In re Metro Transp. Co.
| Decision Date | 29 September 1987 |
| Docket Number | Bankruptcy No. 86-03618S. |
| Citation | 78 BR 416 |
| Parties | In re METRO TRANSPORTATION CO., t/a Yellow Cab Company, Debtor. |
| Court | U.S. Bankruptcy Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania |
Mary F. Walrath, Douglas J. Smillie, Philadelphia, Pa., for Official Creditors' Committee.
Kevin W. Walsh, Philadelphia, Pa., for debtor.
At 5:40 P.M. on August 6, 1987, the Applicant, CLARK, LADNER, FORTENBAUGH & YOUNG (hereinafter referred to as "Clark Ladner"), counsel for the Official Creditors' Committee in the above-entitled matter, filed a Motion asking that we reconsider our Order of July 27, 1987, awarding $43,061.75 compensation for services and $475.00 reimbursement for expenses to Clark Ladner. The Application was Clark Ladner's Second Interim Fee Application in this case, covering the period from December 1, 1986, to March 31, 1987, and it sought compensation of $54,083.50 for services and $1,596.02 for costs. Since this Motion was timely filed, just before the ten-day deadline for filing such motions, see In re Campfire Shop, Inc., 71 B.R. 521, 523-24 (Bankr.E.D.Pa.1987); and In re American International Airways, Inc., 69 B.R. 396, 396-97 n. 1 (Bankr.E.D. Pa.1987) (), we reach its merits.
The matter was listed for a hearing by our Clerk's Office, in the ordinary course of its practice as to all Motions, on September 10, 1987, and continued at the request of Clark Ladner to September 16, 1987. We note that we may exercise our discretion not to conduct hearings on any fee applications. See Blum v. Witco Chemical Corp., 829 F.2d 367, 377-78, (3d Cir.1987); and In re Pettibone Corp., 74 B.R. 293, 300-01 (Bankr.N.D.Ill.1987). Moreover, this matter was presented on reconsideration and it was, like many such matters, presented in a non-adversarial context, see In re Shaffer-Gordon Associates, Inc., 68 B.R. 344, 351 (Bankr.E.D.Pa.1986), factors which, in the future, may cause us to cancel such hearings even when they are scheduled by the Clerk's Office. Nevertheless, here, we accorded Clark Ladner a hearing on this Motion.
Further, we note that we do not intend to write out detailed explanations of all or even very many of the disallowances which we make on fee applications, due to the intense volume of such matters. See In re Mayflower Associates, 78 B.R. 41, 44 n. 2 (Bankr.E.D.Pa.1987). Rather, we intend to carefully make all disallowances with check-marks on the Application. Id., at 43-44 & n. 2. We concede that, in this case, we did not mark the Application with marks for all of our disallowances. This is one reason that we have drafted this Memorandum by way of explanation of our disallowances.
Finally, we observe that we do not favor motions to reconsider fee applications, see In re National Paragon Corp. II, 74 B.R. 858, 864 (Bankr.E.D.Pa.1987); American International Airways II, supra, 69 B.R. at 401-02; and In re National Paragon I, 68 B.R. 337, 343 (Bankr.E.D. Pa.1986), rev'd, 76 B.R. 73 (E.D.Pa.1987). We agree with the statements of the court in Pettibone, supra, that reconsideration motions, particularly those relating to fee applications, "serve a limited application: to correct manifest errors of law or to present newly discovered evidence." 74 B.R. at 298.
Considering all of the foregoing, we have decided not to make any adjustments to our Order of July 27, 1987, and to deny Clark Ladner's Motion. However, at least in this instance, we shall briefly explain the bases for our deductions from the amount originally sought by Clark Ladner.
Many reductions were made for what we believe to have been excessive intra-office conference time. This is especially so because one very competent Clark Ladner partner, Mary F. Walrath, Esquire, handled virtually every court appearance in the case. Although there was a substantial body of proceedings in this matter, and Ms. Walrath performed her duties with admirable tenacity and acumen, we nevertheless observe that most of the matters arising in this case in this period were not complex and none required an extensive hearing or a difficult legal issue. Compare In re Metro Transportation, Inc., 64 B.R. 968 (Bankr.E.D.Pa.1986) ().
