Four months after former KUSI-TV anchor Sandra Maas won $1.7 million in her pay-equity case, her lawyers have submitted their own bill — $4 million.
In a motion filed Friday in San Diego Superior Court, three attorneys with Bankers Hill-based Gruenberg Law say KUSI-owner McKinnon Broadcasting Co. should pay $2.7 million for 4,088 hours of work since 2019.
On top of that, the Maas team seeks an “enhanced fee” — an extra $1.2 million based on a multiplier of 1.45 they hope Judge Ronald Frazier approves. And they also want to be reimbursed $151,000 in court costs.
Josh Gruenberg, in a phone interview Friday, said the 20-page motion for attorneys fees might have been filed a couple months ago, but his team had to wait on phone records subpoenaed from Verizon, Maas’ carrier.
“We wanted to be able to track her phone calls with everyone in my firm,” Gruenberg said. “And we just wanted to make sure we had all of that information. … We try to keep records as we go, but obviously, phone records are going to be the best.”
KUSI and its legal team didn’t respond to a request for comment. Gruenberg says they have two weeks to file an opposing motion.
Gruenberg defends his hourly rate of $800 to $1,000 and those of colleagues Josh Pang ($500-$685), Pam Vallero ($600-$685) and six others in his firm.
He says he expects those rates to win OK because other judges, in his other Superior Court cases, have said they’re fine.
Multipliers are common in such cases — since courts reward plaintiff attorneys for the risk involved in taking on such civil suits, especially when they involve novelty or complexity.
Gruenberg, with a 31-year legal career, calls himself a contingency fee lawyer — not billing his clients on a monthly basis as some do.
Why a multiplier of 1.45 — when some go 2.0 or higher?
It was a figure “most likely to be awarded by the court,” he said. “Some courts award them and some courts have not. And we felt that we wanted to take a very reasonable position with regard to that to encourage the judge to compensate the firm.”
Gruenberg says he’s sought and received 1.45 multipliers in the past. But he’s also taken losses when his cases were dismissed on summary judgment or failed at trial.
He cited a federal case, thrown out in May, against CoreCivic — operator of the Otay Mesa Detention Center accused of not letting guards protect themselves from COVID-19 early in the pandemic.
“I had six figures in costs in that case,” he said. “And … hundreds of thousands in attorneys fees.”
In the closely watched Maas case, where a jury found that she had been grossly underpaid for years compared with her co-anchor Allen Denton and that her employer engaged in whistleblower retaliation, Maas will be able to keep her entire award if Frazier OKs the Gruenberg motion on fees.
Maas’ lawyers note in their motion almost four years of legal work, “and the majority of this time was necessitated by [KUSI’s] aggressive and obstinate litigation strategy. In sum, Defendant made plaintiff work for it — and she did.”
The Gruenberg Law team argues the case was novel and difficult “due to the absence of controlling case law for many issues presented by this litigation. … From Plaintiff’s research, this was the first section 1197.5 case that actually went to trial and verdict.”
Even if Frazier orders payment of the requested $4,077,400.45, Maas’ team will face more expenses if KUSI appeals the verdict as promised. Gruenberg says he’d file an amended motion to boost the bill.
Another concern is the pending sale of KUSI-TV to Nexstar.
“Now we’re looking at a defendant that’s potentially being sold — and whenever a company is being sold, you never know what kind of shenanigans the party will try to play to avoid paying,” Gruenberg said.
The $151,000 in costs, filed separately on June 1, include $42,000 in deposition costs and four experts paid a total of $50,000. (Plus $123 for parking, $247 for Uber/Lyft rides and $848 for “trial lunch.”)
What Gruenberg can’t calculate, however, is how much he might have made had the Maas case not taken so much time.
“You know, cases used to come to trial within about a year and a year and a half,” he said. “And this case was close to four years.”
He added: “I am turning down cases because of how busy we are, and the Maas case kept us very busy. … I am turning down work in reliance on getting paid.”
