I filed the following opposition yesterday, setting up for an appeal of a punitive fee shifting judgment in Federal District Court for the Southern District of California.

The format doesn’t transfer well, and I am up against another big deadline on a different case. Sorry.

The pdf is posted at the bottom with a pdf you can download of the accompanying brief.

Judges decide what the legislature meant when it authorizes an award of “reasonable attorney fees”. Precedence is to use a supply and demand standard and call it the “prevailing rate”. The judges decide that lawyers can charge $460 per hour and still drum up enough business to keep all lawyers busy.

Of course, this is a fallacy. No one would hire the lawyers if the judges didn’t force them to. Most lawyers would be out of work if it was up to We the People.

TO: THE COURT AND ALL PARTIES OF RECORD:

I, Laura Lynn Hammett (“Plaintiff”), for this Plaintiff’s Opposition to Defendants
Ellis Roy Stern, Alan G. Goldberg and Stern & Goldberg’s (together “S & G”) Combined
Motion for Attorney’ Fees (ECF No. 271) state:

The Court issued an order (ECF No. 284) on my ex parte motion to strike S & G’s
motion for attorney fees (ECF No. 282).

The Court’s opinion, inter alia: “This Court’s prior orders already determined that the
S&G Defendants and MKZ Defendants were prevailing parties, based on the Court’s
analysis under Coltrain v. Shewalter, 66 Cal. App. 4th 94 (1998), and awarded fees to the
Attorney Defendants for expenses incurred up to the Court’s initial order granting fees.
See ECF Nos. 111 at 48; 266 at 9-10. In other words, the substance of the present fee
motions is not whether Plaintiff’s claims against the Attorney Defendants was barred by
the anti-SLAPP statute or whether an award of fees is mandatory under that statute, but
whether the fees sought by the Attorney Defendants is reasonable.”

The Court is wrong again. The “law of the case” is not controlling where it is a clear
error, such as here. The law of the case is not controlling where the judge who wrote it
appeared to have a bias and should have recused. The law of the case is not controlling
before it is affirmed by the Court of Appeals.

Therefore, I am reasserting my previous arguments against awarding any attorney fees
pursuant to Cal. Code Civ. Proc. Sec. 425.16(C)(1) in order to preserve the arguments for
appeal.

My repeated arguments:

1. The Court appeared to have a bias and retaliated against me for complaining about
   clerk “JPP” altering the docket, then altering it back without indication on the
   docket after I told him I had a copy of the unaltered version. Until she was recused,
   which never happened, the proceedings were tainted.
   
   
2. The derivative cause of action for legal malpractice arising from S & G’s dual
   representation of Silver Strand Plaza, LLC (“SSP”) and individual members of SSP
   and all proceedings based on it that cause of action are null and void because I filed
   on behalf of a limited liability company.
3. Neither cause of action against S & G was Strategic Litigation Against Public
   Participation (“SLAPP”), therefore failing the first prong of the anti-SLAPP test.
4. The “voluntary dismissal” was mandated. That is why I dismissed the causes and
   there can therefore be no presumption that S & G was the prevailing party.
5. The denial of leave to hire an attorney on limited scope made equal protection for
   me impossible because I am not a net-worth-elite person. The Southern District of
   California is split from other districts in the Circuit and throughout the country.
   The result of having no mechanism to retain limited scope representation is to
   render the “anti-SLAPP” statute, Cal. Code Civ. Proc. Sec. 425.16(C)(1)
   unconstitutional as applied in the Southern District of California. (A notice
   pursuant to FRCP 5.1 will be filed and served with a copy of these papers promptly
   on the Attorney General of the State of California by certified mail or
   electronically.)
   I am adding argument pursuant to intervening-change-in-law that was issued October
   20, 2022, Wakefield v. ViSalus, Inc., 2022 WL 11530386 United States Court of Appeals,
   Ninth Circuit, that questions the constitutionality of awarding an oppressive award, even
   if mandated by statute.
   The aggregate attorney fee awards against me are unreasonable, oppressive and
   violate my Constitutional rights, and therefore, if not reversed should be reduced
   drastically.
   
   I am asking this Court to deny any further attorney fees to S & G and will ask the
   Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse the prior orders which were based on clear
   error.
   This opposition is based on this Plaintiff’s Opposition to Defendants Ellis Roy Stern,
   Alan G. Goldberg and Stern & Goldberg’s Combined Motion for Attorney’ Fees, the
   accompanying Brief Memorandum of Points and Authorities, the Affidavit of Laura Lynn
   Hammett, as well as the pleadings and papers filed herein, and any oral argument
   presented at the time of hearing, should the Court desire oral argument.

Respectfully submitted,