Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
Super. Ct. No. SCV19675
ROBIE, J.
Plaintiffs James S. Marinos, Joyce M. Deneris, and Athena May (collectively, plaintiffs) are the lessees of a parcel of real property in Rocklin that is used for a hotel. By this action, they sought to recover damages from the City of Rocklin and the owners/lessors of the property (collectively, the Boroskis) for repairs plaintiffs had to make to the parking lot because of displacement and irregularities allegedly caused by an underground methane extraction system. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the city and the Boroskis on the ground plaintiffs had failed to provide them with written notice of the problem before filing suit, as required by the terms of the settlement agreement plaintiffs were seeking to enforce. The court thereafter awarded the city and the Boroskis $184,605 in prevailing party attorney fees pursuant to a fee provision in the settlement agreement.
The owners/lessors are Stella Boroski, Fred Borowski (both individually and in a representative capacity), and Boroski and Borowski (a corporation).
On appeal from the judgment, plaintiffs contend the trial court erred in granting summary judgment because neither the city nor the Boroskis ever gave them notice of the settlement agreement, as required by the terms of the agreement itself. They also contend the trial court should have granted their motion for reconsideration on the ground that the provision requiring them to give notice of the problem to the city and the Boroskis before suing was a restrictive covenant that could not “run with the land.” Additionally, they contend the trial court should have granted their new trial motion on the ground the notice provision enforced against them is unconscionable. In a separate appeal, plaintiffs challenge the attorney fees award on numerous grounds. Finding no error and no abuse of discretion in either the granting of summary judgment or the award of attorney fees, we will affirm the judgment and the attorney fees order.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
The Boroskis own a parcel of real property in Rocklin that is located on the site of a former landfill. In November 1987, they leased the property to First Choice Inns, Ltd. for the construction and operation of a motel.
Sometime thereafter, the Boroskis sued the city in federal court, alleging that methane gas was being generated at the property as the result of hazardous materials, pollutants, and waste deposited in the landfill. In turn, First Choice sued the Boroskis, alleging they were responsible for remediating the methane gas and had breached the lease by failing to do so.
In 2000, the Boroskis, First Choice, and the city entered into a “Release and Settlement Agreement” to resolve the litigation (the settlement agreement). Among other obligations, the Boroskis and the city agreed to assume responsibility for any required remedial work on the property relating to the hazardous materials in the landfill, including the methane gas. As particularly pertinent here, section 2.2.10 of the settlement agreement provided in relevant part as follows:
“Notwithstanding anything in this Agreement to the contrary, the obligations of the Boroskis and the City under this Agreement shall only inure to the benefit of, and exist in favor of, those future Owner/Lessee/Lender Entities who have executed this Agreement at or about the time of purchase or lease of the Property or any portion thereof, indicating their agreement to be bound by the terms of this Agreement. Any other Owner/Lessee/Lender Entity who makes a claim or seeks a benefit under this Agreement shall be deemed to have agreed to all terms of this Agreement from the time it obtained its Owner/Lessee/ Lender Entity status. [First Choice], the Boroskis and each subsequent owner/lessee of the Property shall disclose this Agreement to any person or entity to whom they sell or otherwise convey interest or possession in the Property before such agreement of sale or transfer of interest or possession becomes effective.”
The term “Owner/Lessee/Lender Entities” had previously been defined as “[First Choice], any subsequent lessees of the Property, any subsequent owner of the Property, any lender who may subsequently lend with regard to and any holder of a deed of trust, mortgage or security interest in the leasehold or fee interest comprised of the Property, and any of the foregoing parties’ successors in interest, transferees, assigns, officers, directors, employees,... managers, agents or servants.”
Section 2.7 of the settlement agreement provided in relevant part as follows:
“A Party’s sole remedy for any other Party’s breach of this Agreement or any provision hereof shall be for specific performance of the obligations set forth herein. As a condition to any claim or suit brought against another Party for breach of this Agreement, the complaining Party shall provide written detailed notice not less than 60 days prior to filing such claim or suit and must specify the nature of the alleged default or breach and the manner in which said default or breach may be cured.” We will refer to the latter of these two sentences as the “notice provision.”
