Sparks, Sam, United States District Judge
In a Fair Labor Standards Act case, the district court found that plaintiff's fee award request for attorney's fees and costs should be reduced to account for her counsel's excessive billing and that a reduction in the lodestar amount was warranted due to plaintiff's limited success in the litigation. The court also evaluated the parties' submitted bills of costs and found that $2,234.70 of the $3,537.33 total costs plaintiff sought and $4,736.32 of the $5,035.30 total costs defendant sought were reasonable and properly taxable.
Plaintiff moved for an award of attorney's fees and costs, and requested an award of $172,042.50 in fees arising from the approximately 491 hours her counsel billed at $350.00 per hour. Defendant did not object to an award of attorney's fees but objected to the hours billed by plaintiff's counsel as unreasonable, arguing they were excessive and included billing for unsuccessful claims and clerical work. Defendant requested (1) an initial reduction of 33% to account for plaintiff's counsel's failure to exercise billing judgment and (2) a downward reduction in the lodestar resulting in a lodestar of no more than 10 times the amount of damages plaintiff was awarded at trial.
Plaintiff argued that her fee request was reasonable and should be fully awarded. She contended that her counsel exercised billing judgment by eliminating hours spent on plaintiff's failed age discrimination and retaliation claims. Plaintiff further argued that no downward adjustment in the lodestar was warranted given the degree of success plaintiff obtained, the undesirability of the case in light of the small claims involved, and the fact that her counsel took this case on contingency.
After scrutinizing the record, the court determined that some of plaintiff's counsel's billing entries were excessive, vague and unreasonable, and concluded that a 5% reduction in the number of hours claimed by plaintiff's counsel, in addition to the $1,991.25 reduction for clerical work, constituted an appropriate offset to compensate for excessive billing and billing for unsuccessful claims and an unnecessary expert witness. The court calculated the lodestar for plaintiff's counsel as follows: 458 hours at $350/hour and 8.85 hours at $125/hour, which amounted to $161,406.25 in total fees. However, the court noted that the lodestar must be reduced to reflect a reasonable fee in relation to the result plaintiff obtained in the litigation. Accordingly, the court found that an 82% proportional reduction in the lodestar amount appropriately accounted for plaintiff's limited success and the amount awarded in similar cases and awarded plaintiff a total of $29,053.12 in attorney's fees.Plaintiff also filed a separate bill of costs under 28 U.S.C. §1920, requesting taxation of $3,537.33 against defendant. In this case, the court found that only $2,234.70 of the requested costs, which comprised of costs for filing fees, fees for printed or electronically recorded transcripts, and the cost of depositions were reasonable and properly taxable and declined to tax the remaining costs.
As the prevailing party on plaintiff's age discrimination claim, defendant also filed a bill of costs under 28 U.S.C. §1920 in the amount of $5,035.30 for service of summons and printed or electronically recorded transcripts. Plaintiff objected to this request, and argued that:
(1) defendant erroneously claims it is entitled to 66% of the costs of several depositions without proving its assertion that more discovery was conducted on plaintiff's age discrimination claim; (2) defendant should not recover 50% of the deposition costs for plaintiff's expert witness, because plaintiff believes defendant was “merely running up the costs on plaintiff”; and (3) none of the costs for the subpoenas of Carol Coover, Susan Akers, and Rosie Bradshaw should be allowed, since defendant did not ask plaintiff if these witnesses would appear voluntarily before subpoenaing them and a “rush fee” was not reasonably necessary.The Court found that $4,736.32 of the requested $5,035.30 total costs were reasonable and properly taxable. The court explained that the majority of the depositions' costs should be split evenly between plaintiff and defendant, with the exception of one deposition which would be wholly taxable against plaintiff, and authorized $4,598.17 in taxable costs against plaintiff for these depositions. Further, the court explained that §1920(1) does not specifically provide for the recovery of costs incurred as a result of rush service of subpoenas, and defendant failed to show that expedited service of the subpoena was reasonably necessary in this case. Accordingly, the court awarded defendant $138.15 in taxable costs associated with fees for the service of subpoenas.
v.
AUSTIN INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, Defendant
Counsel
Robert Stephen Notzon, Law Office of Robert Notzon, Austin, TX, for Plaintiff.Clay T. Grover, Paul A. Lamp, Rogers, Morris & Grover, LLP, Houston, TX, for Defendant.