Corey v. Sedgwick Claims Management Services et al

Filing 64

Memorandum of Opinion and Order: In its Order of October 26, 2017, this Court found that Plaintiff was the prevailing party in this litigation and entitled to fees. Pending before the Court is Plaintiff's request for attorney's fees in the amount of $91,173.00 and costs in the amount of $1,176.00. Defendants oppose Plaintiffs fee request, arguing that a significant portion must be disallowed. Defendants do not oppose Plaintiff's request for costs. For the following reasons, the Court concludes that Plaintiff is entitled to $72,387.00 in fees and $1,176.00 in costs. (LC,S) Judge Patricia A. Gaughan on 1/18/18. re 59 , 54

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF OHIO
EASTERN DIVISION

Bruce Corey,
Plaintiff,
vs.
Sedgwick Claims Management
Services, et al.,
Defendants.

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CASE NO. 1:15 CV 1736
JUDGE PATRICIA A. GAUGHAN

Memorandum of Opinion and Order

INTRODUCTION
In its Order of October 26, 2017, this Court found that Plaintiff was the prevailing party
in this litigation and entitled to fees. Pending before the Court is Plaintiff’s request for attorney’s
fees in the amount of $91,173.00 and costs in the amount of $1,176.00. Defendants oppose
Plaintiff’s fee request, arguing that a significant portion must be disallowed. Defendants do not
oppose Plaintiff’s request for costs. For the following reasons, the Court concludes that Plaintiff
is entitled to $72,387.00 in fees and $1,176.00 in costs.
ANALYSIS
Having already determined that Plaintiff is the prevailing party, the Court’s next step is to

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determine a reasonable fee. Wayne v. Village of Sebring, 36 F.3d 517, 531 (6th Cir. 1994) (citing
Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 433, 103 S. Ct. 1933, 1939 (1983)). The starting point for
determining the amount of a reasonable fee is “the lodestar” calculation, which is “the number of
hours reasonably expended on the litigation multiplied by a reasonable hourly rate.” Id. Next, the
court must exclude excessive, redundant, or otherwise unnecessary hours. Id. Finally, the court
must consider whether the fee should be adjusted upward or downward based on “the important
factor of the ‘results obtained.’” Hensley, 461 U.S. at 434. This involves two questions: “First,
did the plaintiff fail to prevail on claims that were unrelated to the claims on which he
succeeded? Second, did the plaintiff achieve a level of success that makes the hours reasonably
expended a satisfactory basis for making a fee award?” Id. If a court determines that fees must be
adjusted downward because of this factor, it “may attempt to identify specific hours that should
be eliminated, or it may simply reduce the award to account for the limited success.” Id. at 43637. The court “has discretion in making this equitable judgment.” Id. at 437.
The party seeking fees has the burden of producing documentation of the hours and rates
in the lodestar amount, but the party challenging the reasonableness of the requested fee has the
burden of showing that an adjustment downward is necessary. Myers v. Mutual of Omaha Life
Ins. Co., 4: 14CV 2421 (N.D. Ohio August 23, 2017) (citing Rode v. Dellarciprete, 892 F.2d
1177, 1183 (3rd Cir. 1990)).
A. Hourly rate
Defendants do not oppose the hourly rates requested by Plaintiffs: $400 per hour for
attorney Andrew Margolius, and $300 per hour for attorney Emily Gilbert. In support of these
rates, Plaintiff’s counsel submitted their own declarations and resumes, examples of cases where

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similar fees have been approved, and affidavits from attorneys in the Cleveland area opining that
counsels’ rates are reasonable in this region. This evidence shows that the requested rates are fair
and typical of those in the area. The Court, therefore, finds that they are reasonable.
B. Reasonableness of the hours expended
Plaintiff requests that his counsel be compensated for a total of 234.49 hours (208.26
hours for attorney Margolius and 26.23 hours for attorney Gilbert). Plaintiff has submitted
itemized time and expense records for both attorneys. Defendants argue that a significant portion
of these fees is unreasonable and must be excluded. The Court will address each of Defendants’
arguments in turn.
1. Hours expended on unsuccessful issues
First, Defendants assert that Plaintiff’s request must be reduced by the number of hours
that his counsel spent pursuing issues on which Plaintiff was ultimately unsuccessful.
Specifically, they ask the Court to reduce the hours that counsel spent on amending the
complaint, pursuing plaintiff’s Motion for Limited Discovery, opposing Defendants’ Motion to
Dismiss, and filing Plaintiff’s Notice of Supplemental Authority in support of his motion for
attorneys fees, all of which were unsuccessful.
“[W]ork on an unsuccessful claim cannot be deemed to have been ‘expended in pursuit of
the ultimate result achieved.’” Hensley, 461 U.S. at 435. Thus, fees may not be awarded for work
on unsuccessful claims that are unrelated to the ones on which the plaintiff succeeded. Id. When
claims “involve a common core of facts” or are “based on related legal theories,” however, the
rejection of certain grounds is not a sufficient reason for reducing a fee. Jordan v. City of
Cleveland, 464 F.3d 584, 603 (6th Cir. 2006) (quoting Hensley, 461 U.S. at 435).

