Lenz v. Chalamidas
| Decision Date | 03 December 1991 |
| Docket Number | No. 19625,19625 |
| Parties | Charles H. LENZ, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Chris CHALAMIDAS, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | New Mexico Supreme Court |
Carl Schmidt, Albuquerque, for defendant-appellant.
Kemp, Smith, Duncan & Hammond, John P. Eastham, Alan Hall, Albuquerque, for plaintiff-appellee.
This appeal calls on us to consider once again the trial court's award of attorney fees pursuant to NMSA 1978, Section 48-2-14 (Repl.Pamp.1987). The original action underlying this appeal was for foreclosure on a residence pursuant to a materialmen's lien. The plaintiff, contractor Lenz, prevailed and was awarded damages of $13,364.82 and attorney fees in the amount of $26,268.03. We considered that initial award of attorney fees in Lenz v. Chalamidas, 109 N.M. 113, 782 P.2d 85 (1989) (Lenz I ), and found it necessary to remand for a new trial on attorney fees in light of the trial court's failure to make findings of fact and conclusions of law regarding fees. Id. at 119, 782 P.2d at 91. We now consider the result of the remand proceedings in which the trial court reduced the original fee award to $15,116.00; awarded $1,000.00 for fees incurred following the jury verdict for services related to foreclosure, setting an appeal bond, and prior attorney fee hearings; and awarded an additional $1,500.00 for the remand proceedings, for a total award of $17,616.00. We reverse.
Chalamidas again argues that the trial court abused its discretion in awarding attorney fees. Award of attorney fees rests in the discretion of the trial court and this court will not alter the fee award absent an abuse of discretion. Montgomery v. Karavas, 45 N.M. 287, 114 P.2d 776 (1941). Section 48-2-14 empowers the court to award reasonable attorney fees in the district and supreme courts in actions to enforce mechanics' and materialmen's liens. "Under this statute, the allowance of attorney fees is discretionary, but the exercise of that discretion must be reasonable when measured against objective standards and criteria." Lenz I, 109 N.M. at 118, 782 P.2d at 90. Lenz I formulates the factors and criteria to be considered in arriving at a reasonable award of attorney fees under Section 48-2-14, including the five factors that have been utilized to determine the reasonableness of attorney fees between client and attorney.1 While these five factors provide guidance in arriving at a fee under Section 48-2-14, we again stress the proposition that the award of attorney fees is a question distinct from the determination of a fee between an attorney and client. Application of these factors, together with the other considerations articulated in Lenz I, is not a rigid, mechanical process, and the weight accorded each factor will vary from case to case. We also emphasize that in the context of lien litigation, this court has declined "to adopt time spent and quality of representation as determinative criteria in the allowance of attorney fees as costs in the successful enforcement of liens." Ulibarri v. Gee, 106 N.M. 637, 639, 748 P.2d 10, 12 (1987).
In the remand proceedings, the trial court received exhibits prepared by the plaintiff's attorney that included time logs and summaries of those logs. Based on hourly billings, the total attorney fees requested were $24,295.00. The trial court determined its award by identifying questionable portions of the hourly billings and reducing the total fee requested accordingly. While the trial court refers to the other factors delineated in Lenz I, its method of determining fees is susceptible to being based on inflated hourly billings and in any event relies on time spent as the determinative criteria for the award. Allowing time spent to be the pervasive factor in awarding attorney fees is apt to result in rewarding waste of time and resources. While we realize that compensation based on hourly rates is often a necessary factor in determining attorney fees, time spent is not always synonymous...
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...statement of the standard of review on appeal. See, e.g., id.; Baca, 120 N.M. at 8-9, 896 P.2d at 1155-56; Lenz v. Chalamidas, 113 N.M. 17, 18, 821 P.2d 355, 356 (1991); Montoya v. Villa Linda Mall, Ltd., 110 N.M. 128, 130-31, 793 P.2d 258, 260-61 (1990). We have previously explained that "......
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