In April 2001, First Choice assigned its leasehold interest in the property to The Deihl Family Trust. The Deihl Family Trust assigned the lease to Rocklin Inn, LLC in June 2001. In February 2004, plaintiffs acquired the lease by assignment from Rocklin Inn. The Boroskis consented to the assignment. At the time plaintiffs acquired the lease, however, neither the Boroskis, Rocklin Inn, nor anyone else notified plaintiffs of the existence of the settlement agreement. In fact, plaintiffs did not become aware of the settlement agreement until April or May 2006, shortly before they commenced this action.
Following their acquisition of the lease, plaintiffs continued to operate a hotel on the property. In July or August 2005 -- at a time when they were still unaware of the settlement agreement -- plaintiffs discovered sink holes in the parking lot of the property, near the methane extraction system that had been installed there. Plaintiffs contracted to have the sink holes repaired, and the repairs took place in November and December 2005.
In December 2005, plaintiffs filed a government tort claim with the city seeking $250,000 for “property damage, cost of repair and remediation -- loss of business revenue” due to “parking lot depression and subsidence at site of methane extraction system.” After the city rejected the claim, plaintiffs commenced this action by filing a complaint for damages against the city and the Boroskis in June 2006, asserting causes of action for breach of contract, breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing, negligence, and constructive fraud. The cause of action for breach of contract was specifically based on the allegation that the city and the Boroskis had breached the settlement agreement by performing substandard remedial work and by ignoring repeated requests to repair the property.
In July 2007, the city and the Boroskis moved for summary judgment. They asserted plaintiffs were barred from pursuing their causes of action for breach of the settlement agreement and breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing because plaintiffs had failed to comply with the notice provision and provide written detailed notice not less than 60 days before filing the action specifying the nature of the alleged breach and the manner in which the breach could be cured. The city and the Boroskis also asserted plaintiffs could not prevail on their negligence and constructive fraud causes of action because they had not established any violation of a duty independent of the settlement agreement. Finally, the city and the Boroskis asserted plaintiffs’ complaint was moot because the sole remedy available for breach of the settlement agreement was specific performance, and plaintiffs had already repaired the property.
In opposing the summary judgment motion, plaintiffs argued (among other things) that they were not bound by the notice provision in the settlement agreement because they “were not parties to the Agreement,... did not voluntarily and expressly assume the obligations of the contract, and... did not even know of the Agreement until recently and had no knowledge whatsoever during the pertinent times (i.e., when they discovered the dangerous condition and repaired the condition).”
In October 2007, the trial court issued its ruling granting summary judgment. Essentially, the court held all of plaintiffs’ causes of action were barred by their failure to provide the notice required by section 2.7 of the settlement agreement.
Plaintiffs moved for reconsideration, arguing that the court’s ruling was based on the proposition that “the notice provision of the [settlement] agreement was a negative or restrictive covenant which ran with the land/leasehold estate,” and under California law the notice provision could not “run with the land/leasehold under the facts and circumstances of this action.” The court refused to reconsider, pointing out that its ruling granting summary judgment was not based on a finding that the notice provision in the settlement agreement was a restrictive covenant that ran with the land. Rather, the court pointed out, “the court found that the [settlement agreement] was binding on plaintiffs because plaintiffs’ pleadings admitted that it was binding on them.”
In February 2008, the court entered judgment in favor of the city and the Boroskis. Plaintiffs moved for a new trial, arguing (among other things) that it would be unconscionable to enforce the notice provision in the settlement agreement because “it imposes on the lessee (who does not even own the property) a contractual requirement to wait at least 60 days before proceeding to correct the hazardous condition, to alleviate or remove the threatening toxic and physical conditions, all of which create dangerous potential harm or death to everyone coming to and from the commercial property.”
In May 2008, the court denied the new trial motion, finding “neither procedural nor substantive unconscionability.” Plaintiffs filed a timely notice of appeal from the judgment.
