Scott Johnson v. Blvd Coffee Inc., et al.

6.

Apart from reasonably incurred attorneys’ fees and costs, the total amount of the settlement that Defendant agreed to pay Plaintiff is: $3,999.00. Id., Ex. 6 ¶ 2(a).

Under the plain text of the C.C.P. § 998 Offer of Judgment that Defendant accepted on July 18, 2025, Plaintiff is entitled “to recovery of all reasonably incurred fees and costs, in an amount to be determined by notice motion to the Court[.]” Id., Ex. 6 ¶ 2(b) (emphasis added). Defendant agreed to that, so Plaintiff is entitled to that.

So while Plaintiff is entitled to recover all reasonably incurred fees and costs in this case from Defendant, what is reasonable in this case is within the broad discretion of this Court to decide now in this Motion.

In this Motion to recover its attorneys’ fees and costs, Plaintiffs requests a total award of $39,638.60, reflecting a 1.25 multiplier on $29,275.00 in attorneys’ fees and $2,435.88 in costs. Motion at 3:3-7; Price Reply Decl. at ¶ 6.

More specifically, as the Court can see by its careful line-by-line review of Plaintiff’s Billing Records for this case submitted as Exhibit 1 to the Original Price Decl., as increased by 0.6 hours at $750.00 in the Reply Price Decl. at ¶ 6, Plaintiff is requesting 46.6 hours of attorney time at a billable rate that ranges from $750.00 an hour for attorney Price, to $700 per hour for attorneys Christopher Seabock and Amanda Seabock, to $550.00 per hour for attorney Sara Johnson.

Considering the relevant market that these lawyers practice in ADA litigation in California and the fact that attorney Christopher Seabock himself did the vast majority of assignments listed on the billing records in this case (see Original Price Decl., Ex. 1, Billing Records), the Court finds that the $700 per hour billable rate requested for attorney Christopher Seabock is reasonable, and indeed that $700 per hour for Plaintiff’s lawyers is reasonable to award across the board for the reasonable number of billable hours that the Court decides to award in this case. In other words, the Court will calculate its award of fees in this case at a rate of $700.00 per hour, which the Court in the exercise of its discretion finds to be reasonable here given these facts and circumstances.

But the Court finds that the number of 46.6 hours sought by Plaintiff’s counsel is unreasonable given the work that Plaintiff’s counsel reasonably needed to do here and given the size of the amount of the recovery in this settlement of $3,999.00. To put this in perspective, Plaintiff is asking for nearly 10 times in attorneys’ fees and costs— $39,638.60—what Plaintiff recovered in this settlement: $3,999.00. In this case against a small coffee shop, that 10-times-multiple is not reasonable.

Moreover, the Court’s careful line-by-line review of the billing records submitted in

this case show a level of padding and unnecessarily-billed hours that shock the conscience of this Court. For instance, Defendant filed a motion to quash on March 7, 2025 that was withdrawn on April 25, 2025. While Plaintiff’s attorneys no doubt had to spend some time opposing that motion to quash, the number of hours that they billed between March 7 and April 25, 2025—of 18.6 hours over 20 separate days (!)—is absurd. It should reasonably have taken experienced Plaintiff’s counsel 1.0 hour to oppose a motion to quash that was never argued because it was withdrawn as moot.

Likewise, the 5.2 hours that Plaintiff’s counsel billed between December 3, 2024 and January 28, 2025 to draft and file the Complaint on January 28, 2025 is not reasonable. As an experienced ADA litigation firm, Plaintiff’s counsel here did not have to reinvent the wheel. At most, it should have taken Plaintiff’s counsel 1.0 hour to draft and file this Complaint by plugging in the facts of Plaintiff’s case to this standard ADA Complaint.

Regarding work billed by Plaintiff’s counsel between when Defendant’s answer was filed on May 8, 2025, and the date Defendant executed and accepted the Section 998 Offer on July 18, 2025, the Court will award another 2.0 hours of reasonable attorney work. Plaintiff counsel did conduct some modest (though not novel or time consuming at all) written discovery during this date range. But for the multiple repetitive billing entries during this date range like “revising CMC statement, review docket,” the Court is not going to award any attorney time for that as these amounts sought were for attorney time not reasonably incurred.

And after Defendant executed the Section 998 Offer on July 18, 2025, there frankly was not much more for Plaintiff’s counsel to do other than prepare this attorneys’ fees and costs Motion, which, as an experienced ADA litigation firm, Plaintiff’s counsel could reasonably generate—i.e., by calling up and inserting its billable records and standard exhibits in this standard Motion that it filed about the reasonableness of billable hours and rates sought, exactly as it did—in 1.5 hours.

So the total number of attorney hours that the Court awards here as reasonably expended is not 46.6 hours but 5.5 hours (1.0 + 1.0 + 2.0 + 1.5). As the undersigned Judge before taking the bench practiced more than 20 years in civil litigation—the first decade representing Plaintiffs and submitting motions for attorneys’ fees just like this one—the Court is quite certain that 5.5 hours at $700 per hour is a reasonable number of hours and a reasonable hourly rate to award considering the attorney work that needed to be done in this case and in light of modest amount of the recovery achieved by the attorney work done here—$3,999.00.

