(Please note: the names and locations of all parties have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the participants in this car accident and personal injury case and its proceedings.)
Plaintiff Owen Black’s Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Support of Motion for Allocation of Attorney’s Fees and Costs Related To His Automobile Accident Case (Cal. Lab. Code, § 3860(c))
Motion for an equitable allocation of attorney’s fees and costs under section 3860(c) of the California Labor Code.
For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.
INTRODUCTION
Plaintiff’s counsel is like the title character in the story, The Little Red Hen. Like the little red hen who, all on her own, found the grain of wheat, planted it, tended it, and eventually mixed it with other ingredients to produce a delicious cake, plaintiff’s counsel took every step from start to finish, solely and successfully prosecuting Mr. Black’s case against the defendants who had seriously injured him in a car accident.
Plaintiff’s counsel filed the action; undertook all the discovery, including preparing for, taking, defending and attending depositions; collected all of the pertinent documents, including medical records, witness statements and accident reports; retained the experts; scheduled and attended the mediation; produced a series of damages calculations and filed a mediation brief laying out the factual basis for plaintiff’s claims regarding defendants’ liability for the car accident and for his damages. The case settled when defendants accepted plaintiff’s section 998 demand of $100,000, based on the evidence solely and exclusively gathered by plaintiff’s counsel.
In contrast, plaintiff in intervention, White Insurance Services, the lien claimant who seeks the workers’ compensation benefits paid to and on behalf of Mr. Black, did nothing that effectuated the $100,000 recovery. It did not even intervene until the case was nearly over and, even after its intervention, it filed a mediation brief exclusively devoted to its own claim for its lien amount; the brief didn’t devote a single syllable to Mr. Black’s claims against the defendants. White is like the cat, the mouse and the dog in The Little Red Hen who, while the hen slaved, did nothing to assist the hen’s efforts in transforming the grain of wheat into a cake.
And, like the cat, the mouse and the dog who were eager to eat the cake created solely through the efforts of the little red hen, White wants to enjoy the recovery produced here through the efforts solely of plaintiff’s counsel, and asks to deduct its entire lien amount of $23,717.22, from Mr. Black’s recovery. The law in California forbids this. The lien amount must be reduced by the reasonable attorney’s fees and costs incurred by plaintiff’s counsel in effectuating the settlement amount because plaintiff’s counsel was solely responsible for the result here.
For these reasons, and as set forth more fully below, plaintiff Owen Black asks that his counsel’s attorney’s fees and costs be allocated in an equitable amount, and that White ‘s lien be reduced accordingly. (See Part 2 of 8.)
For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.