Filed 12/18/17 Purifoy v. Howell CA1/3
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION THREE


VEENA PURIFOY et al.,
Plaintiffs,
v.
GLENN HOWELL et al.,
Defendants and Respondents;
EVANS & PAGE,
Intervenor and Appellant.



A144262

(Contra Costa County
Super. Ct. No. MSC0602174)


Intervenor law firm Evans & Page appeals from an order awarding it $428,142.50 in attorney fees under the private attorney general statute (Code Civ. Proc., § 1021.5; hereafter § 1021.5). On appeal appellant presents numerous arguments, contending that the trial court abused its discretion in calculating attorney fees. We affirm.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Veena Purifoy’s dog Duke was impounded by the Contra Costa County Animal Shelter (CCCAS) on Thursday, October 5, 2006, and was held at a shelter in Pinole. The following week a new owner adopted Duke on Wednesday, October 11. The next day Purifoy sought to retrieve Duke, but the animal had already been taken by its new owner. At that time the CCCAS shelters, including the Pinole shelter, were open Tuesday through Saturday for owner redemption and adoption of animals, and those days were counted as “business days” in calculating minimum holding periods. The county shelters were closed on Sunday, Monday, and major holidays. CCCAS applied a four-business-day holding period. CCCAS held Duke exclusively for owner redemption for three days, and permitted his adoption on the fourth day, i.e., Wednesday, October 11.
On October 27, 2006, Purifoy filed a lawsuit against Duke’s new owner. Neither CCCSA nor its director Glenn Howell were named in that lawsuit. After Purifoy regained possession of Duke, the complaint was dismissed as against the new owner on June 25, 2007. On that same day, a first amended complaint was filed, adding two new plaintiffs, Lorree Lewis and Voices for Pets, and adding CCCSA and Howell as named defendants (hereinafter referred to collectively as the County). In response to the County’s demurrer, plaintiffs voluntarily filed a second amended complaint, the operative pleading.
In the second amended complaint, filed on October 4, 2007, plaintiffs alleged, in the first cause of action, that the County was violating Food and Agriculture Code section 31108, subdivision (a) (hereafter § 31108(a)), by counting Saturday as a business day. The complaint also included causes of action for trespass and damage to chattel (third), and injunctive relief (fourth), and sought compensatory damages. Following the County’s filing of an answer, the parties engaged in discovery – requests for the production of documents, written responses to form and special interrogatories, and three depositions. The parties also attempted, through mediation, to settle the matter, without success.
In 2008, the parties filed competing motions for summary relief “on the single legal issue of the meaning of “business days” in section 31108(a). After oral argument the trial court denied plaintiffs’ motion and granted the County’s motion, finding the phrase “business days” included all days on which a shelter was open including Saturdays. Judgment was entered in favor of the County and plaintiffs appealed. In a published decision filed on March 26, 2010, we disagreed with the trial court and found the phrase “business days” in section 31108(a) did not include Saturdays, in light of the statutory language and the express legislative findings accompanying the 1998 amendments to section 31108(a). (Purifoy I, supra, 183 Cal.App.4th at pp. 180-184.) We remitted the matter to the superior court on June 1, 2010. The parties again attempted. through mediation, to settle the matter of attorney fees, without success.
On August 25, 2011 plaintiffs filed a motion seeking an order confirming appellant’s entitlement to section 1021.5 attorney fees. The request sought only a ruling on fee entitlement and did not request a specific sum. Appellant also filed a motion and complaint in intervention to protect its interest in attorney fees. On February 15, 2012, the court filed its order granting appellant’s request for intervener status “for the limited purpose of seeking attorney fees” under section 1021.5 “via appellate review” of the January 12, 2012, order denying the fee entitlement motion. Appellant filed a timely notice of appeal.
Thereafter, in an unpublished decision filed on September 26, 2013, we again disagreed with the trial court and found, based on our de novo review, that appellant had met all of the pertinent statutory criteria necessary for the entitlement of an award of section 1021.5 attorney fees. (Purifoy II, supra, at pp. 1-2.) We remanded the matter to the trial court with directions “to determine the amount of reasonable trial and appellate attorney fees incurred in pursuing this litigation and ‘for the time spent prosecuting the fee issue at both the trial and appellate levels.’ ” (Id. at p. 18.) But we cautioned that “[o]ur decision should not be read and we express no opinion as to the amount of attorney fees to be awarded by the trial court.” (Ibid.) We denied the County’s motion for reargument, and the County’s petition for review in the California Supreme Court was denied. The remittitur of Purifoy II was issued on January 7, 2014.