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a. Amending the complaint and opposing Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss
The time that Plaintiff’s counsel spent on amending the complaint and opposing
Defendants’ motion to dismiss was not related to the successful outcome in this case. Shortly
after Plaintiff filed his initial complaint, defense counsel wrote to his counsel “in an effort to put
the case in its proper position, cooperatively.” (Doc. 62, at 4). Defense counsel pointed out that
Sedgwick and Eaton, whom Plaintiff had named as defendants, were not proper defendants and
that the Plan Administrator should be named as the defendant instead. They also explained why
Plaintiff’s breach of fiduciary duty and interference claims were without merit and that the only
proper claims in the case were Plaintiff’s claims for denial of benefits. (Doc. 62, Ex. A).
Nevertheless, when Plaintiff filed his amended complaint, he continued to name Sedgwick and
Eaton as defendants and to assert all of the claims he had asserted in the initial complaint. He
added Count V, a denial of due process claim, as well. Defendants moved to dismiss all but
Plaintiff’s denial of benefits claims and to dismiss Eaton and Sedgwick as defendants.1
This Court granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss in full, noting several times that
Plaintiff had not cited any authority for several of the positions that he took in opposing the
motion. Moreover, the Court’s analysis did not involve the same core of facts or legal theories as
the denial of benefits claims on which Plaintiff ultimately succeeded. Unlike the analysis of
those claims, the motion to dismiss did not require this Court to analyze the administrative
record to determine whether the Defendants’ denial of benefits was arbitrary and capricious.
Plaintiff did not appeal this Court’s decision on the motion to dismiss. Because Plaintiff’s efforts
at amending the complaint and opposing the motion to dismiss were unsuccessful and unrelated

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They did not move to dismiss the Plan or Plan Administrator as defendants.
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to the claims on which Plaintiff was successful, the Court will deduct the time counsel spent on
these tasks: 12.285 hours for attorney Margolius and 5 hours for attorney Gilbert.2
b. Motion for limited discovery
Similarly, the Court will deduct the time that Plaintiff’s counsel spent on his unsuccessful
motion for limited discovery.3 Again, the Court’s analysis of the motion for discovery was not
dependent on the same core of facts or the same legal theories as the claims on which Plaintiff
succeeded. Thus, the Court will deduct 5.535 hours from attorney’s Margolius’s fee request and
1.30 hours from attorney Gilbert’s.
c. Plaintiff’s notice of supplemental authority
Attorney Margolius’s time spent on his Notice of Supplemental Authority in support of
Plaintiff’s Motion for Attorneys Fees will also be deducted. Defendant moved to strike this
notice as irrelevant, and Plaintiff did not oppose the motion. This Court struck the notice, noting
that the case Plaintiff sought to bring to the Court’s attention did not address the issue under
review. The Court thus strikes .50 hours from attorney Margolius’s fee request.
2. Hours expended on the appeal
Plaintiff seeks fees for 42.47 hours for briefing and oral argument preparation in
connection with his appeal before the Sixth Circuit. Defendants argue that this amount is
unreasonable because all of the issues on appeal were briefed in this Court initially. As support,

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The exclusion of this time is especially appropriate given that the result of the
Court’s ruling on the motion to dismiss was to put the case in the same position
that Defendants asked Plaintiff to put the case in before he filed his amended
complaint.

