Duke v. Uniroyal, Inc.
| Decision Date | 02 March 1990 |
| Docket Number | No. 87-741-CIV-5.,87-741-CIV-5. |
| Citation | 743 F. Supp. 1218 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of North Carolina |
| Parties | Jesse T. DUKE, Sidney W. Fox, Norman R. Barden, and Joseph R. Bishop, Plaintiffs, v. UNIROYAL, INC. and Uniroyal Chemical Company, Inc., Defendants. |
COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED
Joyce L. Davis, Lynn Fontana, Crisp, Davis, Schwentker, Page & Currin, Raleigh, N.C., for plaintiffs.
James G. Billings, Kimberly J. Korando, Smith, Anderson, Blount, Dorsett, Mitchell & Jernigan, Raleigh, N.C., for defendants.
This matter is before the court on the plaintiffs' motion for attorneys' fees and costs pursuant to 29 U.S.C. § 626(b). For the reasons discussed below, the court grants the motion for attorneys' fees in the amount of $240,960.25 and for costs in the amount of $21,447.88.
The plaintiffs brought this action on August 13, 1987 under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act ("ADEA"), 29 U.S.C. §§ 621—634, alleging that the defendants unlawfully discharged them because of their age. The plaintiffs also brought pendent state wrongful-discharge claims that were dismissed before trial. The ADEA claims of plaintiffs Bishop and Barden were dismissed on summary judgment.
The case went to trial on the ADEA claims of plaintiffs Duke and Fox on July 24, 1989. The trial continued through August 10, 1989, and resulted in a jury verdict in favor of Duke and Fox. Duke recovered $568,331, and Fox recovered $56,535. The court denied all post-trial motions, and the defendants and the plaintiffs have appealed to the Fourth Circuit. The plaintiffs then filed this motion seeking to recover $531,465.70 in attorneys' fees and $24,700.98 in costs and expenses.
A. Lodestar Calculation
In calculating the appropriate award of attorneys' fees, the court must first determine the lodestar fee. This amount is the number of hours reasonably expended multiplied by a reasonable hourly rate. Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 433, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 1939, 76 L.Ed.2d 40, 50 (1983). Accordingly, the first task for the court is to determine how many hours the plaintiffs' attorneys, paralegals, and law clerks reasonably expended in this litigation. The plaintiffs have submitted adequate documentation showing that the following hours were expended by the plaintiffs' law firm, Crisp, Davis, Schwentker, Page & Currin1:
Joyce L. Davis ........... 1,034.5
Lynn Fontana ............. 854.3
Cynthia M. Currin ........ 10.5
Lee S. Rosen ............. 7.3
Paralegals ............... 554.0
Law Clerks ............... 255.55
These numbers do not include time spent on appeal or on the fee petition.
The issue is whether all of these hours are compensable under the attorneys' fee statute. The defendants have represented to the court that they do not contest the reasonableness of the total number of hours that plaintiffs' attorneys spent on the case; rather, they object to the hours spent on the claims of Bishop and Barden on the grounds that they were not prevailing parties. See Hensley, 461 U.S. at 429, 103 S.Ct. at 1937. The defendants also object to the time spent on the state-law wrongful-discharge claims on the grounds that they are not related to the claims on which Duke and Fox prevailed. See Hensley, 461 U.S. at 434-35, 103 S.Ct. at 1940. The plaintiffs admit that they are not entitled to recover for those hours spent prosecuting unsuccessful claims; therefore, the only issue is how to deduct these hours from the total hours listed above.
In reducing a fee award for unsuccessful claims, a court may eliminate specific hours or apply an across-the-board percentage as an estimate. Hensley, 461 U.S. at 436-7, 103 S.Ct. at 1941. The defendants have attempted to identify specific hours that were spent on the unsuccessful claims, and they have filed an 84 page exhibit in which they examine the timesheets of the plaintiffs' attorneys item-by-item and reduce each entry by an estimate purporting to represent time spent on such claims. The court does not believe this analysis is necessary and adopts the suggestion of the plaintiffs to use a percentage reduction as an estimate.
The defendants would have the parties litigate over every 15-minute time entry recorded during this rather complex and protracted litigation. Such an analysis would be an immense waste of the judiciary's resources, the attorneys' time, and the clients' money. A motion for attorneys' fees should not develop into litigation as complex as the underlying case. Hensley, 461 U.S. at 437, 103 S.Ct. at 1941. Furthermore, there is no reason to believe that the defendants, after their 84 pages of analysis, arrive at a figure that is any more "accurate" than one arrived at by using an across-the-board percentage reduction.
