court’s

reduction of fees where it, in part, “took care to reduce the fees only in proportion to the

amount of time devoted to … specific tasks [related to plaintiffs’ successful claim]”). A

failure to do so results in an arbitrary award not supported by the record that constitutes

an abuse of discretion. Loeffelholz, 119 Wn. App. at 692.

Here, the trial court did not conduct the proper analysis to determine whether, as

a threshold issue, time spent on the Cromars’ class action claims was segregable from

time spent on their individual claims. This required the court to determine whether the