As the Court rules that Plaintiff is entitled to a reasonable amount of attorneys’ fees under the executed Section 998 agreement in this case, and that $700 per hour is a reasonable billable rate and that 5.5 is a reasonable number of hours worked in this case, the award of attorneys’ fees in this case is $3,850.00 (= $700 per hour x 5.5 hours).

Regarding the 1.25 multiplier on the lodestar that Plaintiff requests in this case, the Court in the broad exercise of its discretion does not award any multiplier in this case

because to do so would be unreasonable under these facts and circumstances. Even Plaintiff concedes that “no multiplier deviation is requested or necessary, except to account for delay in payment.” Motion at 11:1:1-2. And Plaintiff requests a 1.25 multiplier not because of any complexity of the attorney work here or because it claims that the $3,999.00 settlement was somehow exceptional (it’s not), but rather because “[t]he reality of finance is that funds that are received later are worth less than those that are received timely.”

Motion at 11:18-19. Assuming without deciding that this realities-of-finance argument were a sound basis on which the Court could award a multiplier, the Court declines to do so here. By accepting the Section 998 Offer on July 18, 2025, within 30 days of it being offered on June 18, 2026, Defendant caused no undue delay here that warrants the award of any multiplier on top of the lodestar.

That said, in addition to their reasonable attorneys’ fees, Plaintiff is also entitled under the plain terms of the executed Section 998 agreement to his reasonable costs incurred for this case. Original Price Declaration Ex. 6 ¶ 2(b).

For costs, Plaintiff requests $2,435.88. Motion at 3:7; Original Price Decl. Ex 1 (Billing Records at p. 12 of 12, listing “$2,435.88” as “Expenses Subtotal”).

However, Plaintiff admits that out of that $2,435,88, the $1,000 cost entry on October 7, 2025, the “high-frequency filing fee” on its Billing Records “has not yet been paid.” Motion at p. 12 fn.

2. The Court finds that it would be unreasonable to make Defendant pay Plaintiff this $1,000.00 high-frequency filing for two reasons.

First, it is unreasonable for the Court award Defendant a cost that Defendant has not paid.

Second, and more importantly, there is no reason in logic or law that Defendant should incur a $1,000.00 fee that Plaintiff may have pay because Plaintiff files a high frequency of civil actions in California. Regardless of whether Plaintiff has “filed perhaps thousands of such actions” as Defendant argues in its Opposition papers (Opp. at p. 1), Defendant did nothing to cause—in fact or proximately—Plaintiff to file a single other lawsuit besides this one. As Defendant did not cause this $1,000 cost, it would be unreasonable for the Court to make Defendant pay Plaintiff for this $1,000 cost. So in the broad exercise of its discretion, the Court will not award Plaintiff as part of its costs this $1,000.00 high-frequency filing fee because to make Defendant pay for this cost that Defendant did not cause would be unreasonable.

Moreover, after reviewing each line of the costs claimed in the Billing Records (Original Price Decl. Ex 1), the Court also does not award the $156.70 in costs for “pull[ing] DC prior ADA defense” billed on May 22, 2026 or the $24.94 for “mid-litigation investigation” billed on May 27, 2025, as the Court finds that those costs were not reasonably incurred for this case.

Putting aside the $1,000.00 high frequency filing fee, the $156.70 prior ADA defense “pulling,” and the $24.94 mid-litigation investigation, the Court finds that the remaining expenses listed on the Billing Records are reasonable costs in this case.

Accordingly, the Court awards Plaintiff reasonable costs of $1,254.24 in this case.

In total, the Court awards Plaintiff $5,104.24 in reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs in this case, comprising $3,850.00 in reasonable attorneys’ fees and $1,254.24 in reasonable costs in this case. And Defendant will pay Plaintiff that total amount of $5,104.24 within 60 days of today.10

Order and Conclusion

For the reasons set forth above, Plaintiff’s Motion is GRANTED In Part as follows. Specifically, Defendant Blvd Coffee Inc. is ORDERED within 60 days of today to pay Plaintiff Scott Johnson $5,104.24 for Plaintiff’s reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs incurred in this case.

SO ORDERED.

Date: June 24, 2026 Hon. Vincent I. Parrett Superior Court of the State of California, County of Santa Clara

10 The Court is aware that the text of the executed and accepted Section 998 offer states

that “any fees awarded by the Court shall be paid within 30 days of that Order, unless the Order specifies otherwise.” Original Price Decl. Ex. 6 ¶ 2(c) (emphasis added). The Court is specifying otherwise now, as a matter of fairness considering the modest means of this small coffee shop that is Defendant (Opp. at pp. 5, 13), by Ordering the total award to be paid within 60 days of today.

Line 6 Case Name: Hai Bui v. Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc., et al.