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P1066 A plaintiff who asserted various causes of action all based on the same facts, dismissed several of them before trial, and prevailed on those that remained is the prevailing party, and defendant is not an equally prevailing party; in fixing fees by the lodestar method, a trial court was found to have abused its discretion by using a flat hourly rate based on an unrelated local rule capping expert witness fees and in disregard of unopposed declarations from several area attorneys and other evidence of higher rates; a trial court has discretion to use negative lodestar multipliers, but was found to abuse its discretion by doing so without sufficient reason; legislative policy favors awarding all attorney fees reasonably expended by a plaintiff suing under consumer protection statutes, without limiting the fees to a proportion of the actual recovery.CitationGRACIANO v ROBINSON FORD (Attorney Fees) 144 CA4 140 [See: PLCM v Drexler 22 C4 1084, T/AT 6/00; Castro v Superior Court 116 CA4 1010, P/AT 5/04; Serrano v Priest 20 C3 25]
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