We do not mean to imply that Clark Ladner's intra-office conferences were useless. If we thought this, we would disallow all of the time requested for them. However, we fail to find the presence of such "extremely well-justified, extraordinary situations" as to cause us to allow full compensation to all participants in these frequent conferences. See Mayflower, supra, at 45-47; and National Paragon II, 74 B.R. at 839 & n. 1, 864-65. See also Blum, supra, at 378 (). Thus, we generally allowed half-time for each of the conference participants in this Application, per our guidelines established in the foregoing cases.
We also note a few instances of "lumping" of different services, e.g., Douglas J. Smillie, Esquire, 12/9/86, 12/10/86, 1/29/87; Edward C. Toole, Jr., Esquire, 12/22/86, 1/27/87; and Ms. Walrath, 12/1/86, 1/13/87. This practice has been frequently disapproved not only by this Court, see, e.g., In re Amatex Corp., 70 B.R. 624, 627-28 (Bankr.E.D.Pa.1985); and In re Bible Deliverance Evangelistic Church, 39 B.R. 768, 777-78 (Bankr.E.D. Pa.1984), but elsewhere, as in the Western District of Pennsylvania, where the practice is referred to as "clumping." See In re Affinito & Son, Inc., 63 B.R. 495, 498-99 (Bankr.W.D.Pa.1986). We have reduced, rather than striking entirely, "lumped" or "clumped" entries.
We also reduced the hourly rates requested by two of the attorneys who provided services, i.e., reducing the rate of former Chief Judge Emil F. Goldhaber to $200.00 hourly as opposed to a requested $275.00 hourly rate, and the requested rate of Mr. Toole from $190.00 hourly to $150.00 hourly. We believe that such adjustments are within our discretion to make. See, e.g., Daggett v. Kimmelman, 811 F.2d 793, 799-800 (3d Cir.1987); and Shaffer-Gordon, supra, 68 B.R. at 350-51. Our reasoning was that we were liberal in allowing a relatively steep $150.00 hourly rate to Ms. Walrath, a law graduate of only eight years and a practicing lawyer for only five years. She personally listed more than half of the hours claimed, and we note that the tasks performed by her were, for the most part, the more difficult tasks involving head-to-head advocacy in court in this case. We do not intend to deprecate the experience, learning, and contributions of either Mr. Toole, or, certainly, of our rightfully honored mentor, former Chief Judge Goldhaber. However, it is difficult to value the hours which either Mr. Toole or Judge Goldhaber spent in a consultive role at a higher rate than the liberal, yet, we believe, appropriate, rate requested by Ms. Walrath for her time, which included considerable efforts on the firing line in court. We do award a higher rate than that of Ms. Walrath to Judge Goldhaber, because we acknowledge his unique qualifications. However, the only tasks assigned to him here were conferences with Ms. Walrath and reviews of the work-products of other Clark Ladner attorneys.
Picking up on a cue from a subsequently withdrawn Objection to the Application in issue filed by First Fidelity Bank,1 we also noted that Emily A. Interrante, a "Legal Assistant" requesting an hourly rate of $60.00 per hour, spent all but about 25 of her 62.8 hours for which compensation was requested "classifying documents," "organizing documents," "organizing files," and "proofreading." These tasks appear to us to be largely secretarial work, and secretarial work is, we believe, non-compensable overhead. See also Blum, supra, at 378 slip op. at 21 (). The fact that Ms. Interrante would be assigned such menial tasks also caused us to reduce her hourly rate to $50.00 per hour.
Except for a few, relatively modest other reductions (e.g., inter alia, we declined to compensate Susan L. Parsons, Esquire, for time spent on 1/20/87 attending a hearing with Ms. Walrath; we reduced the 8.8 hours expended by Mr. Smillie in responding to a rather innocuous motion for relief from the stay filed by Rosenthal and Rosenthal, for which the Debtor's counsel also claimed substantial time and which was ultimately settled), the foregoing constituted nearly all of our reductions for compensation for services. No new evidence was provided which we felt cast a different light on any of the relevant factors discussed above, despite Clark Ladner's being given a hearing on its instant Motion, and we note no manifest errors of law. Therefore, we decline to change our compensation figure.
Regarding the issue of expenses, we note that we gave Clark Ladner several opportunities to provide us with the detail to support same. After the initial hearing on July 15, 1987, we gave Clark Ladner an opportunity to supplement their original statement of expenses, which merely stated as follows:
Duplicating $1,083.05
Messenger Service 50.73
Special Postage 74.83
Telephone 42.41
Local Transportation 265.98
Telecopy 14.00
Lexis 75.00
_________
TOTAL DISBURSEMENTS $1,596.02
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