Butz et al v. Amware Distribution Warehouses of Georgia, Inc. et al
Filing
58
OPINION AND ORDER that Plaintiffs be awarded attorneys' fees in the amount of $62,408.35. Signed by Judge William S. Duffey, Jr on 12/8/2014. (anc) Modified on 12/8/2014 in order to add opinion (anc).
worked in excess of forty (40) hours per week, in violation of the Fair Labor
Standards Act (“FLSA”), 29 U.S.C. § 201, et seq.
The action was filed on September 26, 2013. About three and a half months
later, on January 8, 2014, Plaintiffs filed their motion to conditionally certify the
case as a collective action. This motion, after various extensions in the briefing
schedule, was submitted for the Court’s consideration, and on April 16, 2014, the
Court entered its order denying the collective action motion and allowing it to
proceed only on behalf of Plaintiffs Butz and Perry in their individual capacity.
Although Plaintiffs’ burden to support conditional certification was lenient, the
Court found in its April 16, 2014, Order, that “neither Plaintiff ha[d] presented
evidence that they are similarly situated to or that their claims are representative of
the class they seek to represent.” (April 16, 2014, Order [38] at 22).1
On May 5, 2014, about three (3) weeks after the Court’s Order denying
conditional certification, Defendant filed its Offer of Judgment (the “Offer”).
Plaintiffs accepted the Offer the next day, thus resolving Butz’s and Perry’s
individual overtime claims. ([40]). On June 10, 2014, the Clerk of Court entered
judgment in favor of Plaintiffs. ([41]). Judgment was entered in favor of Plaintiff
1
The parties conducted discovery on the individual and collective action issues
until the Court’s order denying conditional certification. (See [17, 19, 21, 25-28,
30, 31, 33-36]). Discovery was not conducted after the Court’s April 16, 2014,
Order denying conditional certification.
2
Butz in the aggregate amount of $13,983.90, and in favor of Plaintiff Perry in the
aggregate amount of $8,467.02, for a judgment in the total amount of $22,450.92.
The only issue remaining in this case is the attorneys’ fees to be awarded.
Plaintiffs seek a total fee award of $111,195.00.2
II.
DISCUSSION
A.
Legal Standard
In an overtime action under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Court “shall,
in addition to any judgment awarded to the plaintiff or plaintiffs, allow a
reasonable attorney’s fee to be paid by the defendant, and costs of the action.”
29 U.S.C. § 216(b). It is within the Court’s discretion to determine the amount of
2
The amount claimed is broken down approximately as follows:
Coffman
Reddy
Total
Fees incurred before
April 16, 2014, Order
$31,080.00
$32,152.50
$63,232.50
Fees incurred after
April 16, 2014, Order
$3,600.00
$4,057.50
$7,657.50
Fees incurred to litigate
fee request through
July 16, 2014
$8,200.00
$11,220.00
$19,420.00
Fees incurred responding
to Defendants’ opposition
to fee request
$5,670.00
$15,215.00
$20,885.00
Total Fee Requested: $111,195.00
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the fee to be awarded. Kreager v. Solomon & Flanagan, P.A., 775 F.2d 1541, 1543
(11th Cir. 1985).
There are certain basic guideposts that our circuit has set that apply to a
district court’s determination of a reasonable fee award. “The most useful starting
point for determining the amount of a reasonable fee is the number of hours
reasonable expended on the litigation multiplied by the reasonable hourly rates.”
Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 433 (1983).3 Fundamental to this fee
evaluation process is that the amounts for which fees are sought are reasonable for
the case in which a plaintiff prevailed. That is, the Court must consider the results
obtained by the plaintiff in evaluating and determining reasonable attorneys’ fees.
Dillard v. City of Greensboro, 213 F.3d 1347, 1353 (11th Cir. 2000). In doing so,
the Court may exercise its discretion to reduce the fees requested to avoid an award
for litigation that was not necessary to the case but for which the award is sought.
See Sahyers v. Prughm, Holliday & Karatinos, 560 F.3d 1241, 1245-46 (11th Cir.
2009). Put another way,
3
“A reasonable hourly rate is the prevailing market rate in the relevant legal
community for similar services by lawyers of reasonable comparable skills,
experience, and reputation.” Loranger v. Stierheim, 10 F.3d 776, 781 (11th Cir.
1994). The Court determines that the Atlanta metropolitan area is the relevant
legal community for the purposes of determining the prevailing market rate for
legal fees in this case.
4
[i]f fee applicants do not exercise billing judgment, courts are
obligated to do it for them. . . . [I]t is as much the duty of courts to see
that excessive fees and expenses are not awarded as it is to see that an
adequate amount is awarded.
