United States District Court, Central District, California

“ No sanctions are sought against these attorneys. Attorney Kobrin and Bowles & Moxon cannot be held responsible for the costs of defending the action before they became attorneys of record for plaintiffs.
Further, the action continued to be litigated on the original complaint after transfer to this district. It was not until October 12, 1993, that Attorney Kobrin filed the amended complaint. It is that pleading which has been held to be frivolous. Thus, sanctions shall be limited to reasonable fees incurred by defendants after the filing of the amended complaint. ”

“ It would not be “practicable” to require compliance with the “safe harbor” provision in this case. [FN6] Amended Rule 11 became effective on the same date that this action was dismissed. Thus, it would be futile to now require defendants to comply with the “safe harbor” provision. See Agretti v. ANR Freight Sys., Inc., 1994 WL 46670 (N.D.Ill. Feb. 14, 1994) (impracticable and problematic retroactively to apply “safe harbor” provision) .
II. Merits The only “RICO” injury claimed by plaintiffs is attorneys' fees incured in the Scott/Wollersheim litigation. ”

“ Defendants seek an award based on an hourly rate of $225 for the work of Jerold Fagelbaum. While the court agrees that this rate is well within the range of fees charged by competent attorneys in the community for similar work, for this case, the court finds that it is somewhat inflated. Mr. Fagelbaum has represented the same parties in the related litigation. He is very familiar with the context of this litigation. The work in this case and on this motion was not unusual or complex. [FN12] The court finds that an hourly rate of $200 is a reasonable hourly rate for Mr. ”

“ It is clear that these damages are not recoverable under RICO because they do not meet the proximate cause requirement of Holmes v. SIPC. Although plaintiffs cite numerous cases in support of their contrary position, none supports plaintiffs' argument. ”