Maui Jim, Inc. v. SmartBuy Guru Enterprises et al

Filing 141

ORDER: Plaintiff Maui Jim's Fee Petition 128 is allowed in part. Defendants (collectively "SmartBuy") shall pay Maui Jim $9,821.00 on or before June 6, 2018. See attached Statement for further details. Signed by the Honorable Jeffrey T. Gilbert on 5/16/2018. Mailed notice(ber, )

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION
MAUI JIM, INC., an Illinois Corporation,

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Plaintiff,
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v.
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SMARTBUY GURU ENTERPRISES, a
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Cayman Island Company; MOTION
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GLOBAL LTD., a Hong Kong Company;
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SMARTBUYGLASSES SOCIETÀ A
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RESPONSABILITÀ LIMITATA, an Italian )
company; SMARTGUYGLASSES
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OPTICAL LIMITED, a Hong Kong
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company,
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Defendants. )

No. 16 C 9788
Jeffrey T. Gilbert
Magistrate Judge

ORDER
Plaintiff Maui Jim’s Fee Petition [128] is allowed in part. Defendants (collectively
“SmartBuy”) shall pay Maui Jim $9,821.00 on or before June 6, 2018. See Statement below for
further details.
STATEMENT
On December 18, 2017, the Court granted in part and denied in part SmartBuy’s Motion
to Clarify and for Entry of Protective Order. [ECF No. 71.] SmartBuy then filed a “Motion for
Reconsideration of Supply-Chain Confidentiality Designation in Light of New Facts and for
Expedited Discovery into Potential Contemptuous Conduct” [ECF No. 113]. The Court denied
SmartBuy’s Motion for Reconsideration on March 19, 2018, and ordered SmartBuy to pay Maui
Jim’s attorneys’ fees and costs incurred in filing its Response to SmartBuy’s Motion in
accordance with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(a)(5)(B). [ECF No. 126.] Because the
parties were unable to agree on the amount of fees, in accordance with the Court’s March 19,
2018 order [ECF No. 126], Maui Jim filed a Fee Petition [ECF No. 128] seeking $18,649.50 in
legal fees it incurred in filing its Response, as well as additional fees incurred in filing the Fee
Petition and the Reply in Support [ECF No. 133].
A.
First, SmartBuy says that the Court does not have the authority to order it to pay Maui
Jim’s attorneys’ fees for opposing SmartBuy’s Motion for Reconsideration of the Court’s prior
rulings pursuant to Rule 37(a)(5)(B). The Court disagrees.

SmartBuy’s Motion for Reconsideration [ECF No. 113] was a discovery-related motion
and therefore Rule 37(a)(5)(B) applies. Among other things, in that Motion, SmartBuy seeks
“expedited discovery into potential contemptuous conduct.” [ECF No. 113, at 1.] In addition, in
the body of the Motion, SmartBuy says “this Court must stop all further discovery into
SmartBuyGlasses’ supply chain “ and it says “the Court should allow SmartBuyGlasses to
obtain fulsome discovery on the background of what Maui Jim claims to be the events and
discussions leading up to its most recent decisions to attack SmartBuyGlasses’ [suppliers].” Id.
at pp. 4, 6. Therefore, although styled as a motion for reconsideration, SmartBuy’s motion
clearly sought to block certain discovery and permission to undertake other discovery.
SmartBuy’s prayer for relief similarly was focused on the discovery it wanted to take and the
discovery it wanted the Court to prevent. Id. at pp. 6–7. This was clearly a discovery-related
motion and the fact that it was styled as a motion for reconsideration of the Court’s prior
discovery rulings does not change the fact that it was a discovery motion. Therefore, in the
Court’s view, Rule 37(a)(5)(B) applies.
Furthermore, the cases cited by SmartBuy for the proposition that its Motion for
Reconsideration is properly governed by Rule 54(b) rather than Rule 37(a) are inapposite and
readily distinguishable. In Zurich Capital Markets, Inc. v. Coglianese, 383 F. Supp. 2d 1041
(N.D. Ill. 2005), the defendants moved for reconsideration of the court’s ruling on the
defendants’ motion to dismiss that the plaintiff’s fraud allegations met the pleading requirements
of Rule 9(b). In Manley v. Boat/U.S., Inc., 2017 WL 5191952 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 9, 2017), the court
granted summary judgment in favor of the defendant on two counts, but denied summary
judgment as to the three remaining counts of the plaintiff’s complaint. The defendant then
moved for reconsideration of the court’s denial of summary judgment on those three counts. Id.
Thus, unlike the instant case, Manley and Zurich involved requests for reconsideration of rulings
on dispositive motions, completely unrelated to discovery.
Therefore, the Court remains of the view that SmartBuy should have met and conferred
with Maui Jim under Local Rule 37.2 before filing a discovery-related motion. But, even if
Local Rule 37.2 does not technically apply, the failure to comply with that Local Rule was not
the sole predicate for the Court’s order that SmartBuy pay Maui Jim’s fees. This was a
discovery motion that was not well-founded and it was denied. And Rule 37(a)(5)(B) says the
Court must award fees unless “the motion substantially justified or other circumstances make an
award of expenses unjust.” See FED. R. CIV. P. 37(a)(5)(B).
B.
Second, SmartBuy argues that the attorneys’ fees Maui Jim incurred in responding to
SmartBuy’s motion were excessive and that any award of fees against SmartBuy should be
substantially reduced from what Maui Jim is requesting. The Court agrees with SmartBuy.
Maui Jim’s request for reimbursement of $18,649 in attorneys’ fees for its response brief
is, in the Court’s view, excessive for several reasons:

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(1) The senior attorney on this file, billing at $655 an hour, spent the lion’s share of the
time drafting Maui Jim’s response to SmartBuy’s Motion;
(2) The billing records show substantial overlap between the work being done by the
senior and more junior lawyers for “drafting,” “preparing,” and “reviewing” the
response over the course of about a week; and
(3) The total amount of time spent on the response brief – 32.70 hours – appears to be
excessive, perhaps because of the overlap in work done by the two attorneys who
prepared the response.
Therefore, the Court will award Maui Jim one-half of the time spent on the response brief
at the hourly rate of the lower billing attorney – 16.35 hours at $460 per hour – which is
$7,521.00.
The Court is not second-guessing counsel’s or Maui Jim’s decision to have a senior
lawyer with an hourly billing rate of $655 do the bulk of the work on a response to SmartBuy’s
motion to reconsider or to have two lawyers work on drafting the response brief. But those
decisions about resource allocation do not dictate or control what SmartBuy reasonably should
be required to pay for filing a motion that was not well-founded and was summarily denied.
C.
Finally, the Court agrees with Maui Jim and disagrees with SmartBuy that Maui Jim
should be reimbursed for the time its counsel spent filing the fee petition that the Court ordered it
to file. But, again, the Court will not require SmartBuy to pay for two attorneys to draft a
relatively simple fee petition reply brief particularly when almost all of the work was done by a
senior lawyer billing at $655 an hour.
Maui Jim represents in its reply brief [ECF No. 133] that its senior attorney spent 4.9
hours on the reply brief in support of Maui Jim’s fee petition and the more junior lawyer spent
0.5 hours. The Court will award a total of five (5) hours for the reply brief at the more junior
lawyer’s hourly rate of $460 an hour for a total of $2,300.00. This brings the total fee award to
$9,821.00. SmartBuy shall pay that amount to Maui Jim on the 21st day after the date this
Order is entered.
It is so ordered.

_____________________________
Jeffrey T. Gilbert
United States Magistrate Judge
Dated: May 16, 2018

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