Plaintiffs also purported to appeal “the denial of the Motion for New Trial.” Such a ruling is not separately appealable, but is reviewable on appeal from the underlying judgment. (Walker v. Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (2005) 35 Cal.4th 15, 18-19.)
Meanwhile, also in May 2008, the city and the Boroskis filed motions for attorney fees under section 4.9 of the settlement agreement, which provided in relevant part as follows: “If any legal action... is commenced to enforce the terms and conditions of this Agreement, the prevailing Party or Parties shall be entitled to recover all costs of such legal action, including reasonable attorneys’ fees....”
On behalf of the city, Fred Borowski, and Boroski and Borowski, the law firm of Best Best & Krieger LLP sought $233,191.50 in attorney fees for more than 800 hours of work performed between September 2006 and March 2008 at hourly rates ranging from $150 to $350, even though the city had incurred only $184,878 in attorney fees for that work because the city apparently paid “blended” rates of $195/$225 for attorneys and $110/$105-$125 for paralegals. The Best firm also sought an additional $5,000 in fees for working on the fee motion.
Although the Best firm brought its fee motion on behalf of all of the defendants except Stella Boroski, all of the fees for the Best firm’s services were apparently charged to the city alone.
On behalf of the Boroskis, the law firm of Murphy, Pearson, Bradley & Feeney sought $26,875 in attorney fees. This amount consisted of $19,500 for time the law firm of Bolling & Gawthrop spent representing Stella Boroski from May 2007 through April 2008 (60 hours of work at $325 per hour) and $7,375 for time the Murphy firm had spent and would spend on the fee motion (approximately 30 hours of work at $225/$275 per hour).
Plaintiffs opposed the fee motions on numerous grounds.
With respect to the motion filed by the Best firm, the court declined to award fees based on the usual billing rates of the attorneys involved and instead found that $195 was a reasonable hourly rate. The court determined that 869 hours for the work indicated on the billing statements ($169,455), plus 20 hours for work on the fee motion ($3,900), was reasonable and thus awarded a total of $173,355 in attorney fees.
With respect to the motion filed by the Murphy firm, the court determined that $150 was a reasonable hourly rate and thus awarded $9,000 in fees for the 60 hours spent by the Bolling firm. At the same hourly rate, the court awarded $2,250 for 15 hours of work by the Murphy firm on the fee motion, for a total of $11,250 in attorney fees.
Plaintiffs filed a timely notice of appeal from the attorney fees order. We subsequently consolidated the two appeals.
DISCUSSION
I
Summary Judgment
Plaintiffs contend it “was an abuse of discretion and a prejudicial error” to grant summary judgment based on the notice provision in the settlement agreement because they were not parties to the settlement agreement and neither the city nor the Boroskis gave them notice of the settlement agreement, as required by the terms of the agreement itself. They assert that the failure of the city and the Boroskis to give them notice of the settlement agreement “negates their grounds for Summary Judgment or any judgment in this case as a matter of law.” We disagree. As we will explain, plaintiffs were bound by the notice provision in the settlement agreement notwithstanding the fact that they did not know of the settlement agreement until shortly before they commenced this action.
Although plaintiffs do not separately address the alternate basis on which the city and the Boroskis sought summary judgment -- that the only relief available for breach of the settlement agreement was specific performance, not damages -- it can be discerned from their position on this issue in the trial court that their response is the same -- the terms of the settlement agreement “cannot be applicable to Plaintiffs” because they “were not parties to the Agreement, did not know of the Agreement (until just before filing this action), and never voluntarily assumed the obligations of the Agreement.”
“A defendant is entitled to summary judgment if the record establishes as a matter of law that none of the plaintiff’s asserted causes of action can prevail.... To succeed, the defendant must conclusively negate a necessary element of the plaintiff’s case, and demonstrate that under no hypothesis is there a material issue of fact that requires the process of a trial.” (Molko v. Holy Spirit Assn. (1988) 46 Cal.3d 1092, 1107.)
“The pleadings identify the issues to be considered on a motion for summary judgment.” (Wattenbarger v. Cincinnati Reds, Inc. (1994) 28 Cal.App.4th 746, 750.)
