A California judge has ordered Farmers Insurance to pay almost $2.3 million in attorney’s fees to the lawyers of a successful whistleblower/former in-house attorney who claimed his role as a potential witness in a sex bias class action got him fired. The underlying judgment in favor of the whistleblower was $24.36 million – after the Judge reduced the punitive damages award by more than $131 million.

The employee’s attorneys had sought $6.7 million in prevailing-party attorney’s fees, including a “multiplier” of 2 times the actual fees incurred. The employer, on the other hand, recommended an award of approximately $1 million. On Jan. 20, 2023, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ruth A. Kwan awarded the employee’s lawyers $2,266,704, “inclusive of a modest multiplier of 1.1.”

Judge Kwan found the employee’s attorneys’ hourly rates to be excessive. The Judge conducted an analysis of “what amount of fees would be ‘reasonable’ in light of the relative extent or degree of the party’s success in obtaining the results sought.” The lead lawyer for the employee sought an hourly rate of $1,425, hourly rates of up to $1,100 for other senior lawyers and up to $850 for associates who had worked on the case.  The Judge reduced these hourly rates across the board in part because they reflected a mix between current and past rates that were in place when the case was first filed in August 2016. The hourly rates for the lead lawyer were reduced to $1,050 and for the other lawyers who worked on the case to a maximum of $825.

In addition, Judge Kwan made an across-the-board reduction of 10% to the attorney’s fees due to perceived duplicative billing. “Excessive billing was evident” from several attorneys who billed for days at trial without “meaningfully contributing.” This 10% reduction in fees also covered challenges regarding “excessive travel time.”  Judge Kwan did note, however, that a 1.1 multiplier was appropriate in this case in light of the attorneys’ “exceptional skill” in successfully advocating on behalf of an older white male during the height of the “Me Too” movement.

We previously reported about this case in December 2021, when a Los Angeles jury rendered the eye-popping $155.4 million verdict in favor of the employee, including $150 million in punitive damages. However, in May 2022, Judge Kwan determined that the punitive damages award was excessive and significantly reduced it to $18.945 million (resulting in an approximate 3.5:1 ratio of punitive to compensatory damages). Although the employee accepted the reduced award in lieu of a new trial, Farmers Insurance appealed the reduced verdict, and the employee has since filed an appeal as well.

The appeal is pending in the California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, Rudnicki v. Farmers Ins. Exch., et al., Docket No. B321691 (Cal. Ct. App. Jun 27, 2022).

(Link to appeal docket: California Courts – Appellate Court Case Information)

Click here to access the minute order from the trial court.

 

Print:
Email this postTweet this postLike this postShare this post on LinkedIn
Photo of Tony Oncidi Tony Oncidi

Anthony J. Oncidi is the co-chair of the Labor & Employment Law Department and heads the West Coast Labor & Employment group in the firm’s Los Angeles office.

Tony represents employers and management in all aspects of labor relations and employment law, including…

Anthony J. Oncidi is the co-chair of the Labor & Employment Law Department and heads the West Coast Labor & Employment group in the firm’s Los Angeles office.

Tony represents employers and management in all aspects of labor relations and employment law, including litigation and preventive counseling, wage and hour matters, including class actions, wrongful termination, employee discipline, Title VII and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, executive employment contract disputes, sexual harassment training and investigations, workplace violence, drug testing and privacy issues, Sarbanes-Oxley claims and employee raiding and trade secret protection. A substantial portion of Tony’s practice involves the defense of employers in large class actions, employment discrimination, harassment and wrongful termination litigation in state and federal court as well as arbitration proceedings, including FINRA matters.

Tony is recognized as a leading lawyer by such highly respected publications and organizations as the Los Angeles Daily JournalThe Hollywood Reporter, and Chambers USA, which gives him the highest possible rating (“Band 1”) for Labor & Employment.  According to Chambers USA, clients say Tony is “brilliant at what he does… He is even keeled, has a high emotional IQ, is a great legal writer and orator, and never gives up.” Other clients report:  “Tony has an outstanding reputation” and he is “smart, cost effective and appropriately aggressive.” Tony is hailed as “outstanding,” particularly for his “ability to merge top-shelf lawyerly advice with pragmatic business acumen.” He is highly respected in the industry, with other commentators lauding him as a “phenomenal strategist” and “one of the top employment litigators in the country.”

“Tony is the author of the treatise titled Employment Discrimination Depositions (Juris Pub’g 2020; www.jurispub.com), co-author of Proskauer on Privacy (PLI 2020), and, since 1990, has been a regular columnist for the official publication of the Labor and Employment Law Section of the State Bar of California and the Los Angeles Daily Journal.

Tony has been a featured guest on Fox 11 News and CBS News in Los Angeles. He has been interviewed and quoted by leading national media outlets such as The National Law JournalBloomberg News, The New York Times, and Newsweek and Time magazines. Tony is a frequent speaker on employment law topics for large and small groups of employers and their counsel, including the Society for Human Resource Management (“SHRM”), PIHRA, the National CLE Conference, National Business Institute, the Employment Round Table of Southern California (Board Member), the Council on Education in Management, the Institute for Corporate Counsel, the State Bar of California, the California Continuing Education of the Bar Program and the Los Angeles and Beverly Hills Bar Associations. He has testified as an expert witness regarding wage and hour issues as well as the California Fair Employment and Housing Act and has served as a faculty member of the National Employment Law Institute. He has served as an arbitrator in an employment discrimination matter.

Tony is an appointed Hearing Examiner for the Los Angeles Police Commission Board of Rights and has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law and a guest lecturer at USC Law School and a guest lecturer at UCLA Law School.

Photo of David Gobel David Gobel

David R Gobel is an associate in the Labor Department and a member of the Employment Litigation & Counseling Group.

David Gobel earned his J.D at USC Gould School of Law, where he was a Senior Citations Editor of the USC Journal of

David R Gobel is an associate in the Labor Department and a member of the Employment Litigation & Counseling Group.

David Gobel earned his J.D at USC Gould School of Law, where he was a Senior Citations Editor of the USC Journal of Interdisciplinary Law, and part of the executive committee of USC’s Music Law Society. Prior to law school, David worked as a research executive for a marketing research firm in New York.