A federal judge in Los Angeles has called on two plaintiff attorneys to pay Walmart nearly $624,000 in attorney fees as a result of protracted litigation that took place in a now-decertified class-action lawsuit over the purity of Great Value Avocado Oil.
Judge R. Gary Klausner issued the Dec. 19 order in the form of sanctions against two attorneys for the Santa Monica law firm Dovel & Luner LLP, Richard Lyon and Christin Cho. Legal work performed for defendant Walmart at a cost of $623,738.70 resulted from a factual error made in plaintiff Edie Golikov’s initial 2024 class-action complaint against the retailer, Klausner said.
Golikov alleged she purchased the avocado oil in 2021 from a Walmart store and went on to cite research that the oil was not pure avocado oil but was a mixture that contained less expensive oils such as sunflower and safflower. The class action was certified in February 2025, but the plaintiff’s claim for punitive damages was later dismissed and the legal action was decertified in August.
Walmart attorneys with the Washington law firm Davis Wright Tremaine argued for sanctions against the plaintiff attorneys when they revealed four months after the class action was filed that the purchase was not made at a Walmart store but was done through Walmart’s website.
“By using a Walmart.com account to buy the avocado oil, plaintiff agreed to (the) defendant’s privacy policy and terms of use, which entered plaintiff into a binding arbitration agreement and waived class action,” a November court order states.
Klausner said in his Dec. 19 order that the factual error in the original complaint resulted in excessive legal proceedings requiring the defendant to pay attorneys for work that would not have been necessary had the facts of the case been stated correctly from the beginning.
Fourteen attorneys performed work in Walmart’s defense as a result of these excessive hearings, and Klausner deemed their hourly rates reasonable.
“The court previously found that (the) plaintiff unreasonably multiplied proceedings by continuing to represent a false fact throughout the case,” Klausner said. “… Plaintiff caused excessive litigation, beginning with the (first amended class action) and ending with the decertification of the class.”
Walmart attorneys argued they were entitled to more than $745,000 in attorney fees, but the judge excluded some of the work as outside the excessive proceedings caused by the error.
A Walmart spokesperson expressed satisfaction with the judge’s decision.
“We are pleased with the outcome and believe the award of attorneys’ fees was warranted,” the spokesperson said in an email to the Southern California Record. “We hope this decision will help deter similar litigation in the future.”
The federal court agreed in November that the two plaintiff attorneys acted in subjective bad faith. The class action was frivolous since the statement that the avocado oil was purchased from a store lacked any factual basis, the court said, and the false claims were then advanced through the litigation phase of the case.
In addition, the plaintiff attorneys’ failure to verify the claims in the initial lawsuit amounted to recklessness, according to Klausner.
“Furthermore, after it was revealed that (the) plaintiff purchased the avocado oil on Walmart.com instead of in a Walmart story, rather than correcting the error, (the) plaintiff continued to advance her litigation position through an Opposition to a Motion to Compel Arbitration,” he said.
