Frank v. Frank

SHOEMAKER, J.

Defendant appeals from that portion of an interlocutory decree of divorce ordering him to pay plaintiff’s attorney’s fees. Defendant’s sole contention is that the court erred in fixing the amount of these fees without requiring any showing of the specific services performed by plaintiff’s attorney and without permitting defendant to cross-examine plaintiff’s attorney or to produce other evidence as to the amount of work actually performed by him.

The action came on for trial at 11 a.m. on October 17, 1961. Prior to the giving of any testimony, court and counsel retired to chambers for a discussion which lasted until the noon recess. When court reconvened at 2 p.m., counsel for both parties informed the court that they had reached an agreement during the noon hour as to alimony, child custody and support, and the manner in which the property should be distributed. After the plaintiff and her corroborating witness had testified briefly, counsel for plaintiff stated that the sole matter remaining was his request for attorney’s fees. He then informed the court that he had already received $2,500 on account, and that he considered an additional sum of $17,500 would constitute adequate compensation for his services. He stated that the parties owned an extensive amount of community property; that he had worked on the ease constantly since May 1,1961; that there had been numerous tax problems in connection with the property settlement agreement, and also numerous conferences with his client and with opposing counsel. In addition, he had appeared at the hearing for pendente lite orders, two pretrial conferences, and the trial itself. He estimated that he had spent “several hundred hours” working on the ease.

Counsel for defendant then examined plaintiff’s counsel under Code of Civil Procedure, section 2055, and established that the “actual equity” of the parties’ community property was somewhere between $475,000 and $480,000, and that the time he had spent with his client was somewhere above three hundred hours. He stated that he did not always keep records and was unable to be more exact.

The trial judge then invited counsel to confer with him in chambers. Following a brief recess for this purpose, the trial

Appellant contends that the amount of this award is unreasonable. He argues that the record contains no indication of what specific services were rendered by respondent’s counsel except for his own unsworn statements to the effect that the case was a complex one which required considerable work on tax problems and numerous conferences with his client and opposing counsel, and urges that since the trial court cannot be deemed to have relied on these unsworn statements, there was no evidentiary support whatever for the award of $12,500. This argument is wholly without merit.

The California courts have repeatedly held that testimony or other direct evidence of the reasonable value of attorney’s services need not be introduced because such evidence is necessarily before the trial court which hears the case. (Jones v. Jones (1955) 135 Cal.App.2d 52 , 64 [ 286 P.2d 908 ] ; Lewis & Queen v. S. Edmondson & Sons (1952) 113 Cal.App. 2d 705 , 708 [ 248 P.2d 973 ].) The knowledge and experience of the trial judge afford a sufficient basis for fixing the amount of a lawyer’s fee, even though there was no specific evidence on the subject. (Rosenthal v. Rosenthal (1961) 197 Cal.App.2d 289 , 299 [ 17 Cal.Rptr. 186 ] ; Howard v. Howard (1956) 141 Cal.App.2d 233 , 238 [ 296 P.2d 592 ].)

In the present ease, the trial judge specifically stated that he was familiar with the file on the case and that he had had sufficient experience to determine what would constitute a reasonable fee under the circumstances. Further, he had respondent’s counsel’s testimony that he had devoted in excess of three hundred hours to actual work on the ease. These facts preclude us from saying that $12,500 was an unreasonably large fee for these services.

Judgment affirmed.

Kaufman, P. J., and Agee, J., concurred.