Here, plaintiffs sought damages against the city and the Boroskis for their alleged breach of obligations imposed by the settlement agreement. To establish their right to sue for breach of those obligations, plaintiffs specifically alleged that “[t]he terms of the Agreement were to bind and inure to the benefit of all successors and assigns of the subject Lease Agreement, including Plaintiffs.”
On appeal, plaintiffs do not argue that any of their noncontract causes of action should have survived summary judgment irrespective of what happened to their contract causes of action. Rather, they implicitly concede that the validity of their entire complaint turns on whether they were bound by the notice provision in section 2.7 of the settlement agreement. Thus, the only issue before us in reviewing the summary judgment ruling is whether plaintiffs were bound by that notice provision.
The evidence before the trial court certainly supported plaintiffs’ latter allegation in part. As we have noted, the settlement agreement expressly provides that “the obligations of the Boroskis and the City under this Agreement shall... inure to the benefit of, and exist in favor of,... future Owner/Lessee/Lender Entities,” which, by definition, includes “any subsequent lessees of the Property... and any... assigns” of those subsequent lessees. But this inurement provision contains an important limitation, which plaintiffs failed to plead and which is dispositive here. Under the express terms of the inurement provision, the obligations of the city and the Boroskis under the settlement agreement inure to the benefit of a future lessee like plaintiffs only if the future lessee agreed to be bound by all of the other terms of the agreement, either by (1) “execut[ing] [the settlement] Agreement at or about the time of [their] lease of the Property” or (2) by “mak[ing] a claim or seek[ing] a benefit under th[e] Agreement,” in which case the future lessee would “be deemed to have agreed to all terms of this Agreement from the time [the future lessee] obtained its [lessee] status.”
The purpose of this provision is obvious. It seeks to effectuate a rule of law that more than 100 years ago our Supreme Court described as a “commanding principle of justice... so well established, that it has become one of the maxims of the law”: namely, “no person... can be permitted to adopt that part of an entire transaction which is beneficial, and reject its burdens.” (Peers v. McLaughlin (1891) 88 Cal. 294, 299; see also Civ. Code, § 3521 [“He who takes the benefit must bear the burden”].) Under this rule, as embodied in section 2.2.10 of the settlement agreement, for plaintiffs to claim the benefit of the settlement agreement by seeking to enforce it, they had to agree to be bound by all of the terms of the agreement, including those that placed a burden on them. Thus, to enforce the agreement, they had to satisfy all of the conditions the agreement imposed on its own enforcement. Their undisputed failure to do so is what justified summary judgment against them.
Because they did not know about the settlement agreement until April or May of 2006, shortly before they commenced this action, plaintiffs could not have agreed to the terms of the agreement by signing it at or about the time they leased the property by assignment in February 2004. By filing this action, however, and suing the city and the Boroskis for breach of the settlement agreement, plaintiffs undeniably made a claim and/or sought a benefit under the agreement, and thus, by the very terms of the agreement they sought to enforce, plaintiffs were deemed to have agreed to all terms of the agreement from the time they obtained the assignment of the lease in February 2004. One such term, of course, was the notice provision in section 2.7, which required them to provide written detailed notice of the nature of the alleged default or breach and the manner in which said default or breach could be cured not less than 60 days before filing any claim or suit brought against the city or the Boroskis for breach of the agreement.
The fact that plaintiffs did not actually know of the settlement agreement, or the notice provision it contained, when they repaired the condition on the property they later sought to hold the city and the Boroskis responsible for under the settlement agreement, is of no legal significance. In plain terms, the agreement provides that a future lessee who seeks to enforce the agreement against the city and/or the Boroskis is deemed to have been bound by allof the terms of the agreement -- including the notice provision in section 2.7 -- from the moment that person or entity succeeded to an interest in the property. Plaintiffs have failed to identify any rule, proposition, or authority that would give rise to an exception to this provision based on their lack of knowledge of the agreement at a certain point of time in the past.
