TANYA WALTON PRATT, District Judge.
This matter is before the Court on a Consolidated Application for Attorneys' Fees (Filing No. 293) filed by Plaintiffs Britt Interactive LLC and Townepost Network, Inc., and its principals, Third-Party Defendants Tom Britt and Jeanne Britt (collectively, "the Britt Parties" or "Plaintiffs").
This case began in the Hamilton County, Indiana, Superior Court, and it concerns the parties' respective ownership rights and liabilities arising from certain License Agreements for the publication of magazines about and for the communities of Carmel, Indiana and Zionsville, Indiana. The Britt Parties sought and were granted, after a hearing before the Hamilton Superior Court, a temporary restraining order ("TRO") against Defendants A3 Media, LLC, Collective Publishing, LLC, Yelena Lucas, and Neil Lucas (collectively, "the Lucas Parties"). Less than a week after issuance of the TRO, the Lucas Parties removed the case to this Court. Nearly immediately, the Britt Parties filed their motion for contempt of the TRO and a motion for preliminary injunctive relief. Discovery ensued, and numerous discovery disputes—including requests for sanctions relating to discovery matters—were resolved by the Court. Along this way, the Court ordered that the Britt Parties were entitled to their reasonable attorneys' fees for various matters. The parties have now settled all their disputes except for the fees issue; this Order determines the amount of fees to which the Britt Parties are entitled.
In the course of the litigation, the Court has entered four separate orders that awarded attorneys' fees to the Britt Parties, in amounts to be determined, and one order (Filing No. 190) that awarded $1,000.00 to the Lucas Parties. The four orders are:
1. Order entered April 14, 2017 (Filing No. 191), awarding the Britt Parties reasonable attorneys' fees incurred in (a) filing their Motion to Compel Discovery (Filing No. 83) and Motion for Sanctions (Filing No. 138), and (b) communicating with the Lucas Parties after November 23, 2016, at 5:00 p.m., to obtain the documents that were supposed to have been produced at that time and to re-schedule the Lucases' depositions because of the belated production.
2. Order entered April 26, 2017 (Filing No. 196), granting the Britt Parties' Motion to Compel and for sanctions, and awarding them their reasonable attorneys' fees in (a) communicating with the Lucas Parties about their discovery responses (including obtaining them, reading or responding to requests for additional time, and communicating regarding deficiencies), and (b) filing and briefing their Motion to Compel (Filing No. 130).
3. Order entered March 5, 2018 (Filing No. 279), adopting the Magistrate Judge's Report and Recommendation denying the Britt Parties' request for a default judgment, but awarding them their reasonable attorneys' fees incurred in connection with their review of the Lucas Parties' supplemental discovery responses and in bringing their motion for default judgment.
4. Order entered March 6, 2018 (Filing No. 280), adopting the Magistrate Judge's Report and Recommendation on the Britt Parties' Motion for Contempt and awarding them their reasonable attorneys' fees associated with bringing the contempt motion. This Order specifically noted that the amount of fees awarded in conjunction with the Britt Parties' efforts seeking contempt would take into account the level of success they obtained in connection with their contempt motion. See Filing No. 280 at p. 8 n. 1.
On March 12, 2018, the court directed the Britt Parties to file one application for attorneys' fees to address all fees they are seeking as a result of the four orders awarding fees addressed above. They did so. The Britt Parties seek a total award of $88,933.45 (which is net of the $1,000 sanction against them). The Lucas Parties contend that any award should not exceed $4,251.50, based on numerous objections included in their opposition brief and supplemental filings.
A reasonable attorneys' fee is generally determined by multiplying (1) a reasonable hourly rate by (2) the number of hours reasonably expended. E.g., Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 433 (1983).
The Lucas Parties do not challenge the hourly rates used by the Britt Parties' counsel. In this Circuit, a reasonable hourly rate presumptively is that rate the attorney actually charges to and receives from paying clients. E.g., Montanez v. Simon, 755 F.3d 547, 553 (7
An award of fees must also evaluate the reasonableness of the time expended by counsel. A lawyer seeking to recover his or her fees is expected to use billing judgment and should seek compensation only for time counsel reasonably would have billed to a paying client. Hensley, 461 U.S. at 434 ("Hours that are not properly billed to one's client are not properly billed to one's adversary pursuant to statutory authority." (Emphasis in original).) In addition, an attorney's records must be detailed enough to permit the opposing party and the court to make informed judgments about whether the time billed accurately reflects work spent on the case and whether it was reasonably spent, but the market does not expect issue-by-issue detail in billing, and neither should the court. See Fulmore v. Home Depot U.S.A., Inc., 2007 WL 1246226 at *3 (S.D. Ind. April 27, 2007) (discussing block billing); In re Synthroid Marketing Litigation, 264 F.3d 712, 722 (7
First, work on matters for which a fee was not awarded should be eliminated. E.g., Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. v. Haeger, 137 S.Ct. 1178, 1182 (2017) (there must be a "causal link between the litigant's misbehavior and legal fees paid by the opposing party").
