The trial court awarded the plaintiff her fees on the Equal Pay Act claim, but only a fraction of what she claimed entitlement to. She had only spent a portion of her time on the EPA part of the case, after all.
The trial court also awarded the defendant its fees on the wage-hour claim. The net recovery by the Plaintiff was about $4,000. That probably wasn't what the plaintiff's lawyer had in mind when he signed up for the case. So, the plaintiff appealed.
The Court of Appeal upheld the trial court's decision.
when there are two fee shifting statutes in separate causes of action, there can be a prevailing party for one cause of action and a different prevailing party for the other cause of action.Why?
if plaintiff had brought her wage and Equal Pay Act claims in separate actions, defendant would have been entitled to recover its attorney fees in the action asserting the wage claim and plaintiff would have been entitled to recover her attorney fees in the action asserting the Equal Pay Act claim. There is no legal or logical reason why defendant should be precluded from recovering its attorney fees on plaintiff’s wage claim simply because plaintiff combined her wage and Equal Pay Act claims in a single action. By providing that the prevailing party under one statute is entitled to fees, and that a different prevailing party under another statute is entitled to fees, the Legislature expressed an intent that there can be two different prevailing parties under separate statutes in the same action. Thus, a net monetary award to a party does not determine the prevailing party when there are two fee shifting statutes involved in one action
As such, the court rejected the plaintiff's argument that her prevailing on just one of the claims meant she was the "prevailing party" in the lawsuit, precluding the defendant from recovering its fees on the claims on which it had prevailed.
Makes sense, right? So,this is a great case for employers seeking leverage in settlement negotiations when there are multiple fee-shifting statutes involved. But there is one little wrinkle.
Labor Code section 218.5 was amended in 2013 to say that defendants do not recover attorneys fees anymore under that statute unless the plaintiff brought the wage claim "in bad faith." And that's a tough standard. So, it may be that 218.5 will rarely result in a fee award to a prevailing defendant going forward.
This case is Sharif v. Mehusa, Inc. and the opinion is here.
