ORDER GRANTING IN PART PLAINTIFFS' SECOND MOTION FOR ATTORNEYS' FEES AND EXPENSES

RICARDO S. MARTINEZ, Chief District Judge.

This matter comes before the Court on Plaintiffs' second Motion for Attorneys' Fees and Costs. Dkt. #136. Plaintiffs seek a total of $804,995.50 in statutory attorneys' fees, $289,276 in Common Fund fees, and $27,465.69 in costs, as well as $15,000 and $5,000 for class representatives. Dkt. #145 at 10; Dkt. #145-1. The Court has determined that oral argument is unnecessary.

The parties are well aware of the procedural history of this case. The Court previously awarded attorneys' fees to Plaintiffs, but granted their request only in part. See Dkt. #96. The Court found Plaintiffs' request for the rates of $665 and $400 per hour unreasonable, that "[i]n the Western District of Washington, the relevant community for comparison, an analysis of recent ERISA cases reveals that attorney's fees are awarded under 29 U.S.C. § 1132(g)(1) in the range of $175 to $300 per hour," and that "[a] search for ERISA class action cases in the Ninth Circuit found attorney's fees in the range of $295 to $514.60 per hour were deemed reasonable." Id. at 6-7 (citing cases). The Court awarded fees at a combined hourly rate of $350, basing this decision both on Plaintiffs' "absence of proper evidence" and "the Court's own review of comparable cases." Id. at 7. The Court also cut certain billed time as improper, found that no lodestar multiplier was warranted, and made other related rulings. The Court awarded $10,000 to the named Plaintiff in this case. Id. at 14-15.

Plaintiffs appealed the Court's decision as to the $350 rate, and other rulings from a prior substantive Order. Dkt. #106. Notably, neither party appealed the Court's decisions regarding the Court's calculation of the reasonable number of hours expended nor the appropriateness of the common fund award. The Ninth Circuit issued its Opinion on July 14, 2017, Dkt. #112. That Opinion remanded certain issues back to the Court for consideration. In the only section relevant to the instant Motion, the Ninth Circuit stated: "[t]he plaintiffs contest only the district court's determination of a reasonable hourly rate. Because we reverse the district court's order awarding damages with respect to Amendment 24, we also vacate the attorneys' fees award." Dkt. #112 at 37. The Ninth Circuit did not weigh in on the Court's analysis. In a footnote, the Ninth Circuit stated "[t]o provide clarity on remand, we note that the district court did not abuse its discretion by ruling that the relevant legal community for purposes of calculating the fee award was the Western District of Washington because that is the forum in which the district court sits." Id at 37 n.8.

Attorneys' fees and costs are warranted for Plaintiffs in this case, as they have prevailed and obtained all relief sought. See 29 U.S.C. § 1132(g)(1); Dkt. #96 at 2-4. The legal basis and test used by the Court for calculating fees has already been set forth in detail in the Court's prior Order on attorneys' fees, Dkt. #96. This time around, Plaintiffs submit significantly more factual and legal support for their requested rates of $665 for attorney Richard Birmingham, $460 for attorney Joseph Hoag, and $385 for attorney Christine Hawkins. Dkts. #138-141. Specifically, the declarations of attorneys Cliff Cantor, Derek W. Loeser, and Richard E. Spoonemore are from attorneys practicing this type of law in this legal community, and they support the requested rates. Dkts. #139-141. Defense counsel declarations demonstrating that they charge significantly lower rates are not dispositive, as the work performed by Plaintiffs' counsel in this case differed in complexity and risk. The parties also duel over awarded rates in comparable cases, however many of the ERISA cases cited by Defendants for lower awarded rates are not comparable because they involved individual plaintiffs or were otherwise not as complex as this one. The Court finds that Plaintiffs have submitted satisfactory evidence to support their requested rates. See Welch v. Metro. Life Ins. Co., 480 F.3d 942, 945-46 (9th Cir. 2007); United Steelworkers of Am. v. Phelps Dodge Corp., 896 F.2d 403, 407 (9th Cir. 1990) ("Affidavits of the plaintiffs' attorney and other attorneys regarding prevailing fees in the community, and rate determinations in other cases, particularly those setting a rate for the plaintiffs' attorney, are satisfactory evidence of the prevailing market rate."). Although the Court previously awarded Plaintiffs a lower rate of $350, the Court is not aware of any legal basis to hold Plaintiffs to that rate from a vacated award, in the process ignoring the additional evidence provided by Plaintiffs.

Plaintiffs request rates of $275 and $255 for paralegals Jennifer Cygnor and Renee March, respectively. Defendants argue that these rates are excessive, and that "even the cases cited by Plaintiffs showed support staff rates at $180 per hour." Dkt. #144 at 4 (citing Griffith v. Providence Health Servs., Ret. Plans Comm. et al, No, 14-cv-0I720-JCC (W.D. Wash. 2017)). Plaintiffs do not address their paralegal rates in their Motion, and only in a footnote on Reply, noting that the paralegal rate of $220 was awarded in Stewart v. Snohomish Cty. Pub. Util. Dist. No. 1, 2017 WL 4538956, at *1 (W.D. Wash. Oct. 11, 2017). The Court finds that Plaintiffs have submitted insufficient evidence to support their requested rates, and will reduce this rate to $220 per hour for all paralegal work, a rate that is higher than the majority of rates mentioned by the Court in Stewart. There were 22.2 paralegal hours billed for a total of $6,005 dollars. See Dkt. #146-1 at 73. At the new rate, this would be $4,884 dollars. Accordingly, $1,121 will be subtracted from the total.

