Thayer

Appellant Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. (hereafter Wells Fargo or Bank), challenges a trial court order awarding attorney fees and costs in the amount of $215,460 to Attorney Sherman Kassof, cocounsel for respondent Ernest M. Thayer in one of five coordinated class actions that, as to the underlying issues, have all been resolved on the basis of a settlement agreement. The total amount awarded by the trial court to the nine law firms, including Kassof’s, which represented plaintiffs in the coordinated actions was approximately $1.1 million. After the appeal was filed, Wells Fargo entered into settlement agreements regarding all individual attorney fee awards except that to Kassof. The amount of the fee awarded Kassof s cocounsel, Mario Alioto, was among those compromised by settlement, so that the award to Kassof is therefore the only one here at issue.

In a cross-appeal, Kassof claims the fee awarded him was too low. In his view, the trial court abused its discretion by refusing to consider the value of the benefit conferred on Wells Fargo’s customers by the litigation and to enhance the lodestar more than it did by applying a multiplier reflecting a percentage-of-the-benefit…