B. Current Trial Court Proceedings
Following our decision in Purifoy II, appellant attempted, through mediation, to resolve the amount of attorney fees to be paid by the County. To assist in preparing for the mediation, appellant hired a “fees” counsel, Jeremy Friedman. The parties were unable to settle the matter.
On May 2, 2014, appellant filed the current fee motion, seeking an aggregate lodestar sum (hours times hourly rate; cents eliminated) of $864,340, consisting of $461,317 for the merits litigation through Purifoy I, and $403,023, for the fee entitlement litigation through Purifoy II. Appellant also requested that the court adjust the aggregate lodestar sums by applying a positive multiplier of a factor of 2 to the merits litigation and a positive multiplier of a factor of 1.5 to the fee entitlement litigation. With the multipliers, appellant’s resulting attorney fee request increased from an aggregate request of $864,340 to $1,527,168. The request was supported by a memorandum of points and authorities, a reply memorandum, as well as declarations and supplemental declarations from Corey Evans (lead attorney) and fees counsel Jeremy Friedman, as well as, a declaration from E. Craig Moody, who was knowledgeable about reasonable rates charged by attorneys practicing “complex civil ligation” in the “San Francisco Bay legal marketplace.” Appellant’s claimed hours were set forth in a type of “block form” time log, consisting of over 470 entries, tracked on a daily basis, indicating each attorney’s hours and activities. Appellant also sought hourly rates based on 2014 noncontingent fees charged by attorneys with similar skills and experience in the “Bay Area legal marketplace:” an hourly rate of $525 for Evans and Page (both 2001 law graduates) and an hourly rate of $460 for Stamps (a 2007 law graduate). As for work done since Purifoy II, including the current fee motion, appellant sought an aggregate sum of $123,275, representing 68 hours at an hourly rate of $525 for services performed by Evans and 113 hours at an hourly rate of $775 for services performed by Friedman.
The County submitted an opposition and a separate declaration of Janice Amenta, Deputy County counsel. The County argued appellant was entitled to no more than an aggregate sum of $390,000 for attorney fees, consisting of 1300 hours at “a blended rate of $300 per hour” for each attorney, with no multiplier, for the merits and fee entitlement litigation. The County criticized the appellant’s time log and the requested hourly rate of $525. The County argued, among other things, that appellant should not be reimbursed at a current billing rate for work done several years ago because when the case was first filed Evans and Page had limited experience. In addition, because the litigation was filed in Contra Costa County, the court should compensate appellant at an hourly rate for an attorney with similar experience in Contra Costa County, and not at an hourly rate tied to appellant’s location in San Francisco. The County also argued the hourly rate at which it employed outside counsel to handle litigation on the County’s behalf, in 2007, was $150 for civil rights cases, and the hourly rate was increased to $200 in 2012. Amenta, a practicing attorney for over 20 years, indicated that from 2007-2009 she had worked as a litigation attorney in private practice, and from 2009-2010 she worked as a sole practitioner, handling litigation matters. She further averred that when she started as a sole practitioner she had been a licensed attorney for 15 years. She billed her clients at an hourly rate of $200-$250 for legal drafting, research, and court representation, and she did not bill for clerical or other nonattorney work and she had no overhead as she worked from her home. Amenta attached to her declaration a chart corresponding to 205 entries in appellant’s time log for which she noted “clerical, duplicate, excessive, and unnecessary tasks,” and recommended deductions for such work as not compensable at the hourly rate of $525.
