Case 3:11-cv GPC-KSC Document Filed 08/09/17 PageID Page 1 of 7

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1 Case :-cv-0-gpc-ksc Document - Filed 0/0/ PageID.00 Page of 0 REISER LAW, P.C. MICHAEL J. REISER, ESQ. (SBN ) N. Broadway, Suite 00 Walnut Creek, California Telephone: () -000 TALISMAN LAW, P.C. DONALD E. CHOMIAK, ESQ. (SBN ) 00 N. Central Avenue Glendale, California - Telephone: () - THE MEADE FIRM P.C. TYLER R. MEADE, ESQ. (SBN 0) Fifth Street Berkeley, CA 0 Telephone: (0) -0. FOSTVEDT LEGAL GROUP, LLC WENDY C. FOSTVEDT (SBN CO ), ADMITTED PRO HAC VICE 00 Elk Run Drive, Suite Basalt, Colorado Telephone: (0) - GIBBS LAW GROUP LLP MICHAEL SCHRAG (SBN ) 0 th Street, Suite 0 Oakland, CA Telephone: (0) 0-00 Attorneys for Plaintiffs DEAN BEAVER, et al. DEAN BEAVER AND LAURIE BEAVER, HUSBAND AND WIFE; et al., v. Plaintiffs, TARSADIA HOTELS, A CALIFORNIA CORPORATION; et al., Defendants. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA Case No. -cv-0-gpc-ksc DECLARATION OF DONALD E. CHOMIAK IN SUPPORT OF CLASS COUNSEL S APPLICATION FOR ATTORNEYS FEES, COSTS AND SERVICE AWARDS DATE: September, TIME: :0 p.m. DEPT.: Courtroom D JUDGE: Hon. Gonzalo P. Curiel Case No. -cv-0-gpc-ksc

2 Case :-cv-0-gpc-ksc Document - Filed 0/0/ PageID.0 Page of 0 I, Donald E. Chomiak, declare and state as follows:. I am an attorney licensed to practice before this Court and a member in good standing of both the State Bar of California and the State Bar of New York. I am one of the five attorneys principally responsible for prosecuting this action on behalf of the plaintiff class against the Tarsadia Defendants. I have worked on this action from its inception, from drafting the original complaint, to participating in discovery, motions to dismiss, summary judgment, class certification, other motions, the interlocutory appeal, and the post-appellate proceedings that led to the $,0,000 settlement of this action.. The Memorandum of Points & Authorities in support of Plaintiffs Application for Attorneys Fees, Costs, and Service Awards for Class Representatives and the supporting Declaration of Tyler Meade describe in detail the work Class Counsel did and the risks we overcame to achieve this settlement. I make this declaration based on my own personal knowledge to briefly summarize the work I performed in this action, the hourly rate used to calculate my lodestar and the costs my firm incurred.. I am a former naval aviator, hold a master s degree in Journalism from Columbia University and graduated from Fordham University s School of Law. I was admitted to the New York State Bar in 0 and the California State Bar in 0.. I began my legal career in the New York offices of Baker McKenzie, an international law firm then with offices in countries. During my two-year tenure at this firm, I was the junior associate on the International Arbitration team representing the Taiwan High Speed Rail Corporation, a Taiwanese consortium, against Eurotrain Consortium, a joint venture by Alstom Transport S.A. and Siemens Aktiengesellshaft (the French and German high speed rail companies), in a nine-figure contract dispute tied to the high-speed railway in Taiwan adjudicated in an International Chamber of Commerce, International Court of Arbitration proceeding. I also participated in an international arbitration representing Samsung against Quad Systems Corporation in connection with a breached joint development program. I also represented Union Bank of California in an S.D.N.Y. breach of contract action against Banco Bisel, S.A. (an Argentinian bank). In Case No. -cv-0-gpc-ksc

