United States of America v. 947 Firearms

Filing 56

OPINION AND ORDER by Judge Terence Kern ; denying 52 Motion for Attorney Fees (vah, Chambers)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF OKLAHOMA
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

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Plaintiff,
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vs.
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947 FIREARMS,
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Defendant.
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_____________________________________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff,
vs.
ARTHUR RAY CANTARELL,
Defendant.

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Case No. 09-CV-566-TCK-FHM

(Case No. 09-CR-089-TCK)

OPINION AND ORDER
Before the Court is Claimant/Defendant’s Supplemental Motion for Attorneys Fees Pursuant
to the Court’s March 16, 2011 Amended Order (Doc. 52).
I.

Background
On March 16, 2011, the Court accepted and affirmed Magistrate Frank H. McCarthy’s

Report and Recommendation awarding Claimant/Defendant Arthur Ray Cantarell (“Cantarell”) a
total of $7,563.50 in attorneys fees (“March 16, 2011 Order”). The March 16, 2011 Order also
granted Cantarell leave to file a supplemental fee request for time spent his Objection to the Report
and Recommendation (“Objection”) and the reply in support of the Objection (“reply brief”).
Evident in the Court’s March 16, 2011 Order, however, was the fact that Cantarell could only
recover fees for time spent on new arguments associated with the civil and administrative

proceedings. Specifically, the Court cautioned that Cantarell “may not recover fees associated with
the criminal action and also may not recover fees for work that was previously completed and simply
reiterated in the briefing [related the Objection].” (March 16, 2011 Order at 3.) Cantarell now seeks
additional attorneys fees in the amount of $8,462.001 for time spent on his Objection and reply brief.
II.

Discussion
To calculate a reasonable attorneys fee award, the Court multiples the reasonable number

of hours spent by a reasonable hourly rate. The burden of proving the number of hours and rate is
on the applicant. Malloy v. Monahan, 73 F.3d 1012, 1017-18 (10th Cir. 1996). The number of
hours requested must be proved “by submitting meticulous, contemporaneous time records that
reveal, for each lawyer for whom fees are sought, all hours for which compensation is requested and
how those hours were allotted to specific tasks.” Case v. Unified Sch. Dist. No. 223, Johnson Cnty.,
Kan., 157 F.3d 1243, 1250 (10th Cir. 1998). Lack of sufficient detail in a fee claimant’s time
records may make it impossible for a court to determine whether particular services are compensable
and will justify a denial of all or a portion of the requested fees. See Case, 157 F.3d at 1250 (“A
district court is justified in reducing the reasonable number of hours if the attorney’s time records
are ‘sloppy and imprecise’ and fail to document adequately how he or she utilized large blocks of
time.”) (citing Jane L. v. Bangerter, 61 F.3d 1505, 1510 (10th Cir. 1995)).
After spending considerable time reviewing the billing records submitted by Cantarell, the
Objection and reply brief, and the initial briefing on Cantarell’s motion for attorneys fees, the Court
finds that Cantarell has not met his burden of demonstrating that he is entitled to additional attorneys
fees for time spent on the Objection and reply brief. As previously outlined, Cantarell is only

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Cantarell initially sought $9,353.00, but subsequently reduced the amount requested to
$8,462.00.

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entitled to fees for time spent on new arguments associated with the civil and administrative
proceedings. Despite the Court’s words of caution in its March 16, 2011 Order, the time records
submitted by Cantarell in support of his supplemental fee request do not parse out such time.
Rather, the records are over-inclusive, as the vast majority of the time entries relate to time spent
on arguments associated with Cantarell’s criminal prosecution, which is not recoverable, and time
spent on arguments raised in prior briefing before the Court, for which Cantarell has already been
compensated. It appears that Cantarell’s attorneys made no effort to redact unrecoverable time, as
directed by the Court. Indeed, the fact that Cantarell is requesting $8,462.00 for time spent on two
filings when the Court previously awarded $7,563.50 for the entire case demonstrates the attorneys’
failure to appropriate redact their submitted time records.
The entries also fail to exclude hours that are “excessive, redundant, or otherwise
unnecessary.” Malloy, 73 F.3d at 1018 (“[C]ounsel for the prevailing party should make a goodfaith effort to exclude from a fee request hours that are excessive, redundant, or otherwise
unnecessary[.]”). For example, Cantarell seeks attorneys fees for 4.25 hours of work spent on a
motion seeking leave to file a reply brief in support of his Objection. Because the motion included
a mere one page of argument (in addition to approximately 3.5 pages outlining the facts of the case,
which had been outlined by Cantarell’s counsel in previous briefing), the Court finds a request for
fees based on 4.25 hours of attorney time to be unreasonable. Cantarell also seeks fees for hours
spent that are not normally billed to a client – e.g., for tasks completed by attorneys that were
redundant or administrative in nature. This indicates that Cantarell’s attorneys did not exercise
“billing judgment” with respect to the claim of the number of hours worked.
In addition to the specific problems identified above, the submitted time records generally
suffer from “block billing” and do not delineate the time spent on each respective tasks. The Court
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is therefore left with the impossible task of determining what time should be allotted to new
arguments associated with the civil and administrative actions. Were the Court to grant Cantarell’s
supplemental request for fees, the Court would essentially be selecting an arbitrary amount of fees
for the Government to pay. The Court will not engage in such speculation and therefore denies
Cantarell’s supplemental motion for attorneys fees.
III.

Conclusion
For the reasons outlined herein, the Supplemental Motion for Attorneys Fees Pursuant to the

Court’s March 16, 2011 Amended Order (Doc. 52) is DENIED.

SO ORDERED this 24th day of February, 2012.

____________________________________
TERENCE C. KERN
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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