Baker

—Eric Baker (plaintiff) sued Mulholland Security and Patrol, Inc. (defendant), for retaliation, failure to pay overtime compensation, and failure to maintain records, claiming he was terminated after just 13 days of employment when he complained about discriminatory remarks made at his workplace. The trial court disposed of his retaliation claim by summary adjudication, and the remainder of his claims were dismissed after the parties reached a settlement. The trial court concluded plaintiff was terminated for his poor performance and that plaintiff failed to demonstrate there were triable issues whether defendant’s justification for its termination decision was pretextual. Plaintiff filed two appeals, which were consolidated, challenging the judgment on the retaliation claim, as well as the trial court’s order awarding expert witness fees to defendant. Finding no error with the summary adjudication of plaintiff’s retaliation claim, we affirm the judgment. However, we conclude the trial court applied an erroneous legal standard in awarding defendant its expert witness fees, and that any expert fee award *779 would be an abuse of discretion because plaintiff made a…