CHRISTIAN RESEARCH INSTITUTE et al., Plaintiffs and Respondents, v. WILLIAM ALNOR, Defendant and Appellant., 165 Cal. App. 4th 1315

Summary

Although defendant argued that his counsel reasonably expended more than 600 hours on the anti-SLAPP motion and the ensuing appeal, the trial court disagreed, reducing the compensable attorney time to just 71 hours. The instant court concluded that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in awarding compensation for 71 hours of attorney time. The record suggested that counsel sought to transfer to the opposing parties the cost of every minute counsel expended on the case, whether or not anti-SLAPP work was involved. The fee request included, for example, billings for obtaining the docket at the inception of the case, obtaining unspecified but numerous court documents, and attending a mandatory case management conference - all of which would have been incurred whether or not counsel filed the motion to strike. More than one-third of the billing entries submitted for counsel's trial-level work made no reference at all to the motion to strike or otherwise designated the hours ...