Am. Civil Liberties Union of Ga. v. Barnes, 168 F.3d 423, 428 (11th Cir. 1999). It
is against this backdrop that the Court considers the reasonable fees to be awarded
to Plaintiffs.
B.
Analysis
Plaintiffs seek an award for their “complete success” in this case which, they
claim, “entitles them to a fully compensable fee.” (Plaintiffs’ Specification and
Itemization in Support of Their Request for Attorneys’ Fees and Costs [45] (“Plfs’
Spec.”) at 5). The fees Plaintiffs request are calculated based on the legal services
performed through the discovery period and the services provided to litigate this
attorneys’ fee dispute.4
1.
Hourly rates
The Court first reviewed the hourly rates for the attorneys who provided
legal services on this matter. Three attorneys billed for their legal services on this
matter: K. Prabhaker Reddy, Andrew Y. Coffman and Andrew G. Hall, an
associate attorney at Reddy’s firm. Having considered the Atlanta market for legal
4
Plaintiffs filed their bill of costs, later adjusted, for an award of costs in the
amount of $3,689.04, which Defendants did not contest. Costs in this amount were
taxed against Defendants on July 30, 2014 [46].
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services, of which the Court is significantly familiar, the Court determines that
Reddy’s hourly rate of $425.00, Coffman’s hourly rate of $400.00, and Hall’s
hourly rate of $175.00, are reasonable for the services performed in this litigation.
2.
Hours for services performed
The Court has reviewed the information submitted by the parties and has
reviewed the pleadings in this action, the docket in the case, and the arguments
presented in the parties’ submissions on the attorneys’ fees request. The Court has
considered the fees for which Plaintiffs have applied based on the Court’s
significant experience in evaluating statements of attorneys’ fees for legal services
while the Court was in private practice, and evaluating applications for attorneys’
fees submitted for the Court’s review and approval over the past ten (10) years. In
conducting this review the Court concludes that Plaintiffs’ request for attorneys’
fees in the aggregate amount of $111,195.00 is unreasonable, as explained below.
a.
Attorneys’ fees to obtain judgment
Plaintiffs seek attorneys’ fees in the amount of $70,890.00 for the services
they performed to obtain the judgment in this action. They argue that this result
was obtained by entry of a judgment for the amount of overtime due. They argue
that all of the activity until Defendants’ offer of judgment was made was necessary
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to obtain the two modest awards made to Plaintiffs Butz and Perry. The Court
disagrees.5
This action began as a collective action on behalf of a large class of
purported class members. The case was litigated by both sides expecting the
possibility that this matter might be certified as a collective action, with the
attendant risks and rewards of this matter proceeding and concluding on behalf of a
group much larger than the two named plaintiffs. The activity in this case reflects
that both parties considered this as one involving class claims. On January 8,
2014, Plaintiffs filed their motion for conditional certification of this case as a
collective action. The Court entered its Order on the motion on April 16, 2014,
declining collective action certification. The Court has reviewed its Order denying
collective action status for this case and compared the arguments advanced by
Plaintiffs in support of their request for collective action certification. That review
shows that a significant effort was made by Plaintiffs, during all of the initial
months during which this case was processed, that was targeted toward advocating
this as an action on behalf of a large number of individuals in eighteen (18) of
Defendants’ different, geographically separate business locations across the
5
In reaching its decision on the attorneys’ fees to be awarded, the Court did not
use, in any way, the information Defendants submitted concerning settlement
discussion between the parties.
7
country. To argue in support of the award requested that all of the services
provided to Plaintiffs from the filing of the Complaint to the entry of the Court’s
April 16, 2014, Order, ignores the Court’s experience that, while class-like
allegations are pending, the time and expense to litigate a case is enhanced,
requiring more litigation activity and increasing the cost for legal services. Put
another way, it is not credible that all of the claimed activity was as necessary to
obtain a judgment of two individual overtime claims as it was to litigate and seek
certification of the case as a collective action. 6 The Court acknowledges that
Plaintiffs reduced their fee request to remove what they represent was “all related
to their pursuit of the unsuccessful [collective action certification] motion,” (Plfs’
Spec. at 14), and they excluded some time for inter-counsel communications, (id.
at 5). It was appropriate to do so.
Plaintiffs’ counsel ultimately applied for fees incurred through judgment in
the aggregate amount of $70,890.00. The Court’s review of the submitted detailed
billing records, when considered against the Court’s billing and bill-review
experiences, supports that a further reduction is required because many of the
activities in the case while prosecuted as a collective action increased the legal
6
The fact is the activity that ultimately was necessary to litigate Butz’s and
Perry’s FSLA claims was not significant. This is underscored by the fact that
Plaintiffs took few depositions.