With regard to the number of hours Plaintiffs are requesting, they state:

The Court generally agrees with this analysis. However, the Court has identified certain billing entries that will be trimmed or cut entirely, consistent with the Court's prior review of Plaintiffs' billing records up until May 28, 2015. These entries are listed below, with brief explanations by the Court.

These entries are duplicative of each other and reflecting only the administrative task of filing a brief with the Court. See Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 434, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 76 L. Ed. 2d 40 (1983). The Court will cut the entries for Attorneys Hoag and Birmingham and deduct $312 from the total award.

The above entries reflect intra-office conferences or communications between experienced counsel. The Court has previously stated that such entries, absent persuasive justification by the moving party, may be excluded from an award as unnecessary and duplicative. Dkt. #96 at 8 (citing Welch, 480 F.3d at 949). The Court previously cut billings for this reason, and the parties did not raise this issue on appeal. This time around, Plaintiffs provide limited, generalized argument to support billing for intra-office conferences, but do not point to specific entries. See Dkt. #136 at 11. The actual billing records are vague. The Court is not persuaded that the significant number of hours billed for intra-office conferences and correspondence are non-duplicative or otherwise reasonable. The Court will not cut every six or twelve minute conference, of which there are many in the records. However, the Court will cut the most-egregiously duplicative and unnecessary billings and deduct $4,687.50 from the total award.

Next, the Court finds an excessive number of entries related to preparing for oral argument before the Ninth Circuit. By the Court's calculation, Plaintiffs' three counsel billed 32 entries for preparing for oral argument over five months, 62.7 hours totaling $36,180.50. See Dkt. #146-1. This is in addition, of course, to the time Plaintiffs' counsel spent briefing the appeal. The Court is aware from the Ninth Circuit's website that oral argument lasted less than an hour. Plaintiffs do not justify this time or mention it in their request for fees. "The party seeking fees bears the burden of documenting the hours expended in the litigation and must submit evidence supporting those hours . . ." Welch, 480 F.3d at 945-46 (citing Hensley, 461 U.S. at 433). The court excludes those hours that are not reasonably expended because they are "excessive, redundant, or otherwise unnecessary." Hensley, 461 U.S. at 434. The Court finds that this amount of billing was excessive and unnecessary. The billing reflects a duplication of efforts between the three counsel, including having the associates attend oral argument when they were not arguing, and having associates participate in an unexplained moot court version of the oral argument. Erring on the side of caution, the Court will reduce the award for this time by 33%, and deduct $11,939.57 from the total award.

In addition to the Court's own observations, Defendants argue that the Court should trim hours for three activities: 1) Plaintiffs' Motion for Reconsideration on the original Attorney's Fees Order, 2) hours spent briefing "national rates and rates under the Laffey matrix to the Ninth Circuit, and 3) a request to the Ninth Circuit to provide supplemental authority and supplemental briefing that was denied by that court. Dkt. #144 at 11-14.1 The Court agrees with Defendants that the majority of these hours cannot be said to be "reasonably incurred" because Defendants continued to argue an inapplicable standard for calculating the appropriate hourly rate, and additionally finds that the hours spent drafting a six-page Motion for Reconsideration were excessive and unnecessary. However, the Motion for Reconsideration was granted in part to correct a "math error" that resulted in $37,000 of additional funds for the Plaintiffs. See Dkt. #145 at 9 (citing Dkt. #105 at 2). This meritorious portion of the briefing took up less than a page. Given all of the above, the Court will trim half of the billing for the Motion for Reconsideration, $9,310, and trim the second category of time suggested by Defendants for the same reasons, $7,960. The third category of time was arguably spent in favor of Plaintiffs' position on appeal and will not be trimmed solely because it was unsuccessful.

Total reductions come to $35,330.07. Subtracting this from the total requested number of $804,995.50 creates a new loadstar total of $769,665.43.

The Court has further considered the factors identified in Kerr v. Screen Extras Guild, Inc., 526 F.2d 67 (9th Cir. 1975) and finds no reason to adjust the loadstar amount.

The Court has previously found that Plaintiffs' counsel should be awarded 25% of the common fund. See Dkt. #96. Defendants do not object to this request. Dkt. #144 at 15.

Plaintiffs' expenses of $27,465.69 are reasonable and unopposed by Defendants.

Defendants do not oppose the incentive awards of $15,000 and $5,000. The Court finds that these awards are reasonable. Class Representative Richard Lehman undertook a risk in initiating this litigation in 2013, and has remained active throughout this case, including appeal. Class Representative Michael Puterbaugh likewise undertook risk by consenting to being named as a second Class Representative. The parties agree that Mr. Puterbaugh's addition to the litigation mooted an issue that Defendants were pursuing before this Court. In light of the Class Representatives' risk and service to the Class, an award of $15,000 to Mr. Lehman and $5,000 to Mr. Puterbaugh, payable from the Common Fund, is appropriate.

Having reviewed the relevant briefing, the declarations and exhibits attached thereto, and the remainder of the record, the Court hereby finds and ORDERS: