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Court of Appeal:
Wrong Statute Invoked in Awarding $3.20 in Attorney Fees
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The Fifth District Court of Appeal has reversed a $3.20
attorney-fee award in a case in which the plaintiff garnered a $32 judgment
based on wage-and-hour violations, holding that the judge, in choosing between
two statutes, each providing for an award of fees in such cases, picked the
wrong one, and that “reasonable attorney fees” must be granted.
While fees going to the California Rural Legal Assistance,
Inc. must be hiked on remand, under the opinion, filed Tuesday, costs in favor
of plaintiff Marina Moreno will be pared.
Moreno was deemed the prevailing party although the bulk of
her allegations—primary among them that her employer, Parmjit Singh Bassi,
raped her—were rejected by the jury. Madera Superior Court Judge James E.
Oakley proclaimed her the victor, awarding her $19,523 in court costs, based on
Code of Civil Procedure §1032(a)(4) which provides that a prevailing party “includes
the party with a net monetary recovery.”
However, Acting Presiding Justice Donald R. Franson Jr. said
in the Fifth District opinion, all of Moreno’s causes of action under the
California Fair Employment and Housing Act failed and, under Government Code
§12965(b), costs related entirely to spurned FEHA claims must be disallowed. He
noted that, on remand, the award of costs might be further trimmed, in the
court’s discretion, under authority of Code of Civil Procedure §1033 because
the damages could have been secured “in a limited civil case.”
Irreconcilable Statutes
The major question presented was which Labor Code
provision—§1194(a) or §1031—pertained. The former enactment reads:
“Notwithstanding any agreement to work for a lesser wage, any
employee receiving less than the legal minimum wage or the legal overtime
compensation applicable to the employee is entitled to recover in a civil
action the unpaid balance of the full amount of this minimum wage or overtime
compensation, including interest thereon, reasonable attorney’s fees, and costs
of suit.”
Sec. 1031 says:
“In actions for the recovery of wages for labor performed,
where the amount of the demand, exclusive of interest, does not exceed three
hundred dollars ($300), the court shall add, as part of the cost, in any
judgment recovered by the plaintiff or cross-complainant, an attorney’s fee not
exceeding 20 percent of the amount recovered.”
Oakley’s award was pursuant to §1031. Franson said, in the
portion of his opinion that was certified for publication, that §1194(a)
prevails, explaining that it is “the more specific statute and its attorney
fees provision is the most recently enacted.”
Franson’s Reasoning
The jurist said that §1031 “is general in the sense that it
applies to claims for all types of wages and is specific in the sense that it
is limited to actions where the wages demanded do not exceed $300” while
§1194(a) “is general in the sense that it applies to claims of any amount and
is specific as to the types of wages sought—that is, minimum wages and overtime
compensation.” In figuring out which of the irreconcilable statutes is to be
deemed the more specific one, Franson wrote:
“[W]e consider which subject
matter—the type of wages or the dollar amount demanded—was of greater
importance to the Legislature. Based on the history underlying California’s
minimum wage law, we conclude the type of wages in question was more important
to the Legislature than the amount demanded….Therefore,
we infer the Legislature intended all actions to recover minimum wages or
overtime compensation to be subject to the reasonable attorney fees provision
in Labor Code section 1194, subdivision (a). Accordingly, we give the specificity
as to the type of wages precedence over the specificity as to the amount of
recovery. Thus, we conclude Labor Code section 1194, subdivision (a) is
properly regarded as the more specific provision and it should control where it
overlaps with section 1031.”
He added that even if the question of which statute reigns
“is regarded as a tossup,” §1194(a) “would take precedence over section 1031
under the principle that the later enacted statute should prevail,” noting that
§1031 gained legislative approval in 1933 and was last amended in 1986, while
an amendment to §1194 authorizing an award of reasonable attorney fees was
enacted in 1991.
Outcome of Prosecution
Bassi, an owner with his wife of a farm in Chowchilla on
which almonds and grapes are grown, was charged with two counts of raping
Moreno—who, he insisted, he had paid to have consensual sex with him—and was
convicted on one count. However, the trial judge invalidated the conviction
based on irregularity in the jurors’ conduct and, finding that jeopardy had
attached, dismissed the criminal action.
Jurors were made aware of the arrest of Bassi on rape
charges. His lawyer was able to get in testimony by his client that he had not
suffered a conviction.
In an unpublished portion of Tuesday’s opinion, Franson said
in response to Moreno’s contention that this was misleading:
“Here, the trial court did not err by excluding additional
details about the outcome of the criminal proceeding because Moreno did not
attempt to introduce any such evidence. As to the failure to give a
limiting instruction, trial courts in a civil case generally do not have a sua sponte duty to instruct the jury….In
a discussion with counsel, the trial court offered to consider any instructions
offered about the outcome of the criminal case and informed counsel that if the
jury asked a question about it the court could tell the jury that the outcome
was not in evidence and they were not to consider it. The appendices
prepared by the parties do not include any request for a limiting
instruction. Accordingly, the trial court did not commit legal error by
failing to provide one.”
The case is Moreno v. Bassi, 2021 S.O.S. 2493.
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2021, Metropolitan News Company