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services required beyond those necessary to prosecute only claims on behalf of two
identified individuals. Interrogatories, document requests, and conversations
between Plaintiffs’ counsel and with opposing counsel are customarily conducted
more efficiently, and less costly, when collective action allegations are not
pending, like they were here. In short, a further reduction of the hours incurred to
provide legal services from date the Complaint was filed until entry of the Court’s
April 16, 2014, Order (the “collective action processing period”), is required to be
made. From the Court’s detailed review of Plaintiffs’ counsel’s billing records, it
is difficult to determine with specificity the amount of the further fee reduction.7
The Court determines, in its discretion, that a conservative thirty-five percent
(35%) reduction of the hours billed during the collective action processing period
is appropriate. This represents a reduction in the amount of $24,881.00 in the fees
billed in this matter.
Second, there are the costs incurred by Plaintiffs to litigate their fee request.
This is an allowed cost for a plaintiff to recover in an FSLA action. See Spegon v.
7
The generalized, vague descriptions of some of the legal services performed
make it difficult to determine whether the fee requested is reasonable. Comparison
of Coffman’s and Reddy’s billing records also undercuts Plaintiffs’ assertion
regarding exclusion of fees related to their certification motion. For example, on
January 7, 2014, Reddy billed one hour for “Telephone conference with
co-counsel.” Coffman’s billing detail for the same day reflects a one hour
“Conference call with K.P. Reddy regarding certification motion. NO CHARGE.”
9
Catholic Bishop of Chicago, 175 F.3d 544, 554 (7th Cir. 1999); Oliva v. Infinite
Energy, Inc., No. 1:11-cv-232-MP-GRJ, 2013 WL 6815989, at *7 (N.D. Fla.
Dec. 24, 2013); cf. Martin v. Univ. of So. Ala., 911 F.2d 604, 610 (11th Cir. 1990)
(reasonable “time expended litigating attorney fees is fully compensable” under
§ 1988 statutory fee-shifting provision). Here, however, Defendants raised
legitimate issues about the fee request resulting in a reduction of the fees awarded.
The time billed for the legal services to litigate Plaintiffs’ fee request is required, in
the Court’s discretion, to be reduced by forty percent (40%), for a further reduction
of $16,122.00.
Finally, during the Court’s review of the hours incurred by the timekeepers
representing Plaintiffs the Court determined that Plaintiffs’ decision to retain two
lawyers with similar professional experience and expertise increased the number of
hours incurred to obtain a judgment on the FSLA claims of two individuals.
Ordinarily, individual FSLA claims—even claims on behalf of more than one
employee of a single defendant—are brought by a single firm and often by a single
lawyer in that firm, although it is not unusual for that lawyer to be assisted by a
firm associate. That two partners in two different firms represented Butz and Perry
here reflects that strategy to file this as a collective action, and the reduction made
above accounts for the increased costs caused by this dual-firm representation and
10
coordination. That the case proceeded to be litigated by two partners at two firms,
including after conditional certification was denied, requires a further reduction to
account for the duplication and other inefficiencies caused by this two-firm,
two-partner representation of two straightforward individual FSLA claims.8 The
total hours billed should further be reduced by seven percent (7%), for an
additional reduction in the amount of $7,783.65 in the fees billed in this matter.
Having conducted its detailed evaluation of the fees billed in this matter and
having determined in its discretion that the fees billed must be reduced for the
reasons and in the amounts discussed above, the Court finds that attorneys’ fees in
the amount of $62,408.35 are reasonable in view of the modest results obtained by
Plaintiffs in this matter.
8
The Court also notes that Coffman did not appear in this case until almost three
(3) months after the case was filed and two (2) weeks before Plaintiffs’ motion for
conditional certification was filed. That Plaintiffs decided they needed additional
help in this case by retaining a partner at a different law firm increases the amount
of and cost for legal services. A straightforward, two-plaintiff action to recover
unpaid overtime does not require lawyers from two different firms, even if they
sought to appropriate principal responsibilities for different tasks. (See, e.g.,
Coffman Decl. at Ex. A, 3-5, 11-13; Reddy Decl. at Ex. A, 5-7, 9-12). A further
example of the duplication and inefficiencies caused by Plaintiffs’ dual partner
representation is that on April 1, 2014, Coffman and Reddy both attended the
deposition of Defendants’ 30(b)(6) Representative.
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III.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons,
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Plaintiffs be awarded attorneys’ fees in
the amount of $62,408.35.
SO ORDERED this 8th day of December, 2014.
_______________________________
WILLIAM S. DUFFEY, JR.
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
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