After oral argument on September 15, 2014, the trial court asked both parties to “distill their positions on attorney fees, and the underlying evidence provided, into proposed statements of decision,” which the parties’ did and which were considered by the court. Although the court had been assigned to preside only over appellant’s current fee motion, it had considered the superior court file in the matter and the appellate proceedings in this court and the California Supreme Court, which were fully detailed in the parties’ motion papers. In a written decision filed on December 16, 2014, the trial court explained its reasons for its award of attorney fees in the following manner:
“The court finds that the merits litigation required the skill of a competent litigator. It did not require extraordinary legal skill. . . . [¶] The case involved a matter of simple statutory interpretation of the term ‘business day’ in Agriculture Code Section 31108. No particular expertise or experience was needed. Time spent on the merits litigation should not have been as extensive as is being claimed. Corey Evans, the attorney who litigated this action on behalf of himself and Plaintiff in the underlying litigation, had only five years of experience when the case began, two of which were in a field of law having no applicability to this case (mergers and acquisitions). Geneva Page had only two years of experience when the case began, and then went on inactive status for two years. . . . [¶] The court finds that the hours claimed in prosecuting the merits of this litigation to be excessive and unreasonable. [¶] . . . [¶] In this court’s opinion, and based on this court’s experience, no reasonable attorney with a case of this difficulty and with [appellant’s] level of skill and experience, billing a client on an hourly basis, would have ever billed that client for all of the time claimed and at the rates being sought. For instance, Plaintiffs are seeking $525 an hour for a significant amount of time spent typing, cite-checking, rule-checking, creating tables, etc., tasks that are generally performed by clerical or paralegal staff. [Record Citation.] Plaintiff [Evans] also seeks to be compensated for almost 50 hours producing a few pages of unverified discovery responses. [Record Citation.] And an excessive amount of time appears to have also been spent practicing oral argument, [and] conducting mock depositions and mock arguments in the office. [Record Citation.] [¶] In these special circumstances (unreasonably inflated fee request), it would appear that the court, . . ., possesses the discretion to deny the fee request in its entirety, but it will not do so, believing that such an exercise of discretion, in this case, would be an abuse of discretion (despite the fact that due to the excessive claim the court does have a lingering doubt over the accuracy of the claimed time). However, the court will reduce the Plaintiffs’ hours by half, finding that a reasonable attorney with sufficient experience to litigate this case would have spent approximately half of the claimed hours billed of 878.70 [699.2 (Corey Evans)]) + [179.5 (Geneva Page)] or 439.35 hours to pursue this action through summary judgment and appeal. [¶] Similarly based on the complexity of the case, the experience level of the attorneys and the prevailing rates in the community, the court finds that a fair market hourly rate for Corey Evans is $250 per hour (349.6 hours x $250 per hour = $87,400), and $200 per hour for Geneva Page [for hours worked while she was an active member of the California State Bar] (89.75 hours x $200 per hour = $17,950). [Fn. omitted.] [Citations]. Therefore, the base number for an award of attorney fees for prosecuting the merits of the action is $105,350. [¶] The court will apply a multiplier of two to this figure since the litigation involved a contingent risk. The Purifoy I decision was also the impetus for a necessary statutory addition of a definition of the phrase ‘business days’ to be used by all shelters to calculate adequate holding periods, thereby fostering the public interest that the Legislature has itself declared to be an important one. Thus, the court finds a reasonable award of attorney fees for prosecuting this action through a successful appeal is $210,700.”