It is true that under section 2.2.10 of the settlement agreement, plaintiffs were supposed to have been given notice of the agreement when they obtained their assignment of the lease, and they were not given such notice, but this omission in no way serves to excuse plaintiffs from complying with the notice provision in the agreement before commencing this action. First, to the extent plaintiffs suggest the city and/or the Boroskis had a contractual duty under the settlement agreement to notify them of the settlement agreement, that suggestion is not borne out by the terms of the agreement. Under the language of section 2.2.10, it was Rocklin Inn -- as the lessee that held the leasehold interest immediately before plaintiffs -- that was supposed to “disclose th[e] Agreement to [the] person or entity to whom [it] convey[ed] interest or possession in the Property.” Neither the city nor the Boroskis conveyed any interest in the property to plaintiffs, and thus it was not their obligation to notify plaintiffs of the agreement. Plaintiffs offer no basis on which the city and/or the Boroskis can be faulted for failing to give notice that it was the obligation of Rocklin Inn to give.
Second, even assuming the duty to notify plaintiffs of the settlement agreement under section 2.2.10 could be attributed to the city and/or the Boroskis, the consequence of failing to comply with that duty is not what plaintiffs’ argument suggests. Their implicit argument is that the failure to notify them of the agreement excused them from the obligation of complying with the notice provision in section 2.7. But section 2.2.10 actually provides that the predecessor in interest “shall disclose this Agreement to any person or entity to whom they sell or otherwise convey interest or possession in the Property before such agreement of sale or transfer of interest or possession becomes effective.” (Italics added.) Thus, plaintiffs’ reliance on this part of section 2.2.10 actually proves too much. Under the terms of the agreement, if plaintiffs did not receive notice of the agreement pursuant to section 2.2.10, then they might have an argument that the transfer of the leasehold to them did not “become[] effective,” and they never had an interest in the property; they cannot, however, claim a right to the leasehold but rely on their lack of notice of the settlement agreement to excuse themselves from complying with the notice provision in section 2.7 before filing this action.
In summary, it does not matter that plaintiffs were not aware of the settlement agreement until shortly before they brought this action based on the agreement. Whether they knew it or not, to enforce the terms of the agreement against the city and the Boroskis, plaintiffs first had to give those parties the written notice required by section 2.7. Having failed to do so, plaintiffs cannot proceed with their action, and the trial court properly granted summary judgment in favor of the city and the Boroskis. (See, e.g., Gonsalves v. Hodgson (1951) 38 Cal.2d 91, 99 [a party complaining of the breach of a contract is not entitled to recover unless he has fulfilled all conditions precedent imposed on him].)
II
Reconsideration
Plaintiffs contend the trial court should have granted their motion for reconsideration. We disagree.
We review the denial of a motion for reconsideration for abuse of discretion. (See Lucas v. Santa Maria Public Airport Dist. (1995) 39 Cal.App.4th 1017, 1027.) Here, plaintiffs admit that in moving for reconsideration, they “postulated that perhaps the unwritten reasoning of the Court behind the granting of the Summary Judgment Motion was that the restrictive covenant requiring the 60 day notice from Plaintiffs ‘ran with the land (in this case the Leasehold).’” In denying their motion, the trial court attempted to disabuse plaintiffs of this notion, stating, “There [wa]s no such finding in the Court’s decision; the Court found that the contract was binding on plaintiffs because plaintiffs’ pleadings admitted that it was binding on them.”
Given the trial court’s own declaration that its ruling in favor of the city and the Boroskis on the motion for summary judgment was not based on the “unwritten reasoning” plaintiffs sought to challenge in their motion for reconsideration, the trial court acted well within its discretion in denying the latter motion.
III
New Trial
Plaintiffs contend the trial court should have granted their new trial motion because the notice provision in the settlement agreement is unconscionable. We disagree.
“Motions for new trial rest so completely within the trial court’s discretion that they will not be overturned absent a manifest and unmistakable abuse of discretion.” (Mosesian v. Pennwalt Corp. (1987) 191 Cal.App.3d 851, 858.) Here, no such abuse of discretion has been shown.
