*1 Before the Court is the Motion for Attorneys' Fees (#65) filed by Plaintiff Watchfire Signs LLC (“Plaintiff”). Defendants Catalyst Outdoor Advertising LLC and Thaddeus Bartkowski (“Catalyst Defendants”) filed a Response (#68) in opposition. For the reasons discussed below, Plaintiff's Motion (#65) is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part.

I. Background

In its Complaint, Plaintiff alleges three causes of action: Breach of Contract, Fraudulent Misrepresentation/Inducement, and Negligent Misrepresentation (#23). In each of Plaintiff's prayers for relief, Plaintiff asks the Court to pierce the corporate veil and collect from any or all Defendants jointly and severally. In its Requests for Production (“RFPs”) 17–26, Plaintiff requested relevant documents, including Catalyst's governing corporate documents, financial statements, and documents showing that Catalyst and its entities maintain separate bank accounts. (#52-12).

Catalyst Defendants objected to providing these documents, arguing the information was proprietary, a trade secret, and irrelevant. On December 10, 2021, Plaintiff served Catalyst Defendants with its first discovery deficiency letter, and Catalyst Defendants refused to amend their responses or produce the requested documents. Afterward, Plaintiff discovered certain individual Defendants had filed a lawsuit against Defendant Thaddeus Bartkowski in Chester County, Pennsylvania. When Catalyst Defendants objected to producing that case file, Plaintiff moved to compel those documents. The Court granted Plaintiff's motion, ordered Catalyst Defendants to produce the requested case file, and held that Plaintiffs could seek discovery related to its veil piercing allegations. (#32).

Plaintiff served Catalyst Defendants with its second discovery deficiency letter, asking Catalyst Defendants to produce documents in response to RFPs 17-26, but Catalyst Defendants again objected, despite the Court's ruling on a similar objection. (#52-13; #52-14). Plaintiff conferred with Catalyst Defendants, but they continued to object. (#52-15). Plaintiff moved to compel these documents, and the Court granted Plaintiff's motion and permitted Plaintiff to seek fees relating to RFPs 17-26. (#64). Plaintiff filed the instant Motion, asking for at least $30,000 in attorney's fees.

II. Legal Standard

Under Rule 37(a), if a motion to compel is granted, “the court must, after giving an opportunity to be heard, require the party or deponent whose conduct necessitated the motion, the party or attorney advising that conduct, or both to pay the movant's reasonable expenses incurred in making the motion, including attorney's fees.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(a)(5).

However, the court must not order this payment if “(i) the movant filed the motion before attempting in good faith to obtain the disclosure or discovery without court action; (ii) the opposing party's nondisclosure, response, or objection was substantially justified; or (iii) other circumstances make an award of expenses unjust.” Id. “The burden is on the losing party to avoid assessment of expenses and fees, rather than on the winning party to obtain such an award.” Torres v. Nation One Landscaping, Inc., 2017 WL 5296023, at *2 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 13, 2017) (quotation and citation omitted).

III. Analysis

*2 Plaintiff argues it is entitled to reasonable expenses incurred in compelling documents responsive to RFPs 17-26. Catalyst Defendants argue Plaintiff's request should be denied, and if granted, Plaintiff's request should be heavily reduced because the request is excessive. The Court must determine whether Plaintiff is entitled to fees, and if so, the amount to which Plaintiff is entitled. The Court will address each question in turn.

A. Entitlement to Fees

The Court finds that none of the Rule 37(a) exceptions apply. As to the first exception, after Catalyst Defendants objected to RFPs 17-26, Plaintiff sent Catalyst Defendants its December 10, 2021, deficiency letter. After the Court entered an order allowing Plaintiff to discover documents related to its veil piercing allegations, Plaintiff served another letter challenging Catalyst Defendants' objections. Catalyst Defendants objected again, and Plaintiffs conferred before filing its Motion to Compel. These efforts satisfied Plaintiff's obligation to confer in good faith.

As to the second exception, “the test for substantial justification as it applies to Rule 37(a) is whether there is a “ ‘genuine dispute.’ ” Crabtree v. Experian Info. Sols., Inc., 2017 WL 4740662, at *3 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 20, 2017) (citing Pierce v. Underwood, 487 U.S. 552, 565 (1988). No genuine dispute existed here as to confidentiality. Catalyst Defendants could have remedied confidentiality concerns through a Rule 26(c) protective order, and Catalyst Defendants had already produced similar financial documents as exhibits in the Chester County Case pleadings, extinguishing confidentiality concerns.

Further, no genuine dispute existed as to relevance. In its July 2022 Order, the Court relied on Mobimeds Inc. v. EMedRx Solutions, Inc., 2021 WL 3264408, at *4 (C.D. Ill. July 30, 2021), finding that the Chester County Case documents were discoverable because they were relevant to Plaintiff's attempt to pierce the corporate veil. In its second discovery deficiency letter, Plaintiff appropriately cited Mobimeds Inc., noting that “Illinois courts have repeatedly held that documents showing the organizational structure, meeting minutes, documents related to intercompany loans, bylaws, articles of incorporation, balance sheets, statements, and other documents showing whether funds are commingled and/or whether corporate defendants are adequately funded are relevant to veil piercing allegations.” (#52-13 at 4). The Court made clear in its July 2022 Order that Plaintiff could pursue discovery relating to its veil piercing theory. In light of this, the parties were aware of the Court opinion and the very likely outcome as to the Catalyst Defendants' objections on RFPs 17-26. While those objections might have been justified in 2021, after July 2022, that justification had dissipated. Accordingly, Catalyst Defendants lacked substantial justification for withholding these documents from Plaintiff.

As to the third exception, no circumstances exist that would make an award of reasonable expenses unjust. Catalyst Defendants argue the Court should deny Plaintiff's request for $30,000 in fees because it is grossly excessive. They cite Budget Rent-A-Car Sys., Inc. v. Consol. Equity LLC, where the Seventh Circuit found that the plaintiff's statement of fees and costs was exorbitant. 428 F.3d 717, 718 (7th Cir. 2005). There, the plaintiff claimed it cost $4,625.50 (3.3 partner hours at $425 per hour and 10.4 associate hours at $310 per hour) to produce a four-page jurisdictional memo that cited five cases. Id. Additionally, the plaintiff claimed it cost $4,354 (1.2 partner hours and 12.4 associate hours) to produce its motion for sanctions and the statement of fees and costs. Id.

*3 The Seventh Circuit found that this was an unreasonable amount of high-paid professionals' time and that it was inconceivable that this was the going market price for such small submissions. It denied the request for fees, stating that “[w]hen an award of fees is permissive, denial is an appropriate sanction for requesting an award that is not merely excessive, but so exorbitant as to constitute an abuse of the process of the court asked to make the award.” Id. As explained further below, while Plaintiff's request here is high, it is not so exorbitant as to constitute an abuse of this Court's process.

Thus, because none of the Rule 37(a) exceptions apply, the Court finds that Plaintiffs are entitled to reasonable expenses incurred in compelling documents responsive to RFPs 17-26. The Court now turns to the question of the amount to which Plaintiff is entitled.

B. Amount of Fees

Plaintiff argues it is entitled to at least $30,000 in attorney's fees for drafting its discovery deficiency letters, reviewing Catalyst Defendants' response letters, conferring about RFPs 17-26, drafting and filing Plaintiff's Motion to Compel, preparing for oral argument on RFPs 17-26, and drafting and filing this Motion. Catalyst Defendants argue the Court should heavily reduce the requested fees because Plaintiff's Motion to Compel was a simple discovery motion, Plaintiff has not limited its fee requests to efforts relating only to RFPs 17-26, and Plaintiff fails to explain how it applied the parameters set out by this Court's Order.