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Plaintiff did not appeal the denial of his motion for discovery.
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it notes that Plaintiffs spent only 14 hours briefing the merits in this Court. It also cites a recent
case where Eaton was the prevailing party in a case before the Sixth Circuit, Farley v. Eaton
Corp., 697 Fed. Appx. 450 (6th Cir. 2017). In that case, Eaton submitted reimbursement for over
250 hours for its work on the appeal. The court held that this request was unreasonable and
reduced it by approximately 50%, explaining that the appeal “consisted entirely of repeating the
same arguments previously litigated” in the district court and “involved filing one brief and
preparing for argument.” Id. at 451.
Defendants have not met their burden of showing that the amount of fees that Plaintiff
requests for the appeal is unreasonable. As Plaintiff acknowledges, “the arguments and briefing
presented at the District Court were unpersuasive and unsuccessful. Counsel’s efforts to enhance
the arguments, conduct new research and present these arguments better, caused the expenditure
of time....[C]ounsel here needed to ratchet up their efforts to be successful at the Sixth Circuit.”
(Doc. 63, at 6). Thus, the fact that counsel spent more time working on the appeal than they did
on their brief before this Court is neither surprising nor unreasonable. Nor is Defendants’ citation
to Farley persuasive. While this case may be similar in that the appeal involved the same
arguments litigated below, it differs in two key respects: Plaintiff filed two briefs with the Sixth
Circuit and seeks fees for less than 1/5 of the amount of time than Eaton sought in Farley. For
these reasons, the Court will not reduce the amount of fees that Plaintiff requests for counsels’
work on the appellate portion of this case.
3. Work related to the administrative process
Defendants next ask the Court to exclude all fees related to the administrative claims
process following this Court’s order of remand. Plaintiff does not dispute that time spent on the

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administrative claims process is not allowed. (Doc. 63, at 9). See also Anderson v. Procter &
Gamble, Co., 220 F.3d 449, 456 (6th Cir. 2000) (“ERISA does not authorize recovery of
attorneys’ fees for work performed during the administrative exhaustion phase of a benefits
proceeding.”). Yet, Plaintiff argues that he should be allowed to recover the time counsel spent
on the claims process on remand because the time involved counsels’ efforts to “insur[e] a fair
remedy process was not unreasonable....The five hours spent in this regard, in identifying the
remedy and procedures upon remand, are not unreasonable and do relate to the litigation itself.”
(Doc. 63, at 9). Plaintiff has not demonstrated that the time counsel spent on the administrative
procedures on remand was related to the litigation; his conclusory statement that it was is
insufficient. Thus, the Court will deduct 4.80 hours from attorney Margolius’s time.
4. Plaintiff’s motion for attorneys fees
Finally, Defendants argue that Plaintiff’s request for 35.27 hours in filing his motion for
attorneys’ fees is excessive. Defendants note that Plaintiff’s counsel spent more time on the fee
motion than they did on their briefs in this Court and the Sixth Circuit combined. They also point
out that in a recent ERISA case in this district, Plaintiff’s counsel spent only 15.86 hours
pursuing attorneys’ fees. Myers v. Mutual of Omaha Life Ins. Co., 4: 14CV 2421, at 7-8 (N.D.
Ohio August 23, 2017).
The Court agrees that the amount of time Plaintiff’s counsel expended on filing the
motion for fees is unreasonable. There is no reason why counsel should have had to spend more
than twice as much time filing the fee motion in this case as they did in Myers when the two
cases involved virtually identical issues. The Court, therefore, will reduce counsels’ fees for this

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portion of the case to 15.86 hours, the amount of time counsel requested in Myers.4
Defendants argue that Plaintiff’s request should be further reduced by the hours incurred
in response to the Court’s order that Plaintiff submit evidence that his fees are reasonable. In
Myers, the court reduced counsel’s time because they did not submit this evidence along with
their motion for fees. See id. at 8 (reducing attorney Margolius’s time by 5.83 hours and attorney
Gilbert’s time by 1.99 hours). Here, however, this Court granted Plaintiff leave to file his
documentation separately from his motion for fees, so this is not a basis for reduction.
C. Lodestar Calculation
Taking into account the above changes, the adjusted lodestar is:
Attorney Margolius:
208.26
-12.285

Total hours before reductions
work related to amended
complaint and Defendants’
motion to dismiss

-5.535

work related to Plaintiff’s motion
for discovery

-.50

work related to Plaintiff’s
supplemental notice

-4.80

work related to administrative
process

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14.92 of these hours are attributable to attorney Margolius, and .94 hours are
attributable to attorney Gilbert. These amounts are proportional to the amount of
time that they spent on tasks related to the motion for fees.
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-18.25

work related to fees

166.89

Total hours

166.89 x $400 per hour

$66,756.00 in reasonable fees

Attorney Gilbert
26.23
-5.0

Total hours before reductions
work related to amended
complaint and Defendants’
motion to dismiss

-1.3

work related to Plaintiff’s motion
for discovery

-1.16

work related to fees

18.77

Total hours

18.77 x $300 per hour

$5,631.00 in reasonable fees

In total, Plaintiff has incurred $72,387.00 in reasonable fees.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, Plaintiff is entitled to $72,387 in fees and $1,176 in costs.
IT IS SO ORDERED.

/s/ Patricia A. Gaughan
PATRICIA A. GAUGHAN
United States District Court
Chief Judge
Dated: 1/18/18

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