State Ex Rel. Corbin v. Tocco

845 P.2d 513, 173 Ariz. 587, 123 Ariz. Adv. Rep. 20, 1992 Ariz. App. LEXIS 281
CourtCourt of Appeals of Arizona
DecidedOctober 8, 1992
Docket1 CA-CV 89-611
StatusPublished
Cited by35 cases

This text of 845 P.2d 513 (State Ex Rel. Corbin v. Tocco) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Arizona primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State Ex Rel. Corbin v. Tocco, 845 P.2d 513, 173 Ariz. 587, 123 Ariz. Adv. Rep. 20, 1992 Ariz. App. LEXIS 281 (Ark. Ct. App. 1992).

Opinion

OPINION

GRANT, Presiding Judge.

Joseph Tocco (“Tocco”) appeals from attorney’s and investigator’s fees and costs imposed against him in a civil RICO action brought by the State of Arizona (the “State”). We hold that the prevailing market rate is the amount to be used to determine the award to the State for work of its attorneys general in RICO (racketeering) cases.

We affirm the trial court’s assessment of attorney’s and investigator’s fees and costs against Tocco.

ISSUES

The issues raised by Tocco on appeal are:

(1) whether the trial court properly awarded attorney’s fees to the State based on a reasonable market rate rather than a rate determined by the actual salaries of the assistant attorneys general;
(2) whether the affidavits in support of the State’s applications for attorney’s fees met the applicable specificity requirements;
(3) whether certain of the fees and costs requested in the State’s application should have been apportioned to Tocco’s co-defendants; and
(4) whether the affidavits in support of the investigator’s fees met the applicable specificity requirements.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

On October 5, 1982, the State instituted this action against Tocco and various other defendants alleging numerous civil violations of Arizona’s Racketeering Act, Ariz.Rev.Stat.Ann. (“A.R.S.”) section 13-2301, et seq. On December 20, 1982, Tocco was charged in a thirteen-count criminal RICO proceeding in Maricopa County Superior Court that paralleled the civil RICO matter. Tocco entered into a plea agreement in connection with the criminal indictments, as subsequently amended, pleading guilty or “no contest” to a total of nineteen felony counts in November 1983. Judgments of guilt and sentences were entered against Tocco on August 29, 1984. The judgments of guilt and sentences were affirmed by this court. State v. Tocco, 1 CA-CR 8315 *590 et al. (Memorandum Decision, December 2, 1986). A petition for writ of habeas corpus was dismissed by the federal district court in Tocco v. Lewis, D.C. No. CV-88-0448-Phx-RC, and the dismissal was affirmed by the Ninth Circuit in a memorandum decision, 915 F.2d 1581 (1990).

On February 28, 1985, the State moved for partial summary judgment in the civil RICO action, requesting a finding of liability based upon the prior pleas, forfeiture of certain real property and the imposition of attorney’s and investigator’s fees and costs against Tocco. The partial summary judgment was granted on September 9, 1985. The trial court’s order granting the partial summary judgment also ordered that Tocco was liable for all expenses for the criminal and civil investigations and for prosecution of the acts described in his plea agreements. However, the order did not delineate an hourly rate for the calculation of such fee award. Tocco appealed the grant of summary judgment in favor of the State, and this court affirmed both the entry of summary judgment and the award of attorney’s fees, investigative expenses and costs pursuant to A.R.S. section 13-2314. State v. Tocco, 1 CA-CIV 8652 (Memorandum Decision, May 19,1987). Although, in the prior appeal, this court awarded the State its attorney’s fees and costs on appeal, we remanded the case to the trial court for determination of the amount of the fees, expenses and costs due at the trial court level because the trial court had not yet determined such amount.

Following this court’s remand to the trial court, the State filed its application for attorney’s and investigative fees and costs. The State’s application requested that the award of attorney’s fees be calculated at an hourly rate of $80.00, which, the application stated, was a reasonable hourly rate based on the prevailing market rate for attorney’s fees for similar work. Attached to the State’s application were affidavits describing the dates and number of investigative hours expended on the matter by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department and the Arizona Department of Public Safety, as well as affidavits from the attorneys on the case attesting to the expenditure of the number of attorney hours on the action against Tocco and time entries describing the legal work done. 1

In his written memorandum in opposition to the State’s application, Tocco argued that attorney’s fees and costs and investigative expenses could not constitutionally be awarded against a defendant in a criminal matter; 2 that an appropriate basis for an award of attorney’s fees would be the hourly rate of counsel as determined by actual, annual salary, not $80.00 per hour; and that 42.2 hours of time listed by the State’s attorneys were either not relevant to the State’s case against Tocco or the descriptions were too cryptic to establish their relevancy. In its written reply to Tocco’s memorandum, and at the subsequent evidentiary hearing on the State’s application, the State provided an explanation of the relevancy, materiality and meaning of the challenged attorney time entries.

At the evidentiary hearing, Tocco for the first time also argued that the requests for fees for investigators employed by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and Department of Public Safety failed to meet *591 applicable specificity requirements. Although all of the relevant attorneys and investigators were present at the evidentiary hearing, Tocco questioned no one and neither party presented any evidence other than the State’s explanation of the specifically objected-to attorney time entries. The parties did stipulate at the hearing that, if the court chose to award attorney’s fees based upon a reasonable market value rate, $80.00 per hour, the amount requested by the State in its application, was an appropriate rate for the time of the assistant attorneys general on the case.

Subsequent to the evidentiary hearing, the trial court entered judgment against Tocco for $388,201.04 3 in attorney’s and investigator’s fees and costs, the full amount requested by the State. The substituting trial judge who heard the evidentiary hearing stated in her minute entry that the market rate was not an inappropriate measure for the calculation of the attorney’s fees in this case and further noted that Tocco had failed to conduct discovery, take advantage of the evidentiary hearing he requested, or present any evidence to indicate that the billings contained irrelevant or immaterial claims. Tocco then instituted this appeal.

DISCUSSION

1. Market Rate v. Salary-based Hourly Rate

Tocco first argues that the trial court erred in determining the amount of attorney’s fees to be awarded to the State because the proper method of calculating such an award was to use an hourly rate based upon the actual salaries of the assistant attorneys general rather than the prevailing market rate.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
845 P.2d 513, 173 Ariz. 587, 123 Ariz. Adv. Rep. 20, 1992 Ariz. App. LEXIS 281, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-ex-rel-corbin-v-tocco-arizctapp-1992.