“As to the fee pursuit aspect of the case, regarding trial proceedings following Purifoy I and the appeal of the denial of fees in Purifoy II, the court has also reduced the number of hours requested (783.4) by half, to 391.7, as the more reasonable number of hours necessary to pursue fees. This aspect of the case involved Plaintiffs’ making a motion for fees under the private attorney general statute [(§ 1021.5)] and taking an appeal from the denial of those fees. This too did not require extraordinary legal skill or time. [¶] As noted above, the court finds a reasonable rate for Corey Evans’ time is $250 per hour. Mr. Evans claims 461.8 hours for this phase of the case. After reducing his claimed hours by half, Mr. Evans’ time comes to 230.9 hours, bringing the value of such time to $57,725 (230.9 hours x $250 per hour = $57,725). Geneva Page claims 194.5 hours for this ‘fee pursuit’ phase of the case. However, it appears to be conceded that 52 of these hours were expended during a time she was not an active member of the California State Bar (the period from February 2, 2009 to January 3, 2011). [Record Citation.] Accordingly, since only active members of the California State Bar may practice law in California, this court finds that it is inappropriate for the entirety of her claimed time on this phase of the case to have been billed as attorney fees. Instead the court will treat this time as the time of a highly trained paralegal, and find that a reasonable hourly rate for such time to be $150 per hour. Thus, one half of the total claimed for Ms. Page’s time (194.5) comes to 97.25 hours; one-half of her non-attorney time (52 hours) comes to 26 hours; subtracting 26 hours from 97.25 hours equals 71.25 hours. Thus, 71.25 hours is attorney time to which the court has assigned a value of $200 per hour; fees for this time come to $14,250. Paralegal time of 26 hours has been assigned a rate of $150 per hour for a total of $3,900. Thus, on this phase of the case, Ms. Page’s time is given a total value of $18,150. (14,250 plus 3,900). Robert Stamps, an associate with Corey & Evans, was admitted to practice law in California in 2007; his skill and experience warrant a rate of no more than $175 per hour (63.55 hours x $175 per hour = $11,121.25). Hence, the base number for Plaintiffs’ fee pursuit is $86,996.25. The court will apply a multiplier of two to the award of attorney fees for the fee pursuit phase of this litigation. Plaintiffs have met the statutory criteria for entitlement to an award of Section 1021.5 attorney fees and a multiplier incentivizes other attorneys to take such necessary private enforcement actions. The attorney fees award for the fee pursuit is therefore $173,992.50.”
“As for the current motion, the court finds that 57 hours was a reasonable amount of time to have been expended on the motion for attorney fees. Given that Corey Evans was the lead counsel in the underlying action, the court finds it reasonable that he would have, and should have, expended more time on this motion than Jeremy Friedman, who was apparently brought into the case to assist Mr. Evans in his capacity as an expert on claims for attorney fees. The court finds that a reasonable number of hours for Corey Evans to have expended on the instant motion is 34 hours (not his claimed 68), and a reasonable amount of hours for Jeremy Friedman is 23 hours (a 3:2 ratio of Evans’ time to Friedman’s time). The reasonable rate for Corey Evans’ time is $250 per hour. And the court finds that a reasonable rate for Jeremy Friedman’s time is $575 per hour. Applying these hourly rates to reasonable time expended comes to $21,725 ($250 x 34 hours = $8,500 plus $575 x 23 hours = $13,225). The same multiplier of two will be applied to this portion of the fees request, as Plaintiffs had to actively seek their attorney fees from the County. The award of attorney fees on the fees motion is therefore $43,450.”
Appellant’s timely appeal ensued.
DISCUSSION
I. Applicable Law
It is well settled that the amount of attorney fees to be awarded in a private attorney general litigation under section 1021.5 is to be based on the “lodestar adjustment formula” set out in the seminal case of Serrano v. Priest (1977) 20 Cal.3d 25 (Serrano III). (See Press v. Lucky Stores, Inc. (1983) 34 Cal.3d 311, 317, 322 (Press); Serrano v. Unruh (1982) 32 Cal.3d 621, 639 (Serrano IV) [“absent circumstances rendering the award unjust, fees recoverable under section 1021.5 ordinarily include compensation for all hours reasonably spent, including those necessary to establish and defend the fee claim”].) Under Serrano III and its progeny, “the unadorned lodestar reflects the general local hourly rate for a fee-bearing case; it does not include any compensation for contingent risk, extraordinary skill, or any other factors a trial court may consider under Serrano III. The adjustment to the lodestar figure, e.g., to provide a fee enhancement reflecting the risk that the attorney will not receive payment if the suit does not succeed, constitutes earned compensation; unlike a windfall, it is neither unexpected nor fortuitous. Rather, it is intended to approximate market-level compensation for such services, which typically includes a premium for the risk of nonpayment or delay in payment of attorney fees.” (Ketchum v. Moses (2001) 24 Cal.4th 1122, 1138 (Ketchum).)
Our review of an order granting a section 1021.5 award of attorney fees is limited to whether the trial court abused its discretion. (Ketchum, supra, 24 Cal.4th at p. 1132.) Under that standard, we will overturn an order, only if we find “that, under all the evidence viewed most favorably in support of the trial court’s decision, no judge could reasonably have made the challenged order. [Citations.]” (County of Kern v. Ginn (1983) 146 Cal.App.3d 1107, 1115.) “The ‘ “experienced trial judge is the best judge of the value of professional services rendered in his court, and while his judgment is of course subject to review, it will not be disturbed unless the appellate court is convinced that it is clearly wrong.” ’ [Citation.]” (Ketchum, supra, at p. 1132.)
