Simers v. Los Angeles Times Communications LLC

Summary

T.J. Simers sued his former employer, the Los Angeles Times Communications LLC for, in part, Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) age and disability discrimination claims. The case involved three trials after remands pertaining to damages. The second trial resulted in larger damages. The trial court, however, determined that plaintiff's counsel engaged in misconduct during her closing argument, granting defendant's request for a new trial. The third trial, which was only to determine what noneconomic damages plaintiff could recover for his demotion, resulted in a jury verdict of $1.25 million. Plaintiff was awarded attorney's fees and defendant appealed that order. On appeal, defendant contended that the trial court should have considered plaintiff's counsel's misconduct when determining whether plaintiff was entitled to any fees given that the trial was nullified by the misconduct.

Affirmed. FEHA plaintiffs are entitled to compensation for all time reasonably spent on the litigation in which they prevailed. Even with unsuccessful litigation, compensation is typically warranted unless it involves unrelated claims, claims that were pursued incompetently, or claims in bad faith. Here, first, defense counsel admitted that it was within the trial court's discretion to disallow costs and fees for the second trial, thus admitting that the trial court had discretion to deny or grant fees. Second, the trial court expressly made statements evincing its awareness that plaintiff's counsel's misconduct led to the need for a third trial, and still determined that plaintiff's fees were reasonable. Because the trial court was well aware of what it was doing, awarding only the amount of reasonable fees in relation to the obtained results, it was acting within, and hence did not, abuse its discretion.

— Antoneth Dizon Fong