“Unconscionability analysis begins with an inquiry into whether the contract is one of adhesion. [Citation.] ‘The term [contract of adhesion] signifies a standardized contract, which, imposed and drafted by the party of superior bargaining strength, relegates to the subscribing party only the opportunity to adhere to the contract or reject it.’ [Citation.] If the contract is adhesive, the court must then determine whether ‘other factors are present which, under established legal rules--legislative or judicial--operate to render it [unenforceable].’ [Citation.] ‘Generally speaking, there are two judicially imposed limitations on the enforcement of adhesion contracts or provisions thereof. The first is that such a contract or provision which does not fall within the reasonable expectations of the weaker or “adhering” party will not be enforced against him. [Citations.] The second--a principle of equity applicable to all contracts generally--is that a contract or provision, even if consistent with the reasonable expectations of the parties, will be denied enforcement if, considered in its context, it is unduly oppressive or “unconscionable.”’ [Citation.] Subsequent cases have referred to both the ‘reasonable expectations’ and the ‘oppressive’ limitations as being aspects of unconscionability.” (Armendariz v. Foundation Health Psychcare Services, Inc. (2000) 24 Cal.4th 83, 113.)
In their briefs, plaintiffs make no attempt to explain how the settlement agreement -- which specifically provides that it was “the product of negotiation and preparation by and among each Party hereto and its respective counsel,” and which does not appear in any manner to be a standardized contract -- could be characterized as a contract of adhesion. In the trial court, plaintiffs argued procedural unconscionability was shown because they were not involved in the negotiation of the settlement agreement. As true as the latter assertion may be -- since plaintiffs did not acquire any interest in the property until years after the settlement agreement was created -- it does not support a claim of unconscionability. “‘Procedural unconscionability’ concerns the manner in which the contract was negotiated and the circumstances of the parties at that time.” (Kinney v. United HealthCare Services, Inc. (1999) 70 Cal.App.4th 1322, 1329.) Plaintiffs offer no authority to support their implicit assertion that a contract which, by all appearances, was specifically negotiated by the original parties and their attorneys, should nonetheless be treated as a “contract of adhesion” when applied to a successor-in-interest, since the successor was not involved in the contract negotiations and therefore had to take the settlement agreement as he found it. In the absence of such authority, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying the new trial motion.
IV
Attorney Fees
Plaintiffs’ brief challenging the award of attorney fees is far from a model of clarity; nonetheless, we glean from it a number of arguments, none of which has merit.
Plaintiffs assert the fee motions “were not filed within the time allowed” by rule 3.1700 of the California Rules of Court. California Rules of Court, rule 3.1700 governs the time for filing a memorandum of costs and is not applicable here. Although contractual or statutory attorney fees can be claimed on a memorandum of costs if the amount of fees recoverable is fixed without the necessity of a court determination, if such a determination is necessary, then a motion for fees must be filed, and the time for filing such a motion is governed by California Rules of Court, rule 3.1702. Under that rule, such a motion “must be served and filed within the time for filing a notice of appeal under rules 8.104 and 8.108.” (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 3.1702(b).) The fee motions were timely under this provision.
Under California Rules of Court, rule 8.108, when a party files a valid new trial motion, the time to appeal the judgment is extended until (as relevant here) “30 days after the superior court clerk mails, or a party serves, an order denying the motion or a notice of entry of that order.” (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.108(b)(1)(A).) Here, the order denying plaintiffs’ new trial motion was filed May 5, 2008, and thus could not have been mailed or served any earlier than that. Both fee motions were on file before the end of May 2008.
Plaintiffs assert generally that the fee motions show “a gross and unreasonable duplication of effort and exaggeration of work loads.” Elsewhere, they assert -- with equal generality -- that “[t]he stacking of multiple law firms and attorneys’ fees is unconscionable.” In more specific terms, they complain of the involvement of two law firms (actually, there were three) and seven attorneys in what they characterize as “a simple civil collection lawsuit,” which they contend “involve[d] a single pivotal issue” -- the application of the notice provision in the settlement agreement.