On this record we reject appellant’s entreaty that we evaluate the award of attorney fees for appellate work under a standard that accords less deference to rulings that do not concern “the trial court’s firsthand knowledge. (Perkins v. Standard Oil Co. (9th Cir. 1973) 474 F.2d 549, 552.)” (Center for Biological Diversity v. County of San Bernardino (2010) 188 Cal.App.4th 603, 616, fn. omitted.) We also see no reason to exercise “ ‘ “somewhat more latitude in determining whether there has been an abuse of discretion than would be true in the usual case” ’ ” because the trial court judge who ruled on appellant’s current fee motion was not the judge who presided over earlier portions of the litigation. (Ibid. quoting from Perkins v. Standard Oil Co., supra, at p. 552.) The record consists of a two-volume clerk’s transcript of over five hundred pages. The trial court judge who ruled on the current fee motion considered both the superior court file and the appellate decisions in this court. Additionally, the parties’ memorandums of points and authorities, declarations, and exhibits, described, in excruciating detail, each legal skirmish that might otherwise not be reflected in the superior court file and our appellate court decisions. Lastly, each party submitted a detailed statement of decision in support of their respective positions. In all events, even if we applied a modified abuse of discretion standard, no different outcome would result.
II. Analysis
Appellant’s overarching premise in pursuing this appeal is its claim that “the drastic reduction” in the requested fee “contravenes the underlying tenet of promoting public interest litigation.” While allowing that the trial court made no error in applying a multiplier of a factor of two to adjust the lodestar sums for all aspects of the litigation, appellant makes a plethora of arguments challenging the trial court’s calculation of the lodestar sums. However, although “ ‘ “[t]he starting point of every fee award . . . must be a calculation” ’ ” of the lodestar sums (Press, supra, 34 Cal.3d at p. 322), the lodestar adjustment method does not limit the court to a consideration of the hours expended and the hourly rate (Lealao v. Beneficial California, Inc. (2000) 82 Cal.App.4th 19, 40). The lodestar sums “produced by multiplying hours spent on the case by a reasonable hourly rate ‘may then be increased or reduced by application of a “multiplier” after the trial court has considered other factors concerning the lawsuit.’ ” (Ibid. quoting from Press, supra, 34 Cal.3d at p. 322.) “The purpose of such adjustment is to fix a fee at the fair market value for the particular action. In effect, the court determines, retrospectively, whether the litigation involved a contingent risk or required extraordinary legal skill justifying augmentation of the unadorned lodestar in order to approximate the fair market rate for such services. . . . [Citation.]” (Ketchum, supra, 24 Cal.4th at p. 1132.) Thus, our evaluation requires consideration of both the lodestar sums and the court’s use of a multiplier of a factor of two, albeit the latter multiplier is not challenged by appellant. Moreover, the trial court was not limited to either computing an hourly rate based on the “current rate” and applying such rate to all hours, or computing a “historic” rate for each year of work completed and then applying an enhancement for the interest lost, as appellant suggests. The trial court may, but is not required, to award fees at current prevailing hourly rates to compensate for a contingent risk of nonpayment or a lengthy delay in receiving payment. (See Missouri v. Jenkins (1989) 491 U.S. 274, 284 [district court may adjust an attorney fee “for delay in payment . . . by the application of current rather than historic hourly rates or otherwise;” italics added].) The trial court here was faced with the difficult task of devising a reasonable attorney fee for litigation that took place over the course of several years. The lodestar sums were “multiplied by a factor of [two], resulting in an award that was a 100 percent increase over the lodestar sums.” (Press, supra, at p. 324.) The adjustment made by the trial court was a recognition that the unadorned lodestar sums were not sufficient to compensate appellant and a positive multiplier of a factor of two, “ ‘based on consideration of factors specific to the case,’ [was necessary] ‘in order to fix the fee at the fair market value for the legal services provided.’ ” (Ketchum, supra, at p. 1134, quoting from PLCM Group, Inc. v. Drexler (2000) 22 Cal.4th 1084, 1095 (PLCM Group).) In all events, as we now explain, we see no merit to appellant’s challenges to the trial court’s calculation of the lodestar sums.
