U.S. District Court, Western District of N.Y. rules attorney's fees

Finding the plaintiffs' request for $545,883 in attorney's fees to be excessive, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York reduced that amount to $372,953.

In D. Anderson v. Rochester-Genesee Regional Transportation Authority, et al., Judge David G. Larimer reviewed the number of hours and hourly rates the plaintiffs requested in attorney's fees and found some of the number of hours to be duplicative and excessive, and the rates requested to be unreasonably high.

Plaintiffs' ADA Claims

The case stemmed from a lawsuit brought by several individuals (the plaintiffs) against the defendants, Lift Line, Inc. and Rochester-Genesee Regional Transportation Authority.

In August 2001, the federal court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs on three of their four claims. The court found Lift Line and Rochester-Genesee Regional violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) with regard to their delivery of paratransit service for the disabled and ordered them to take immediate steps to comply with their obligations under the ADA, Anderson v. Rochester- Genesee Regional Transp. Auth., 206 FRD 56, 71 (WDNY 2001).

In July 2003, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the district court's order with regard to the plaintiffs' first and third claims but reversed as to the fourth claim, Anderson v. Rochester-Genesee Regional Transp. Auth., 337 F3d 201, 217 (Second Cir. 2003). On remand, the district court modified the injunction when it wrote: [t]he company must design, fund and implement a plan to meet 100 percent of the demand for next-day ride service, Anderson v. Rochester-Genesee Regional Transp. Auth., 332 FSupp2d 540, 542 (WDNY 2004).

Attorney's Fees And Costs

Following the district court's decision, the plaintiffs filed a motion for an award of attorney's fees and costs in the amount of $545,883.52.

While Lift Line and Rochester-Genesee Regional conceded the plaintiffs were entitled to attorney's fees, they argued the amount the plaintiffs requested was excessive.

Lodestar Approach

In reviewing the plaintiffs' request for attorney's fees, the court referred to the lodestar approach where the number of hours reasonably expended on the litigation [are] multiplied by a reasonable hourly rate, Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 US 424, 433 (1983); Grant v. Martinez, 973 F2d 96, 99 (Second Cir. 1992), cert denied, 506 US 1053 (1993).

The court emphasized that the number of hours and hourly rate must be reasonable. Applying this standard, the court determined the plaintiffs' request for attorney's fees in the amount of $545,883.52 should be reduced since it was unreasonable and excessive.

Number Of Hours

The court first determined the more than 2,071 hours that the plaintiffs requested to be compensated for were excessive, duplicative, and, in some instances, completely unnecessary. While the court noted the plaintiffs reduced their fee request by 5 percent of the hours to account for any duplication of work, the court determined that a further reduction was warranted.

In reaching this determination, the court found some of the entries in the plaintiffs' billing records were vague.

The Second Circuit has stated that a party seeking an award of attorney's fees must support the request with contemporaneous time records that 'specify, for each attorney, the date, the hours expended, and the nature of the work done,' explained Judge Larimer, citing New York State Assn. for Retarded Children, Inc. v. Carey, 711 F2d 1136, 1148 (Second Cir. 1983).

In some of the billing records that the plaintiffs submitted, the judge found vague entries which included meetings and conferences regarding strategy, research, and status, as well as generalized references to work on briefs and affidavits.

While I am not suggesting that counsel must explain in minute detail what work was performed, the use of these generic descriptions, in my view, also calls for some reduction of the fee award beyond the 5 percent reduction applied by plaintiffs, wrote the judge.

In addition, the billing records also showed that on several occasions there were more than one or two attorneys present for court appearances and conferences, including one instance when four attorneys were present and charged time.

Although plaintiffs contend that this was reasonable because each attorney had a different role to play, I disagree, wrote the judge. Division of labor is supposed to make work more efficient, not less. Here, it appears simply to have resulted in duplication of effort. Plaintiffs' attorneys were certainly free to attend conferences, oral arguments, or other court appearances if they chose. Defendants, though, should not be required to compensate all of plaintiffs' attorneys for those appearances when the use of just one or two lawyers would have been adequate.

Overall, the court determined the number of hours the plaintiffs were entitled to in attorney's fees should be reduced.

[T]he total time for which fees are sought - about 2,071.5 hours - seems unusually high considering the nature and history of this case, wrote Judge Larimer. That figure translates to about 52 40- hour work weeks, which in my view is unreasonable considering that: there was no discovery in this case; there was very little case law to research; and the case never went to trial, but was resolved by a pre-answer dispositive motion.

The judge, therefore, found the plaintiffs' 5 percent reduction was not enough and determined the number of hours should be decreased by a total of 20 percent.

Hourly Rate

The court also found some of the plaintiffs' hourly rates to be excessive. In their billing records, the plaintiffs charged rates from $200 to $300 an hour.

In general, the lodestar should be based on 'prevailing market rates' for comparable attorneys of comparable skill and standing in the pertinent legal community, explained the court, citing Blum v. Stenson, 465 US 886, 895 (1984).

Based on this standard, the court found the plaintiffs' requested rates to be too high since it was unable to find any reported case from the district which awarded an attorney with an hourly rate of $300 or higher.

The court also noted that much of the work that was done for the plaintiffs was performed by higher-paid partners and senior attorneys.

Plaintiffs' counsel explains that in part this was due to certain funding arrangements for counsel's nonprofit law office, which precluded the office from using junior attorneys or associates on general litigation tasks, explained Judge Larimer. While that may be so, again I do not believe that it means that defendants should be forced to shoulder completely the resulting financial burden.

Consequently, the court reduced the amount the plaintiffs were entitled to receive by awarding hourly rates for work performed by attorneys that ranged from $150 to $250.

Court's Ruling

Plaintiff's motion for attorney's fees is granted in part and denied in part, concluded the court. Plaintiffs are awarded attorney's fees and costs in the amount of $372,953.28.

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