Wash. Court of Appeals published opinion — 850661.pdf

Citation: Wash. Court of Appeals published opinion — 850661.pdf
Jurisdiction: Washington (state)
Source verification: official_capture_completeness_unverified
Original Source: https://www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/pdf/850661.pdf ↗

Related Parts of This Source

Full Text

1,720 chars

discovery, the rates of SPD’s counsel, and the rates reported in federal decisions

awarding prevailing party attorney fees in employment cases. But these rates are

not decisive here. “The attorney’s usual fee is not . . . conclusively a reasonable

fee and other factors may necessitate an adjustment.” Bowers, 100 Wn.2d at 597.

And while opposing counsel’s rates are “probative of the reasonableness of a

request for attorney fees by prevailing counsel,” Fiore v. PPG Indus., Inc., 169 Wn.

App. 325, 351-54, 279 P.3d 972 (2012) (quoting Heng v. Rotech Med. Corp., 720

N.W. 2d 54, 65 (N.D. 2006)), we have never held that such rates are dispositive.

As the trial court correctly noted and as Washington law confirms, “there are many

reasons why counsel negotiate specific rates” and “[t]he question here [is] the

appropriate market rate.” The trial court did not abuse its discretion when it

rejected SPD’s attempt to impose an external limit on the hourly rates of Sgt.

Hockett’s counsel. 16

16 For similar reasons, SPD’s insistence that the trial court erred by awarding higher rates than

those found in its survey of federal cases is unconvincing because, while many courts have
considered market data in determining the reasonableness of an attorney’s proposed hourly rates,
see In re Oglesby 13-32362, 2015 WL 5145571, *2 (Bankr. N.D. Ohio Aug. 28, 2015), SPD does
not cite to a single case holding that the surveyed rates are dispositive on the market rate or
constitute a cap on recoverable fees, see State v. Loos, 14 Wn. App. 2d 748, 758, 473 P.3d 1229
(2020) (“When a party provides no citation to support an argument, this court will assume that
counsel, after diligent search, has found none.”).