The short answer to appellant’s arguments is that the trial court made its lodestar calculations after finding appellant’s fee request was “unreasonably inflated” (Serrano IV, supra, 32 Cal.3d at p. 635), leaving the court with a “lingering doubt over the accuracy of the claimed time.” As our Supreme Court has acknowledged, “[a] fee request that appears unreasonably inflated is a special circumstance permitting the trial court to reduce the award or deny one altogether. ‘If . . . the Court were required to award a reasonable fee when an outrageously unreasonable one has been asked for, claimants would be encouraged to make unreasonable demands, knowing that the only unfavorable consequence of such misconduct would be reduction of their fee to what they should have asked in the first place. To discourage such greed, a severer reaction is needful . . . .’ ” (Ibid. fn. omitted; see Elec. Privacy Info. Center v. U.S. Department of Homeland Sec. (D.D.C. 2011) 811 F. Supp. 2d 216, 240-241 [“courts have discretion . . . to completely deny a fee award in order to deter parties from making ‘unreasonable demands, knowing that the only unfavorable consequence of such misconduct would be reduction of their fee to what they should have asked for in the first place,’ ” and “[i]f a party has less egregiously overbilled, courts may ‘impose a lesser sanction, such as awarding a fee below what a “reasonable” fee would have been’ ”].) Based on a parsing of the words in the trial court’s decision, appellant complains that the court made no specific finding that the fee request was “inflated.” We disagree. The only reasonable reading of the decision is that the trial court found appellant’s request was “unreasonably inflated” when considered in light of the nature of the litigation and the amount of time reasonably expected to be spent in litigating the matter. (See also Christian Research Institute v. Alnor (2008) 165 Cal.App.4th 1315, 1323 [“[w]hen a trial court substantially reduces a fee or cost request, we infer the court has determined the request was inflated”].)
We see no merit to appellant’s other arguments challenging the trial court’s findings supporting its reduction of the requested attorney fee. The litigation here involved a relatively simple factual setting and did not necessitate extensive or burdensome discovery. The legal issues, while novel with regard to the merits litigation, were not complex and were resolved by summary judgment motions. Each appeal was premised on and ultimately resolved one question of law — an interpretation of the phrase “business days” as used in a statute in Purifoy I and appellant’s entitlement to section 1021.5 attorney fees in Purifoy II, with each issue having already been extensively briefed in the parties’ motion practice in the trial court. Reversal is not required based on appellant’s claim that the trial court improperly relied on the same factor – the lack of complexity – to both reduce the number of claimed hours and to reduce the claimed hourly rates. (See Moreno v. City of Sacramento (9th Cir. 2008) 534 F.3d 1106, 1116 [trial court may reduce both the hours and the hourly rate for attorney work, as long as the court does not reduce the hours and the rates for the same reason, i.e., simplicity].) The trial court’s calculation of the lodestar components took into account two factors: “[a] more difficult legal question typically requires more attorney hours, and a more skillful and experienced attorney will command a higher hourly rate.” (Ketchum, supra, 24 Cal.4th at pp. 1138-1139.) The trial court mentioned the two factors (level of difficulty and the skill and experience of counsel) when calculating the lodestar components. Thus, even if we were to remand, the trial court could use one factor (level of difficulty) to reduce the number of hours and one factor (the skill and experience of counsel) to reduce the hourly rates, and still reach the same determination.