The issue, therefore, is what percentage factor to use in deducting hours spent on unsuccessful claims. The parties have divided the litigation into stages. Stage I is the period from the inception of the litigation through summary judgment. Stage II includes the trial and trial preparation. Stage III is the post-trial motions period. The plaintiffs propose a 25% reduction in attorney hours during Stages I and III. The defendants propose a 40% reduction in Stage I and a 66% reduction in Stage III.
The plaintiffs state that entries specifically delineating time spent on unsuccessful claims comprise only 6.5% of the hours billed during Stages I and III; they concede, however, that more time was spent on these claims than this percentage would indicate. Even though only two of the four plaintiffs were prevailing parties, the court does not feel that a 50% reduction would be appropriate because of the economies of scale involved in the litigation. Because of the similarities of the claims involved, it would not be accurate to say that the plaintiffs could have prosecuted the claims of Duke and Fox with only half the labor that they expended in prosecuting the claims of Duke, Fox, Bishop, and Barden. Accordingly, after a review of the timesheets the court finds that a 25% reduction in Stage I adequately estimates the time spent on non-prevailing plaintiffs and on the wrongful-discharge claims of the prevailing plaintiffs.
The court finds that a 25% reduction in Stage III time is necessary to account for the unsuccessful, post-trial reinstatement/additur motion of Fox and the unsuccessful motions for reconsideration of Bishop and Barden. Time spent on these motions was not related to the success of Fox and Duke in their ADEA claims and is not compensable. Therefore, the number of hours to be used in the lodestar calculation is as follows:
Joyce L. Davis .......... 887.16
Lynn Fontana ............ 739.28
Cynthia M. Currin ....... 8.13
Lee S. Rosen ............ 5.60
Paralegals .............. 554.00
Law Clerks .............. 255.552
The next step in the analysis is to determine the reasonable hourly rates to which the above figures should be multiplied. The lodestar rate should be the prevailing market rate for the services rendered. See Blum v. Stenson, 465 U.S. 886, 895, 104 S.Ct. 1541, 1547, 79 L.Ed.2d 891 (1984). The plaintiffs contend that the proper lodestar rates are $175/hour for Joyce Davis, $145/hour for Cynthia Currin, and $125/hour for Lynn Fontana and Lee Rosen. The defendants suggest that the maximum appropriate lodestar rates would be $125/hour for Joyce Davis, $105/hour for Cynthia Currin, $95/hour for Lee Rosen, and $90/hour for Lynn Fontana.
The court has before it several types of evidence regarding the prevailing market rate for the services rendered by the plaintiffs' attorneys. The plaintiffs and the defendants each have submitted numerous affidavits from local attorneys in support of their respective contentions. The court has been provided with the original fee agreement between the plaintiffs and their attorneys in which Ms. Davis cites her July 1987 fee as $90/hour. According to the 1989 North Carolina Bar Association Economic Survey, typical hourly rates for lawyers practicing in cities of 100,000 or more in law firms with 7-15 lawyers are $114/hour for someone of Ms. Davis' experience, $95/hour for someone of Ms. Currin's experience, and $76/hour for someone of Ms. Fontana's and Mr. Rosen's experience.3 Ms. Davis has shown to the court that her current (February 1990) billing rate is $145/hour, and she has submitted affidavits from two clients indicating that in fact she commands that figure in the market.
The plaintiffs have failed, however, to produce evidence supporting a lodestar fee of $175/hour for Ms. Davis or $125/hour for Ms. Fontana. The plaintiffs cite Norwood v. Charlotte Memorial Hosp. and Medical Center, 653 F.Supp. 1350, 1359 (W.D.N.C.1987), vacated in part, 829 F.2d 1120 (4th Cir.1987), in which the court awarded lead counsel $175/hour. Norwood, however, was a class action race discrimination case, and the lead counsel was Julius Chambers, one of the nation's most prominent civil rights lawyers. In contrast, this litigation was not nearly as complex or protracted as the Norwood litigation, and Ms. Davis' credentials, though substantial, are not equal to those of Mr. Chambers. Furthermore, the plaintiffs have failed to produce any specific evidence that labor law attorneys can command $175/hour in the Raleigh market. See Spell v. McDaniel, 824 F.2d 1380, 1402 (4th Cir.1987), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 1027, 108 S.Ct. 752, 98 L.Ed.2d 765 (1988). A careful review of the affidavits from local counsel submitted by both parties indicates that a lodestar rate of $150/hour is appropriate for Ms. Davis.
In setting the lodestar rates, the court relies heavily on the current hourly rates of the plaintiffs' attorneys.4 The plaintiffs contend that the lodestar should be significantly higher than the current hourly rates because of the complexity of this case, the skill and reputation...
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