Second, a court should exclude "excessive, redundant, or otherwise unnecessary" time entries. Hensley, 461 U.S. at 434.
Third, purely clerical tasks generally should be excluded. See Spegon v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago, 175 F.3d 544, 553 (7
Fourth, any award should account for limited success the prevailing party achieved. Where a particular claim or theory is not successful, the court may account for partial success by either eliminating specific hours attributable to the unsuccessful claims or theories or by making an across-the-board percentage deduction to the fees. See Bryant v. City of Chicago, 200 F.3d 1092, 1101-02 (7
The Court takes these matters into account and explains below various deductions it has made to the fees the Britt Parties seek. The Court has carefully reviewed each of the "objections and bases" for reduction advanced by the Lucas Parties (see Filing No. 198), but it does not endeavor to provide an audit-like analysis of each of their contentions. Moreover, the Court notes that some of the work performed by the Britt Parties' lawyers is compensable under more than one of the Court's Orders awarding fees. Where work is compensable only under the contempt order, the Court will adjust the fee to account for lack of success, but if the work is also compensable under one of the other three orders, the Court will not make such an adjustment.
The Court ultimately is guided by its objective to make an award that is reasonable in light of the matters for which the Britt Parties were awarded fees and, as to the contempt-related work, to consider overall success. As the United States Supreme Court has recognized, a court "need not, and indeed should not, become green-eyeshade accountants" in reviewing fee petitions. The "essential goal" is to do rough justice, not to achieve auditing perfection. Fox v. Vice, 563 U.S. 826 (2011). A court "may take into account [its] overall sense of a suit, and may use estimates in calculating and allocating an attorney's time." Id. at 838.
With these principles in mind, the Court makes the following evaluations of the Britt Parties' Consolidated Application.
The Britt Parties seek an award of fees for preparation for the initial pretrial conference and for initial discovery requests. These standard, normal tasks should not be encompassed by the Court's awards. The Court therefore disallows all fees sought for October 25 and 26, 2016. This disallowed amount is $4833.00.
This case was litigated on the Britt Parties' behalf by two separate law firms working in parallel at most times. The Court has no quarrel with multiple lawyers or firms working on a case, and it recognizes that collaboration among lawyers can add real value to the legal services provided. But, it expects that in those circumstances, the time entries will reflect an appropriate division of labor among the lawyers and the fact of true collaboration, rather than mere duplication of the same tasks and conferences among those lawyers. The latter approach produces inefficiencies and redundancy, and the time entries reflect that that happened in this case. Numerous time entries reveal that Mr. Mattingly and Mr. Brown spent hours talking to one another, reviewing the same items, and giving "attention to" the very same tasks. These entries do not reveal an efficient division of labor; indeed, they tend to suggest that each of them spent more time litigating the case than he individually would have done had another firm not been involved. To account for that, the Court has reduced most (but not all, as explained below) of Mr. Brown's time by sixty percent (60%). Those affected time entries equal $9,967.50, so the Court reduces the award by $5,980.50 on this basis. However, the Court makes no reduction on this basis for attorney time during the period March 14 through March 23, 2017. During this period, counsel were actively preparing for and participating in the contempt hearing and related matters, and the Court's view of this period is that the parties efficiently divided the labor between the two law firms.
The Lucas Parties take issue with all the time entries for work done by paralegals because the Court's awards referred to "attorney fees". This broad assertion is not persuasive. As a general rule, fees incurred for work by paralegals are recoverable under the attorney fee umbrella. See Spray-Rite Serv. Corp. V. Monsanto Co., 684 F.2d 1226, 1250 (7
Though the Court found the Lucas Parties in contempt of the TRO, the Britt Parties were not successful on several the violations they had asserted. They alleged that the Lucas Parties had "violated the TRO nearly every single day during the October 17
In sum, the Britt Parties achieved substantial success in that they established violations of the TRO, but they did not prevail on their overarching theory and on a number of asserted violations for which they incurred significant attorneys' fees litigating. This observation does not, however, mean that the fees awarded should be directly proportional to that measure of success. A large portion of the fees had to be incurred regardless—whether the Britt Parties had asserted six violations or sixty. Nevertheless, some reduction must be made to account for the issues they litigated in connection with the contempt motion on which they did not prevail. The Court determines that a thirty-five percent (35%) reduction of the fees recoverable by virtue of the contempt order only to be appropriate.
The Consolidated Application seeks an award of $88,933.45. This amount is net of a $1,000.00 sanction the Court issued against the Britt Parties. The Court makes the following reductions of the amount sought: (1) $4,833.00 for fees not encompassed by the awards; (2) $5,980.50 for inefficiencies; (3) $1,923.50 for tasks that were essentially clerical in nature; and (4) $9,496.02 to account for some lack of success on the Motion for Contempt. Therefore, the Consolidated Application for Attorneys' Fees (Filing No. 293) is