Nor are we persuaded by appellant’s arguments challenging the court’s record recitations to certain entries in appellant’s time log to illustrate the type of entries supporting its finding of an unreasonably inflated fee request. The trial court appropriately considered that appellant’s request for compensation at an hourly rate of $525 for attorney work included substantial work spent on “tasks that are generally performed by clerical or paralegal staff,” which presumably could have been performed at a lower rate. As explained by the high court in Missouri v. Jenkins, supra, 491 U.S. 274, “paralegals are capable of carrying out many tasks, under the supervision of an attorney, that might otherwise be performed by a lawyer and billed at a higher rate. Such work might include, for example, factual investigation, including locating and interview witnesses; assistance with depositions, interrogatories, and document production; compilation of statistical and financial data; checking legal citations; and drafting correspondence. Much [of] such work lies in a gray area of tasks that might appropriately be performed either by an attorney or a paralegal.” (Id. at p. 288, fn. 10.) Nonetheless, “purely clerical or secretarial tasks should not be billed at a paralegal rate, regardless of who performs them,” and “ ‘[i]t is appropriate to distinguish between legal work, in the strict sense, and investigation, clerical work, compilation of facts and statistics and other work which can often be accomplished by non-lawyers but which a lawyer may do because he has no other help available. Such non-legal work may command a lesser rate. Its dollar value is not enhanced just because a lawyer does it.’ ” (Ibid.) The trial court here also appropriately found that as to the claimed time for discovery matters, certain entries seeking compensation for approximately 50 hours spent on responses to written interrogatories and requests for documents, and deposition preparation, ultimately resulted in the production of a few pages of unverified discovery responses. And, we see no merit to appellant’s arguments challenging the trial court’s findings regarding claimed hours for preparation for oral argument in the trial court and this court. The trial court court’s record citations to appellant’s time log entries, including numbers 331 and 332, all reflect claimed hours for preparation for oral arguments including mock arguments between counsel. Additionally, the court did not find that preparation for oral argument was not compensable, only that the claimed time was excessive and unreasonable under the circumstances.
In all events, we conclude appellant’s challenge to the evidentiary support for the trial court’s lodestar calculations does not warrant reversal. In calculating the lodestar sums, the trial court was free to reject appellant’s evidence, even if uncontradicted, and reject any purported concessions made by the County. (See Stevens v. Parke, Davis & Co. (1973) 9 Cal.3d 51, 67-68 [trier of fact “properly may reject part of the testimony of a witness, though not directly contradicted, and combine the accepted portions with bits of testimony or inferences from the testimony of other witnesses thus weaving a cloth of truth out of selected available material”].) Additionally, the trial court was not “obligated to calculate exactly how many of the claimed hours the court believed were not compensable based on the various flaws the court found in the time entries, then subtract that sum from the total hours claimed to come up with the number of compensable hours.” (Mountjoy v. Bank of America, N.A. (2016) 245 Cal.App.4th 266, 280 (Mountjoy).) Rather, the trial court, having found the claimed hours excessive, made its own determination as to the number of hours that were reasonable for the various aspects of the litigation. The trial court’s method of calculating the lodestar sums is consistent with “well-established” California law that “the trial court is entitled to take all of the circumstances into account and is not bound by the itemization claimed” by appellant. (Melnyk v. Robledo (1976) 64 Cal.App.3d 618, 625.) “ ‘The value of legal services performed in a case is a matter in which the trial court has its own expertise. [Citation.] The trial court may make its own determination of the value of the services contrary to, or without the necessity for, expert testimony. [Citations.] The trial court makes its determination after consideration of a number of factors, including the nature of the litigation, its difficulty, the amount involved, the skill required in its handling, the skill employed, the attention given, the success or failure, and other circumstances in the case.’ ” (PLCM Group, supra, 22 Cal.4th at p. 1096, italics added, quoting from Melnyk v. Robledo, supra, at pp. 623-624; see Spencer v. Collins (1909) 156 Cal. 298, 307 [“[w]hen the court is informed of the extent and nature of [legal] services, its own experience furnishes it with every element necessary to fix their value”].)
Because we find no abuse of discretion in the trial court’s ruling, we uphold its determination of attorney fees. The record shows the trial court awarded attorney fees using the required lodestar adjustment formula. It made findings as to the number of reasonable hours and reasonable hourly rates, and then enhanced the lodestar sums by a multiplier of a factor of two for all aspects of the litigation, resulting in an award which was a 100 percent increase over the lodestar sums. The cases cited by appellant do not demonstrate the trial court abused its discretion in this case.
DISPOSITION
The order, filed on December 16, 2014, is affirmed. Defendants are awarded their costs on appeal.


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Jenkins, J.


We concur:


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McGuiness, P. J.


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Pollak, J.