3 Case :-cv-0-gpc-ksc Document - Filed 0/0/ PageID.0 Page of 0 this lawsuit, I personally obtained an ex-parte TRO in federal court freezing the New York bank accounts of this Argentinian bank, which led to a quick settlement.. After relocating to Santa Monica, California in 0, I joined the Los Angeles office of Lord, Bissell & Brook (now Locke Lord), then a 0-attorney firm with a dozen offices in the U.S. and London. In 0, I second-chaired a nine-day bench trial in Knupfer v. Flagstar Bank, Los Angeles County Super. Ct. Case No. BC0, an eight-figure warehouse lending action (secondary market transactions involving the sale of mortgage loans) in which we were adverse to German American Capital Corporation, a Deutsche Bank subsidiary. Before trial, I drafted a motion for summary judgment relying on documents containing fatal admissions I found in the Bankruptcy Court s files that defeated a $0 million business destruction claim brought by Knupfer, the warehouse lender s bankruptcy trustee, against our client, Flagstar Bank. At trial, I cross-examined the CEO of the defunct warehouse lender for. hours on behalf of Flagstar. A year later, I second-chaired a six-week jury trial representing St. Paul Fire & Marine Insurance Co. against its insureds, defeating the insureds $. million bad faith claims and obtaining a jury verdict for over $. million in reimbursed defense and settlement costs plus interest. LA Sound USA, Inc. v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co., Orange County Super. Ct. Case No. 0CC0. As a result of my performance in these matters, the firm sent me to the two-week, NITA National Session trial advocacy course at NITA s headquarters in Boulder Colorado in the summer of 0.. In June 0, I left Lord, Bissell & Brook for the Los Angeles office of Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal LLP, a 0-attorney international law firm (now Dentons). My tenure with Sonnenschein was short-lived, however, as I was laid off a year shy of making partner in October 0 along with a dozen or so other lawyers in the Los Angeles office as a result of the Great Recession. At the time I was laid off at Sonnenschein, my billable rate was $ per hour. I was immediately hired by a boutique law firm in Santa Monica, California, Greenwald, Pauly, Foster & Miller, APC. Case No. -cv-0-gpc-ksc

4 Case :-cv-0-gpc-ksc Document - Filed 0/0/ PageID.0 Page of 0. In 0, I second-chaired a -day bench trial in a seven-figure case involving a contract dispute between investment bankers in which I personally conducted six hours of adverse direct examination of the opposing party s key witness, as well as cross-examined the opposing expert witness on investment banking. EuroCapital Advisors, LLC v. Maranon, Los Angeles Super. Ct. Case No. BC. In this action, we prevailed on the only claims litigated at trial. I left Greenwald after months in 0 to start my own firm, Talisman Law, P.C., in order to litigate contingency real estate cases raising claims under the Interstate Land Sales Full Disclosure Act ( ILSA ). In the seven years since starting Talisman Law, I have acted as solo trial counsel in multiple significant matters in addition to participating in the matters discussed below.. In 0, Michael Reiser (also Class Counsel in Beaver) and I teamed up to represent sets of condominium owners ( individuals and an entity) in an eight-figure ILSA action involving a Napa resort brought against billion-dollar developer Intrawest ULC and its parent company, hedge fund Fortress Investment Group, LLC. Ham v. Intrawest Napa Development Company, LLC, Napa County Super. Ct. Case No The matter was subject to judicial reference and involved approximately 0 depositions taking place across the country, discovery motions and multiple competing summary judgment motions. The matter was defended by Greenberg Traurig, LLP and toward the end also by Paul Hastings, LLP. In this action, I did the bulk of the drafting, took the lead role at oral argument for most of the motions heard, including all summary judgment motions, took multiple depositions and defended dozens of depositions. After two years of intense litigation, the matter settled in August after we defeated the defendants separate motions for summary judgment and the judicial referee had made it plain in his rulings that he had already determined the defendants violated ILSA.. Reiser and I also teamed up in the spring of to litigate another eightfigure ILSA action on behalf of ten sets of condominium owners at the Ritz-Carlton Residences in San Francisco brought against Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, LLC and Marriot Ownership Resorts, Inc. Lakin v. R.C. Chronicle Building, L.P., San Francisco Case No. -cv-0-gpc-ksc

5 Case :-cv-0-gpc-ksc Document - Filed 0/0/ PageID.0 Page of 0 Super. Ct. Case No. CGC--. The case was defended by Allen Matkins LLP. In this matter, we were trailing an earlier case involving the same basic facts in which plaintiffs prevailed at trial on non-ilsa claims. The defendants offered to mediate our case while attempting to resolve the earlier matter post-trial. Both cases then settled at mediation in December. 0. In August, the five attorneys who are Class Counsel in Beaver filed another class action lawsuit bringing ILSA claims and related claims. In Rundberg v. Intrawest Napa Development Company, LLC, Napa County Super. Ct. Case No. -, I drafted the original complaint, drafted and/or made revisions to all but a handful of the other documents filed in the action, and handled oral argument on behalf of class counsel for all but one or two of the contested motions heard in the matter.. During the six years of litigating the Beaver case, I have maintained contemporaneous time records. My practice is to enter my time at or near the time the work is performed. Before drafting this declaration, I carefully reviewed my time records for the work I did in this case to eliminate errors or duplicate time entries. I am confident that my time entries for this action accurately reflect the work I did in this case.. Between May and July, I spent, hours working on this case. In this action, I drafted and/or made revisions to all but a handful of the documents that were filed with the Court, prepared for mediation and/or served on defendants by plaintiffs in this action, including the briefing submitted to the Ninth Circuit during the interlocutory appeal; conducted hundreds of hours of legal research on Westlaw (I do not bill my clients for Westlaw and therefore do not track Westlaw hours logged) and drafted myriad legal memoranda on topics ranging from ILSA enforcement to the availability of the remedies of restitution and rescission under California s Unfair Competition Law; first-chaired the Rule 0(b)() deposition of the law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP; firstchaired the deposition of Greenberg Traurig s lead partner on the Hard Rock deal, Richard Davis; first-chaired the deposition of Tarsadia Hotels General Counsel Edward Coss; first-chaired and second-chaired additional depositions; reviewed countless Case No. -cv-0-gpc-ksc

6 Case :-cv-0-gpc-ksc Document - Filed 0/0/ PageID.0 Page of 0 documents produced by the Tarsadia Defendants in discovery; and defended the depositions of four of the seven Class Representatives.. My billable rate for this action is $0 per hour. Given my national/international law firm background, extensive complex litigation experience, the fact that all of my legal experience was obtained working for firms in the New York and Los Angeles legal markets, and my + years of practicing law, this billing rate is well below market for someone with my background, experience and expertise.. Given my billing rate for this matter ($0) and the hours worked (,.), my lodestar is $0,0. I have reviewed my billing records and done my best to categorize them according to the categories agreed to by Class Counsel. I believe that the following is a reasonable breakdown of my hours: Investig. & Research.00 Motions & Pleadings.0 Discovery.0 Strategy & Analysis.0 Court Apps. & Prep..0 Appeal 0. Settlement & Admin.. Miscellaneous:.0 Total:,.0. Like the other four principal attorneys identified on the caption of this declaration, I have continued to work on this action since the end of July and will continue to do so as necessary until this matter is fully resolved. Case No. -cv-0-gpc-ksc

7 Case :-cv-0-gpc-ksc Document - Filed 0/0/ PageID.0 Page of 0. My firm, Talisman Law, P.C., incurred $,0 in recoverable litigation costs listed below which are included in Class Counsel s request for reimbursement of expenses: Overnight Mail $ Depo Transcripts $,0 Depo Travel $,0 Hearing Travel $ Experts $,0 Mediation $0 Total $,0 I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States that the foregoing is true and correct to the best of my knowledge. Executed on August, in Los Angeles, California. /s/ Donald E. Chomiak Donald E. Chomiak Case No. -cv-0-gpc-ksc

Case 4:10-cv YGR Document 274 Filed 12/01/16 Page 1 of 8

Case 4:10-cv YGR Document 274 Filed 12/01/16 Page 1 of 8 Case 4:10-cv-01811-YGR Document 274 Filed 12/01/16 Page 1 of 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Rosemary M. Rivas (SBN 209147) rrivas@finkelsteinthompson.com FINKELSTEIN THOMPSON LLP One California