“The starting point for a court's evaluation of any fee petition ... ‘is a lodestar analysis; that is, a computation of the reasonable hours expended multiplied by a reasonable hourly rate.’ ” Sonrai Sys., LLC v. Romano, 2022 WL 4551893, at *3 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 29, 2022) (quoting Houston v. C.G. Sec. Servs., Inc., 820 F.3d 855, 859 (7th Cir. 2016)). The lodestar gives a presumptively reasonable fee, but after determining the lodestar, the court “may determine whether an adjustment is warranted under the case-specific circumstances.” Id. (quoting Nichols v. Illinois Dep't of Transportation, 4 F.4th 437, 441 (7th Cir. 2021)). “District courts have wide discretion in determining the appropriate amount of attorney's fees,” and the “party seeking the fee award bears the burden of proving the reasonableness of the hours worked and the hourly rates claimed.” Spegon v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago, 175 F.3d 544, 550 (7th Cir. 1999).

The Court will first determine the hours Plaintiff's counsel reasonably expended in litigating RFPs 17-26. Next, the Court will consider the reasonable hourly rate for Plaintiff's counsel.

The party seeking fees “bears the burden of proving the reasonableness of the number of hours worked.” Herrera v. Grand Sports Arena, LLC, 2018 WL 6511155, at *2 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 11, 2018). “Hours spent are not reasonably expended if they are excessive, redundant, or otherwise unnecessary.” Stark v. PPM Am., Inc., 354 F.3d 666, 674 (7th Cir. 2004). “What qualifies as a ‘reasonable’ use of a lawyer's time ‘is a highly contextual and fact specific enterprise,’ and the court has ‘wide latitude’ in awarding attorney's fees.” Melikhov v. Drab, 2018 WL 3190824, at *4 (N.D. Ill. May 21, 2018) (quoting Sottoriva v. Claps, 617 F.3d 971, 975 (7th Cir. 2010)).

“Among other things, the Court must assess the attorneys' time entries and must exclude from the lodestar hours that are excessive, redundant, vague, inadequately documented or otherwise unnecessary.” Sonrai Sys., LLC, 2022 WL 4551893, at *4. Additionally, the Court must “scrutinize fee petitions for duplicative billing when multiple lawyers seek fees.” Schlacher v. Law Offices of Phillip J. Rotche & Assocs., P.C., 574 F.3d 852, 858 (7th Cir. 2009).

*4 Plaintiff states its counsel billed 101.5 hours on tasks related to their Motion to Compel and itemizes those tasks as follows:

(#65 at 9-10).

In support, Plaintiffs produced a copy of the relevant twenty-nine entries its counsel billed on this matter. (#65-2). Plaintiff states it incurred $54,985 in bringing the Motion to Compel but is only requesting $30,000 because the Court indicated it would only consider attorney's fees related to RFPs 17-26. Additionally, Plaintiff's counsel produced an affidavit, stating that “Watchfire estimates that is has incurred approximately $30,000 in attorneys' fees to compel responses [to] RFPs 17-26.” (#65-1 at 3). In the attached affidavit, Plaintiff's counsel further states that “[a]lthough counsel has blocked billed some time entries related to the Motion to Compel, he has reduced these amounts by half when estimating the amount of time spent compelling Defendants to produce responses to RFPs 17-26.” (#65-1 at 3).

The Court agrees that the twenty-nine entries identified include work that was reasonably incurred in connection with the Motion to Compel, except for those hours billed in 2021. The 2021 entries occurred when the Catalyst Defendants were substantially justified in objecting to requests related piercing the corporate veil. Once the Court ruled in July 2022, that justification no longer remained. The 2021 hours will be excluded.

