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 ↗

Related Parts of This Source

Full Text

1,730 chars

Realty that argued that it was unreasonable and a waste of time for the Cromars to

spend more than six minutes engaging in settlement communication. TAG Realty cited

a copy of Cromars’ counsels’ time sheet, wherein it highlighted 4.1 hours reported by

Anderson, which seems to include the challenged 2.9 hours, and 0.8 hours reported by

Santiago that included time spent on settlement discussions. 13 The trial court simply

disregarded the record before it in blaming the Cromars for the lack of settlement.

13
The highlighted time records were attached to TAG Realty’s counsel’s supporting
declaration, which stated that “[c]ounsel for Plaintiffs and TAG Realty counsel exchanged
several emails and phone calls related to a potential settlement agreement in advance of the
Court’s ruling on Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment. Copies of the emails regarding
settlement can be provided to the Court upon request.”
23
For the current opinion, go to https://www.lexisnexis.com/clients/wareports/.
87780-1-I/24

Even assuming the trial court agreed with TAG Realty’s objections and thus

subtracted 4 hours of Anderson’s work and 0.8 hours of Santiago’s work, the lodestar

would consist of 11.6 hours for Anderson and 36.5 hours for Santiago. The lodestar

calculation at the court-reduced hourly rate would be as follows:

(11.6 hours x $500) + (36.5 hours x $450) = $22,225

But the trial court awarded a total final fee amount of $7,200, which is more than a 32

percent reduction from the amount that would be awarded at the reduced hourly rate

with the reduction in hours proposed by TAG Realty. This ignores any analysis of the

time Cromars’ counsels actually incurred. Besides the eminently reasonable 8.1 hours