Multiplier for Hourly Rates

Greenlining requests that we apply a 50% multiplier to most of these hourly rates.¹³ Greenlining believes its participation justifies a multiplier of as much as 100%. As support, Greenlining claims that (a) its overall fee request is modest compared to the various utilities' litigation expenses; (b) it had a high degree of success in this proceeding; (c) its fee request is based on below-market hourly rates; (d) its participation was contingent on success and can be valued at over $2 billion over the next five years; and (e) its efforts were efficient. SBC and Verizon oppose this portion of Greenlining's request.

In practice, a multiplier award is rare; it represents an additional cost to ratepayers, which must itself be justified as fair and reasonable. As the Commission explained in a recent intervenor compensation decision, "our standards for applying hourly rate multipliers to attorney fees are necessarily high. If we did not set and maintain high standards, many attorney fees in compensation requests would include multipliers, and we would no longer be adopting attorney fees based on market rates for comparable training and experience as required by Section 1804." (D.02-09-003, 2002 Cal. PUC LEXIS 531, *18.) This policy, equally applicable to multipliers for expert witness fees, is not new but has been articulated in various ways in intervenor compensation decisions dating back to the mid-1980s.¹⁴

Commission decisions authorize two different kinds of multipliers, sometimes differentiated as either an "efficiency adder" or a "fee enhancement." Both result in increased awards by multiplying the authorized hourly rate times the authorized adder or enhancement. An "efficiency adder" has been approved where a customer's participation involved skills or duties far beyond those normally required. An example is when an attorney develops and sponsors necessary technical testimony, performing the dual roles of counsel and expert not only with a very high degree of professionalism but also at a lower total cost than the hourly fee of the two individuals. A "fee enhancement" has been approved where the Commission determined the intervenor had achieved exceptional results.

Returning to Greenlining's arguments for a multiplier here, we find those arguments unpersuasive. While Greenlining's work was efficient and its efforts resulted in the Commission initiating the rulemaking, we recognize these efforts in the hourly rate reflected in the compensation award. This proceeding was not unusually complex or contentious, and was resolved by the Commission through a notice and comment process. Thus, although Greenlining's efforts were successful in significant part, the issue of whether or not to eliminate exclusions in GO 156's reporting requirements is not of such novelty or complexity as to justify application of a multiplier. We therefore decline to apply a multiplier to this award.