The remaining entries include time billed for attorney conferences and correspondence regarding the Motion, research and briefing on the Motion, a status hearing on the Motion, and the attorneys' review of the opposing briefs. All these hours are recoverable. See Melikhov, 2018 WL 3190824, at *5 (allowing the recovery of fees for “meeting and conferring, bringing motions, and attending hearings related to Defendants' failure to satisfy their discovery obligations”).

As to the block billed entries, block billing is the “practice of lumping several tasks into a single time entry.” Sommerfield v. Knasiak, 2021 WL 5795303, at *13 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 7, 2021). While not prohibited, block billing “does not provide the best possible description” of an attorney's work, Farfaras v. Citizens Bank & Trust of Chi., 433 F.3d 558, 569 (7th Cir. 2006), and can “frustrate[ ] the court's and the opposing party's ability to determine how much time the lawyer spent on reasonably necessary litigation tasks by making it unclear exactly how much time was spent on which tasks[.]” Sommerfield, 2021 WL 5795303, at *13. Plaintiff states it reduced these entries by 50% when calculating the requested $30,000 in accordance with caselaw such as Sonrai Sys., 2022 WL 4551893, at *6 (reducing “each of the forty block-billed entries by 50% to account for the non-compensable an/or vague portions of the entries).

*5 Many of the entries were block billed. Some include work related to the Motion to Compel along with unrelated work. Moreover, the Motion and hearing involved issues beyond just RFPs 17-26. This makes it difficult to determine the appropriate number of hours to allocate to the related time.

Catalyst Defendants argue that the Court should apply an across-the-board reduction of 75% to Plaintiff's total amount of hours because the discussion of RFPs 17-26 accounted for roughly one-fourth of Plaintiff's Motion to Compel. See Sonrai Sys., 2022 WL 4551893, at *7 (applying an across-the-board percentage reduction because the number of hours was excessive given the nature of the motion). Plaintiff, however, states that while it incurred $54,985 in bringing the Motion to Compel, it is only requesting $30,000 for work specifically “related to Defendants' production of responsive documents to RFPs 17-26.” (#65-1 at 2-3).

There is no perfect way to resolve this question. The Court recalls that RFPs 17-26 accounted for just over one-third of the discussion and hearing. Although not perfect, a 65% reduction seems appropriate. Accordingly, the Court will reduce all entries by 65% to account for the non-compensable and/or vague portions of the billings. See, e.g., Gibson v. City of Chicago, 873 F.Supp.2d 975, 987 (N.D. Ill. 2012) (reducing certain block billing entries by half because the entries “should have specified the time for each individual task” but included only vague descriptions.).

In sum, the Court excludes the 2021 hours and reduces the remaining hours by 65% to account for the breadth of the motions and other block billing. Mr. McCarty may recover 7.21 hours, and Ms. Kester may recover 26.39 hours.

Next, the Court will consider the reasonable hourly rate for Plaintiff's counsel.

“A reasonable hourly rate is based on the local market rate for the attorney's services.” Montanez v. Simon, 755 F.3d 547, 553 (7th Cir. 2014). An attorney's “market rate is the rate that lawyers of similar ability and experience in the community normally charge their paying clients for the type of work in question.” Bankston v. State of Ill., 60 F.3d 1249, 1256 (7th Cir. 1995) (quotation omitted). “The best evidence of the market rate is the amount the attorney actually bills for similar work” Id., and it “is presumptively appropriate to use as the market rate.” Muzikowski v. Paramount Pictures Corp., 477 F.3d 899, 909–10 (7th Cir. 2007) (internal quotations and citation omitted).

