Labor & Employment Law Blog

In Pellegrino v. Robert Half International, Inc., a companion decision to the decision we previously discussed here, the Court of Appeal addressed certain issues about how awards of attorney's fees are to be determined:

1. The court reiterated that an award of attorney's fees is not available to plaintiffs who prevail on claims for alleged violation of California's Unfair Competition Law codified at California Business and Professions Code Section 17200, et seq., which forbids business practices that are unlawful, unfair, or fraudulent. Plaintiffs alleging violations of the Labor Code nearly always allege also violations of the Unfair Competition Law because a four-year statute of limitations period applies to the Unfair Competition Law instead of the three-year statute of limitations that applies to many alleged violations of the Labor Code.

2. The court held, however, that when alleged violations of the Labor Code and of the Unfair Competition Law are sufficiently interrelated, a court is not required to allocate between fees "incurred" to pursue alleged violation(s) of the Labor Code and fees "incurred" to pursue alleged violations of the Unfair Competition Law. The court held the trial court made no error when it reduced the fee award by 15% to account for fees "incurred" to pursue the plaintiffs' claims for alleged violation of the Unfair Competition law.

3. The court affirmed the trial court's use of a 1.75 multiplier to enhance the award of attorney's fees to the plaintiffs' attorneys for fees "incurred" to pursue the plaintiffs' substantive claims, which effectively increased the award from $558,926.85 to $978,121.98.

4. The court held the trial court erred when it applied a multiplier to the fees "incurred" to pursue the plaintiffs' claims for an award of attorney's fees. The court reasoned that the factors that support applying a multiplier to an award of attorney's fees to the plaintiffs for their substantive claims does not apply to attorney's fees "incurred" to pursue an award of attorney's fees.