Weaver v. Lighthouse Recovery Associates, LLC

Filing 19

ORDER granting in part and denying in part 18 Motion for Attorney's Fees by Judge Christine M. Arguello on 11/19/13.(dkals, )

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO
Judge Christine M. Arguello
Civil Action No. 13-cv-01078-CMA-MJW
BROOKING WEAVER,
Plaintiff,
v.
LIGHTHOUSE RECOVERY ASSOCIATES, LLC,
a Colorado limited liability company,
Defendant.

ORDER GRANTING MOTION FOR ATTORNEYS’ FEES AND COSTS

This matter is before the Court on Plaintiff’s Motion for Attorney’s Fees (Doc.
# 18). For the following reasons, Plaintiff’s Motion is granted in part and denied in part.
I. BACKGROUND
Plaintiff filed a Complaint on April 23, 2013, alleging a violation of the Fair Debt
Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”), 15 U.S.C. § 1692, et seq. On June 21, 2013, the
Court entered judgment against Defendant in the amount of $1,502.00, plus Plaintiff’s
reasonable attorney fees and costs. (Doc. # 15)
Plaintiff filed the instant motion on July 5, 2013, requesting attorney fees in the
amount of $2,500.00, at a rate of $250 per hour for ten hours of work (Doc. # 18).
Defendant did not file a response, and Plaintiff informs this Court that he was not able
to obtain Defendant’s position on the motion. (Id. at 9)

II. DISCUSSION
The starting point for calculating reasonable attorney fees is determining the
“lodestar amount”— i.e., a reasonable hourly rate multiplied by the number of hours
reasonably expended. Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 433 (1983); Malloy
v. Monahan, 73 F.3d 1012, 1017-18 (10th Cir.1996). The lodestar “may in rare
circumstances be adjusted to account for the presence of special circumstances.”
Anchondo v. Anderson, Crenshaw & Assocs., L.L.C., 616 F.3d 1098, 1102 (10th Cir.
2010).
A reasonable hourly rate is “the prevailing market rate in the relevant
community.” Malloy, 73 F.3d at 1018. Counsel expends hours reasonably when
he exercises the same “billing judgment” as would be appropriate in billing his own
client. Hensley, 461 U.S. at 434 (“Hours that are not properly billed to one's client also
are not properly billed to one's adversary pursuant to statutory authority.”) (quotation
marks, citation, and emphasis omitted). Counsel should “make a good faith effort
to exclude from a fee request hours that are excessive, redundant, or otherwise
unnecessary.” Id. Further, the party requesting fees has the burden of persuading
the court that the hourly rate and the hours expended are both reasonable. Malloy,
73 F.3d at 1018.
A.

HOURLY RATE
Plaintiff’s attorney requests an hourly rate of $250.00. (Doc. # 12 at 6.) This

Court has frequently found this to be the reasonable hourly rate for the type and caliber

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of work produced by Plaintiff’s attorney. See Johnson v. Leading Edge Recovery
Solutions, L.L.C., No. 12-CV-03103-CMA-CBS, 2013 WL 674057 (D. Colo. Feb. 22,
2013); Stauffer v. NCC Bus. Servs., Inc., No. 13-CV-00243-PAB-KLM, 2013 WL
2444827 (D. Colo. June 5, 2013) (collecting authorities). And this Court finds the
rate to be reasonable here.
B.

REASONABLENESS OF HOURS EXPENDED
Plaintiff’s attorney also claims he expended 13.8 hours of work in this case, but

has reduced his fee request by 3.8 hours. (Doc. # 12 at 6.) He requests payment for
only 10 hours of work.
Upon review of Plaintiff’s attorney’s time entries (Doc. # 18-1), the Court finds
that even ten hours was an excessive amount of time to spend on this case. First,
given the extremely high number of similar cases this attorney handles and the cookiecutter quality to many of his court pleadings, this Court does not find it reasonable that
the drafting of the summons and complaint in this case should have taken plaintiff’s
attorney two hours or that a review of financial reports and related documents should
still take this attorney three hours.
Second, plaintiff’s counsel has previously been admonished by this Court that
administrative tasks or secretarial work should not be billed at an attorney’s hourly rate.
See, e.g., Miracle Gash v. Client Servs., Inc., No. 12–cv–01426–LTB–MJW, 2013 WL
1130717, at *3 (D. Colo. March 18, 2013) (finding 0.5 hours, which “mostly . . . relate
to the e-filing [of] court document” were “clerical or administrative tasks” and “not billable

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at the lawyer’s hourly rate”); Castro v. First Nat. Collection Bureau, Inc., No.
11-CV-02298-REB-KMT, 2012 WL 4468318, at *2 (D. Colo. Sept. 27, 2012) (finding
that “at least 1.5 hours worth of charges [were] associated with secretarial and
administrative tasks”). Nevertheless, in this case, Plaintiff’s counsel continues to bill
such tasks as “transcribing” recordings and drafting civil cover sheets at an attorney’s
hourly rate. (Doc. 18-1 at 2) The Court estimates that such administrative tasks add
up to about 2.5 hours of “attorney” work.
Third, the Court notes that Plaintiff’s counsel bills one-tenth of an hour for
reviewing every document filed on CM/ECF, including short minute entries or
unopposed motions. In this case, Plaintiff’s attorney alleges that such tasks constitute
about an hour’s worth of work, yet this Court has reviewed the entire docket for this
case is considerably less time.
Upon review of Plaintiff’s attorney’s time entries (Doc. # 18-1) and supporting
affidavits (Doc. ## 18-2, 18-3), the Court finds that eight hours were reasonably
expended on this case. See Fox v. Vice, 131 S.Ct. 2205, 2217 (2011) ( “[T]rial courts
need not, and indeed should not, become green-eyeshade accountants. The essential
goal in shifting fees (to either party) is to do rough justice, not to achieve auditing
perfection. So trial courts may take into account their overall sense of a suit, and may
use estimates in calculating and allocating an attorney’s time.”). Plaintiff’s counsel is
instructed to cease charging for administrative tasks at the attorney’s hourly rate and
to cease overcompensating himself for tasks that clearly require less time to complete.

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III. CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated above, the lodestar amount is $2,000 (8 hours times
$250/hour). Accordingly, Plaintiff’s Motion for Attorney’s Fees (Doc. # 18) is GRANTED
IN PART and DENIED IN PART.
It is FURTHER ORDERED that Plaintiff shall be awarded attorneys’ fees in the
amount of $2,000.00.
DATED: November

19

, 2013
BY THE COURT:

________________________________
CHRISTINE M. ARGUELLO
United States District Judge

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