Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California

"Economically viable" will vary greatly from case to case, but it will always be a function of the amount of time and money expected to be needed to get through the court system, versus the expected result. There is no number that applies to all cases. For a medical malpractice case with significant issues, $500,000 might be low. Some cases might be economically viable at $25,000, while small claims cases can be economically viable at amounts $10,000 or less. While most do not, some cases provide the opportunity to recover attorney fees and costs. Many attorneys will not take a case assuming it will settle. Because it take all sides to settle, they have to assume the case will proceed through trial. Your attorney is doing you a service when they let you know a case is not economically viable. If you are paying by the hour, you don't want to spend more than the case is worth. If the case is on contingency, you don't want the attorney fees and costs to use up the entire settlement or award.,

I agree with Mr. Dorfman. I only write to (hopefully) simplify and provide an illustration, The simple version of what Mr. Dorfman is saying they mean is that your net recovery after attorneys fees and all the costs and expenses of litigation would not be enough to make it worth pursuing. OR, if you are asking them to take it on a contingency, then it also means that their share of any reasonably expected settlement would not be enough for them to take the case. So if they are saying it is not economically viable, it means that unless a potential verdict would be in the $500,000, the case will not settle for enough to cover the cost of litigating it to the point of a realistic settlement.

Here's an illustration: I once made the mistake of taking a trip and fall case against a city and their convention center management company on contingency, out of sympathy for the plaintiff and because she was only days away from the statute of limitations running out. It seemed like a very simple, quick to settle case. The medical bills were only in the $12,000 range, meaning the likely verdict range was under $50,000, but it seemed like an open and shut case. We settled for $40,000, pretty good for settling a case worth less than $50,000.

But the settlement did not come until after three years of litigation, three depositions, 80 written interrogatories, two sets of document demands, a wasted day of mediation, a summary judgment motion, and two judicial settlement conferences. My contingent fee for all that work was $13,333. That's about 40 hours at my regular rate, but I easily had to put 160 hours or more into the case. I made less than $75/hr on that case. That doesn't even cover my overhead.

As for my client, first my fee comes off the settlement. Then there was the Medicare lien for the $12,000. Court fees and deposition reporter fees, copying, etc. which ran another nearly $10,000. So for three years of litigation, depositions, court appearances, mediation sessions, etc., my client netted about $15,000, and I lost money on it. Had I billed her at my hourly rate, instead of losing money on the case out of sympathy, she would have owed me almost three times more than she got. THAT is what is meant by a case that was "not economically viable."