In Re: RFC and RESCAP Liquidating Trust Litigation

Filing 4977

ORDER regarding discovery related to attorneys' fees in response to #4966 Plaintiff's January 28, 2019 Letter and #4970 Home Loan Center's January 30, 2019 Sealed Letter. (Written Opinion). Signed by Judge Susan Richard Nelson on 2/4/2019. (MJC)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF MINNESOTA

In Re: RFC and ResCap Liquidating Trust
Litigation

This document relates to:

Court File No. 13-cv-3451 (SRN/HB)

ORDER

ResCap Liquidating Trust v. Home Loan
Center, Inc., No. 14-cv-1716

Before the Court is a dispute regarding proposed discovery related to ResCap
Liquidating Trust’s (“ResCap’s”) pending motion for attorneys’ fees and costs. (See Pl.’s
Jan. 28, 2019 Letter [Doc. No. 4966]; Def.’s Jan. 30, 2019 Letter [Doc. No. 4970].) Having
reviewed the parties’ submissions, the Court issues the following rulings:
1. There appears to be some uncertainty in the law in the Eighth Circuit and
Minnesota as to whether courts should infer a “reasonableness” standard in
exercising their discretion to award attorneys’ fees and costs, despite contractual
language that permits the recovery of “all” fees and costs and makes no mention
of reasonableness. The Court will defer ruling on this issue at this time, until it
has the benefit of full briefing from both sides. For purposes of this discovery
dispute, the Court will assume that any award of fees must be reasonable.
2. The Court will permit HLC to submit an expert declaration in support of its
position on the appropriate fee award in this case. ResCap is entitled to do the
same. The Court’s understanding is that HLC’s expert will be deposed on
February 13, 2019.

3. As for the dispute regarding the appropriateness of certain redactions, no later
than February 11, 2019, HLC shall identify a reasonable number of such
disputed redactions. No later than February 13, 2019, ResCap shall submit the
corresponding unredacted entries to the Court for in camera review. In light of
the fact that these are redacted billing entries, by definition filled with attorney
client privilege and work product privilege material, no privilege log is required.
The specific names of witnesses identified in the billing records, associated with
attorney work, need not be identified.
4. At this point in time, HLC will not be ordered to produce a summary of its fees
and costs incurred before July 2018. However, if it becomes apparent to the
Court that issues raised in the briefing by HLC challenging ResCap’s fees prior
to July 2018 cannot be fairly resolved without such discovery, the Court will
entertain a motion for such discovery at that time.
SO ORDERED.
BY THE COURT:

Dated: February 4, 2019

s/Susan Richard Nelson
SUSAN RICHARD NELSON
United States District Judge

2