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

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

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record supported that the class claims were based on different facts and legal theories

than the individual claims. Fiore, 169 Wn. App. at 352; see Loeffelholz, 119 Wn. App. at

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For the current opinion, go to https://www.lexisnexis.com/clients/wareports/.
87780-1-I/17

690-93. As referenced above, TAG Realty did not even argue that the Cromars’ class

allegations resulted in wasteful work. Instead, the court’s order shows that the most it

did was disparage the Cromars’ pursuit of a class action for “a very straightforward

claim” and effectively presume that time spent on class action-related discovery was

excludable. Not only does the order rely on an argument TAG Realty never made and

for which there is no factual support, it also disregards the issues that were disputed

and the inherent reasonableness of the Cromars’ counsels’ limited discovery.

Once counsel has elected to take a case, even a small one resulting from a

residential damage deposit, the Rules of Professional Conduct do not give counsel

leeway to skip over a reasonable investigation of their client’s rights, as the trial court’s

order seems to envision. See RPC 1.2(a), 1.3 & cmt. 1. Had the trial court addressed

the claimed time in its order, it would have discovered that counsels devoted a mere 8.1

hours to billable discovery. This included 3.3 hours drafting discovery to TAG Realty,

2.3 hours reviewing its responses and seeking the supplementation promised by TAG

Realty, 0.3 hours in three entries following up on the supplementation, and 2.2 hours

reviewing the supplemental information. As noted above, this led to counsels’

conclusion that those affected by TAG Realty’s illegally withheld deposits were too few