R. STAN BAKER, Magistrate Judge.
This matter is before the Court on Defendant Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.'s ("Wells Fargo") Statement of Attorney's Fees. (Doc. 52.) Wells Fargo's Statement followed this Court's Order of March 29, 2016. (Doc. 48). In that Order, the Court granted Defendants' Motions to Compel. (Docs. 34, 37, 38.) For the reasons set forth below, the Court
The Court's prior Order followed a March 22, 2016 hearing on Defendants' Motions to Compel. At that hearing and in its prior Order, the Court discussed the course of discovery in this case which the Court need not rehash herein. Put succinctly, Plaintiff repeatedly failed to respond to Defendant Wells Fargo's discovery requests and failed to correct those failures despite numerous opportunities to do so. The Court pointed out that a party prevailing on a Motion to Compel is entitled to an award of expenses and fees unless the Court finds that the opposition to the motion was substantially justified or other circumstances make an award of expenses unjust. (Doc. 48, p. 9 (citing Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(a)(5)(A).) The Court held that Plaintiff's discovery failures were not substantially justified, because "Plaintiff offers no legitimate reason for his failure to timely respond to the interrogatories or to provide the requested documents." (
In the prior Order, the Court granted Defendant Wells Fargo leave to supplement its Motion with a calculation of expenses and attorney's fees associated with its motions to compel. (
In his Response to Defendant's Statement of Attorney's Fees, (doc. 54), Plaintiff contends that an award of expenses would be unjust because he partially responded to some of Wells Fargo's discovery requests prior to the Motions to Compel.
Having reviewed the parties' pleadings and the record in this case, the Court agrees with Defendant. The fact that Plaintiff provided incomplete responses to some of Defendant's discovery requests does not obviate his obligation to provide complete responses or excuse his failure to provide responses to other requests. Furthermore, as pointed out in the Court's prior Order, Plaintiff failed to take advantage of opportunities to correct his deficient discovery responses before Wells Fargo filed the Motions to Compel, entirely failed to respond to Wells Fargo's First Motion to Compel, and did not offer any substantive response to Wells Fargo's Second Motion to Compel. (Doc. 48, pp. 8-9.) Thus, as the Court already determined, Plaintiff has not shown that his opposition to Defendant's Motions to Compel was substantially justified or that an award of expenses would be unjust.
More importantly for present purposes, Plaintiff has offered no argument addressing the accuracy or reasonableness of Wells Fargo's calculation of attorneys' fees. Plaintiff states that there "is no breakdown as to how much time was spent on which aspects of the Motions to Compel." (Doc. 54, p. 5.) Thus, he contends, he "cannot respond adequately as to whether the time spent on various aspects are correct or reasonable or not or as to whether the alleged time was spent on issues on which Wells Fargo prevailed in the Motions to Compel." However, Wells Fargo prevailed on all aspects of their Motions to Compel. (Doc. 48, pp. 4-6.) Moreover, the Court has reviewed Wells Fargo's records in detail and finds their fees and expenses to be reasonable considering the issues involved. Indeed, the fees and expenses could have been higher as Wells Fargo has not claimed any fees or expenses for attending the February 22, 2016, hearing on the Motions to Compel.
Additionally, Plaintiff's failure to provide complete and timely responses to Wells Fargo's discovery requests appears to be, in part, the fault of his counsel rather than Plaintiff individually. For instance, at the hearing, Plaintiff's counsel indicated that he had in his possession a complete copy of the power-of-attorney which Plaintiff purports his ex-wife used to open a fraudulent account in his name at Wells Fargo. However, at that time, counsel had failed to produce it to Defense counsel. Accordingly, the Court will require that Plaintiff's counsel pay a portion of the award to Defendants.
For all of these reasons, the Court hereby