New Jersey’s Consumers Fraud Act (CFA) allows successful claimants to recover reasonable attorney fees irrespective of whether  actual damages have been recovered.   Recently, an appellant court in New Jersey reversed a trial court’s decision to award $99,000.00 in legal fees to a plaintiff who only recovered $660  in damages.  The class action lawsuit was filed against Route 22 Nissan, Inc. and alleged that this car dealership inflated  fees contained in its contracts of sale.  The lead plaintiff purchased a vehicle in 2001, where the sales contract required a fee of $150.00 for vehicle registration when the charge was actually $51.50.  The dealer pocketed the difference.

The plaintiff’s lawyer was a class action expert from Washington, D.C.  The defendant’s principal argument was that this law firm had previously prosecuted a similar action in a neighboring county and returned an attorney fee award of almost $120,000.00.  Resultantly, it was argued that the fees requested in the second case was duplicative.  In  his response the  trial judge noted that the attorney fee application was for $700,000.00 and as a result of the plaintiff’s lack of success and the credit given for the work done in the first case, the fee of $99,000.00 was appropriate. In addition, the trial court relied on his own personal experiences as a trial lawyer in fixing the fee under the CFA.

On appeal, the Court observed that the judge’s prior personal professional experiences should not have  influenced the Court’s decision to determine a reasonable hourly rate and again laid out the principals associated with the so-called lode star concept which is a process required in all attorney-fee-shifting applications under the CFA.