A recent Law 360 story by Bonnie Eslinger, “MetLife Faces $6.2M in Atty Fees Over Ponzi Scheme Ruling,” reports that a California judge tentatively ordered MetLife Inc. and various subsidiaries to pay $6.2 million in attorneys’ fees on top of a $7.2 million judgment in a “hotly contested" case blaming the insurer for the loss of a retired woman’s savings in a Ponzi scheme.

Christine Ramirez claimed the insurer and its subsidiaries, along with an agent who ran MetLife’s Los Angeles operations, sold her unregistered securities alongside her insurance policies.  Those unregistered promissory notes put her money into an alleged $216 million Ponzi scheme, the suit said.

In August, a jury found the defendants liable for Ramirez's losses in the amount of $240,000 and awarded her $15 million in punitive damages saying MetLife owed $10 million, unit MetLife Securities owed $2.5 million and unit New England Life Insurance Co. owed $2.5 million.  A state court judge subsequently reduced the award to $7,196,710, telling Ramirez that if she didn’t consent to the remittitur, he would grant the insurer's motion for a new trial on grounds of excessive punitive damages.

A hearing was held on Ramirez’s motion for attorneys' fees of $7 million.  At the start, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Kenneth Freeman issued a tentative written ruling, shaving fees related to attorney hours spent working on a separate, related case against MetLife, in which Ramirez was a putative class member, but finding the time invested in the case to be reasonable.

“In assessing reasonableness, the time required by the opposing party's tactics may also be highly probative,” Judge Freeman wrote in his written tentative opinion.  "Here, it goes without saying that this case was, and remains, very hotly contested.  The MetLife defendants litigated their clients’ case extensively, and there were never any frivolous arguments raised.”

The judge also doubled Ramirez’s lodestar attorneys' fees figure of $3,112,138, saying the requested 2.0 multiplier is appropriate in light of the novelty of the issues presented in the case, the skill of counsel, the extent that the case precluded the attorneys from taking on other clients, and the fact that the case was taken on a contingency basis.  Additionally, the results achieved in the litigation were notable, the judge said, even with the award reduction.  “The significant result warrants a multiplier in this case,” he wrote.

During oral arguments, an attorney for MetLife, Cheryl Haas of McGuireWoods LLP, disputed that any multiplier should be awarded, calling the $6 million a “windfall.”  “A multiplier is simply not justified,” Haas said.  “The prevailing party is only entitled to reasonable attorneys' fees.”

Judge Freeman said he would issue a final ruling after he considered supplemental filings from the parties, but he didn’t offer much hope for a different outcome.  "The tentative is very clear on the court’s reasoning and frankly I doubt there’s anything you’re going to offer in the way of a supplemental brief that will change the court’s tentative,” the judge said.

The case is Hartshorne et al. v. MetLife Inc. et al., case number BC576608, in the Superior Court of the State of California, County of Los Angeles.