“The burden is on the fee applicant to produce satisfactory evidence—in addition to the attorney's own affidavits—that the requested rates are in line with those prevailing in the community for similar services by lawyers of reasonably comparable skill, experience, and reputation.” Spegon, 175 F.3d at 556 (quoting Blum v. Stenson, 465 U.S. 886, 895 n. 11 (1984)). If the fee applicant establishes his or her market rate, “the burden is upon the defendant to present evidence establishing a good reason why a lower rate is essential.” People Who Care v. Rockford Bd. of Educ., Sch. Dist. No. 205, 90 F.3d 1307, 1313 (7th Cir. 1996) (internal quotations and citation omitted). “[I]f a fee applicant does not satisfy its burden, the district court has the authority to make its own determination of a reasonable rate.” Pickett, 664 F.3d at 640. “In making that determination, the Court can review publicly available information about rates charged by similarly experienced attorneys in the community for similar work and the attorney's experience.” Sonrai Sys., 2022 WL 4551893, at *7.

*6 Plaintiff argues that the true billing rates of its counsel—$700 per hour for Mr. McCarty and $500 per hour for Ms. Kester—are reasonable hourly rates. (#65-1 at 2). In support, Plaintiff produced an affidavit stating that Watchfire agreed to pay these rates and has been paying them as billed. (#65-1 at 1-2). Catalyst Defendants argue that Plaintiff must produce more than an affidavit from Plaintiff's counsel to establish her counsel's rates are reasonable. Catalyst Defendants argue that the following hourly rates are reasonable: $525 per hour for Mr. McCarty and $200 per hour for Ms. Kester.

The Court finds that the affidavit of Plaintiff's counsel is sufficient to establish the actual billing rates in this case. Mr. McCarty attests that stated rates have been billed to Watchfire and that Watchfire has paid all the invoices in full through January 2023. “It is true that in some cases an ‘attorney's self-serving affidavit alone cannot satisfy the plaintiff's burden of establishing the market rate for that attorney's services.’ ” U.S.A. v. CDW–Government, Inc., 2013 WL 11267176, at *2 (S.D. Ill. May 17, 2013) (quoting Spegon, 175 F.3d at 556). But “evidence of the prevailing market rate in the community (necessarily evidence beyond the fee petitioner's affidavit) is required only in the absence of evidence of the fee petitioner's actual billing rate.” Id. at *3. “Only if an attorney is unable to provide evidence of her actual billing rates should a district court look to other evidence, including ‘rates similar experienced attorneys in the community charge paying clients for similar work.’ ”Mathur v. Bd. of Trustees of S. Illinois Univ., 317 F.3d 738, 743 (7th Cir. 2003) (quoting Spegon, 175 F.3d at 555).

Plaintiff has met its burden of establishing that the requested rates are appropriate for the lodestar calculation. Consequently, the burden shifts to Catalyst Defendants to establish good cause for why a lower rate is essential. Catalyst Defendants point to evidence that an associate at Meyer Capel who was licensed in 2019 bills at $250 per hour and an associate who was licensed in 2018 bills at $265 per hour. (#68-2). They argue this is consistent with local standards. This analysis, however, is not necessary since Plaintiff's counsel have established their actual billing rates. See People Who Care, 90 F.3d at 1310 (citing Blum, 465 U.S. at 892, 895 n. 11); Mathur, 317 F.3d at 743. Catalyst Defendants have failed to establish good cause for why a lower rate is essential. Thus, the Court finds that Plaintiff has established the true billing rates of its counsel during 2022 and 2023—$700 per hour for Mr. McCarty and $500 per hour for Ms. Kester.

The resulting lodestar calculation is as follows:

Attorney Name Ryan McCarty Kymberly Kester Compensable Hours 7.21 26.39 Hourly Rate $700 $500 Total: Fee Award $5,047 $13,195 $18,242

While the lodestar gives a presumptively reasonable fee, after determining the lodestar, the court “may determine whether an adjustment is warranted under the case-specific circumstances.” Nichols, 4 F.4th 437 at 441. There is nothing else unique about this that would warrant any further adjustments.

IV. Conclusion

For the reasons stated above, Plaintiff's Motion (#65) is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part. Plaintiff is awarded $18,242 in attorney fees.

ENTERED this 21st day of June, 2023.