Before we address these arguments, we set out the standard of review. “Abuse of discretion is the standard applicable to review of an attorney fees award.” (Maughan v. Google Technology, Inc. (2006) 143 Cal.App.4th 1242, 1249.) “An attorney fee dispute is not exempt from generally applicable appellate principles: ‘The judgment of the trial court is presumed correct; all intendments and presumptions are indulged to support the judgment; conflicts in the declarations must be resolved in favor of the prevailing party, and the trial court’s resolution of any factual disputes arising from the evidence is conclusive.’” (Christian Research Institute v. Alnor (2008) 165 Cal.App.4th 1315, 1322.) “‘While the concept “abuse of discretion” is not easily susceptible to precise definition, the appropriate test has been enunciated in terms of whether or not the trial court exceeded “‘the bounds of reason, all of the circumstances before it being considered.’”’” (Gouskos v. Aptos Village Garage, Inc. (2001) 94 Cal.App.4th 754, 762.) “‘A decision will not be reversed merely because reasonable people might disagree. “An appellate tribunal is neither authorized nor warranted in substituting its judgment for the judgment of the trial judge.” [Citations.] In the absence of a clear showing that its decision was arbitrary or irrational, a trial court should be presumed to have acted to achieve legitimate objectives and, accordingly, its discretionary determinations ought not be set aside on review.’” (Ibid.)
With these rules in mind, we turn back to plaintiffs’ arguments. As for their assertion that this was a “single issue” case, it is quite plain that while the case ultimately may have been resolved against plaintiffs based on the notice provision in the settlement agreement, that was not -- by any stretch of the imagination -- the only issue in the case from beginning to end. The city and the Boroskis detailed in their fee motions all of the tasks that were involved in the litigation, including (but not limited to) discovery and motion practice (not just the motion for summary judgment, but also the motion for reconsideration and the motion for new trial). While they ultimately prevailed on summary judgment based on plaintiffs’ failure to comply with the notice provision, they had to work the case up as though it were going to go to trial, and the fee motions documented their attorneys’ efforts in that regard.
Indeed, in support of the fee motion it filed, the Best firm submitted 112 pages of invoices with entries detailing the services provided, from reviewing the complaint in September 2006 all the way to revising the opposition to the motion to tax costs in March 2008. Instead of offering a similarly detailed challenge to the necessity and reasonableness of the services thus documented, plaintiffs argue only in the most general terms that it was unreasonable/unconscionable for the city and the Boroskis to employ the services of two different law firms and seven different attorneys. This argument is simply not sufficient to carry their burden on appeal of showing an abuse of discretion by the trial court, particularly where that court’s fee award already reflected a 30 percent reduction from the amount of fees requested. To show that the trial court’s decision was arbitrary or irrational, plaintiffs must do far more than pose such questions as, “Why [were] so many attorneys and staff members... assigned to this simple civil action collection case?” and “Why did Mr. Collins need so much help and why did Mr. Robinson not perform more duties in less time... ?” Rather, they must show us that it was patently unreasonable for so many people to do so much work on this case. They have not made that showing. Instead, they rest their challenge to the fee award on the foundational assertion -- itself unreasonable -- that this was “a single issue case.”
The city and the Boroskis sought a total of $265,066.50 in attorney fees; the trial court awarded them only $184,605.
To the extent plaintiffs complain that the city and the Boroskis did not file copies of their fees agreements with their attorneys in connection with their fee motions, that complaint is of no moment, as plaintiffs fail to offer any authority on that point.
To the extent plaintiffs argue fees under the settlement agreement should have been denied altogether because the city and the Boroskis “fail[ed] to properly notify [plaintiffs] of the Settlement Agreement,” that argument fails because, as we have explained already, neither the city nor the Boroskis had an obligation under section 2.2.10 of the settlement agreement to notify plaintiffs of the agreement; instead, that was the duty of plaintiffs’ predecessor-in-interest, Rocklin Inn.
In summary, plaintiffs have not carried their burden of showing an abuse of discretion in the award of attorney fees.
DISPOSITION
The judgment and the attorney fees order are affirmed. The city and the Boroskis shall recover their costs on appeal. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.278(a)(1).)
We concur: BLEASE, Acting P. J., BUTZ, J.