Gramajo v. Joe’s Pizza on Sunset, Inc., 100 Cal. App. 5th 1094 (2024)

Elinton Gramajo worked as a pizza delivery driver for less than a year and sued his former employer for various Labor Code violations, including minimum and overtime wage claims.  After nearly four years of litigation and extensive discovery, a jury awarded Gramajo only $7,659.93 though his attorneys sought approximately $324,000 in prevailing party costs and attorney’s fees.  The trial court denied the requests for fees and costs in their entirety, finding that plaintiff’s counsel severely over-litigated the case and the requested fees and costs were grossly disproportionate to the limited trial success.  As an example, Gramajo’s counsel propounded 15 sets of written discovery requests and noticed 14 depositions, yet only admitted 12 exhibits at trial.  The trial court relied on Code of Civil Procedure section 1033(a), which gives trial courts discretion to deny prevailing plaintiffs their litigation costs when they file their case as an unlimited civil proceeding but only recover an amount available in a limited civil case.  The Court of Appeal reversed after concluding that Code of Civil Procedure section 1033(a) and Labor Code section 1194 (which provides a mandatory award of reasonable attorney’s fees to employees who prevail in their actions) are in “irreconcilable conflict,” but that Labor Code section 1194 ultimately controls because it is the more recently enacted and specific statute of the two.  The Court then remanded the matter for the trial court to determine a reasonable fee and cost award.