Interfaith Community Org. v. Honeywell Intern.
| Decision Date | 26 August 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. CIV.A. 95-2097(DMC).,CIV.A. 95-2097(DMC). |
| Citation | 336 F.Supp.2d 370 |
| Parties | INTERFAITH COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION, et al., Plaintiff, v. HONEYWELL INTERNATIONAL, INC., (formerly known as Allied-Signal, Inc.), et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of New Jersey |
Kevin J. Coakley, Connell Foley, Thomas Jeffrey Pasuit, Connell Foley LLP, Roseland, NJ, for Special Master.
Edward Lloyd, Columbia Law School, New York, NY, for Plaintiffs/Consol Plaintiffs.
William F. Mueller, Clemente, Mueller & Tobia, P.A., Morristown, NJ, John Michael Agnello, Carella, Byrne, Bain, Gilfillan, Cecchi, Stewart & Olstein, PC, David W. Field, Lowenstein, Sandler, PC, Roseland, NJ, for Defendants.
Presently before this Court is Plaintiff Interfaith Community Organization's ("ICO"), and ECARG, Inc.'s ("ECARG") (hereinafter collectively referred to as the "Petitioners") application for an award of litigation costs, including attorneys' fees and expert witnesses' fees.
On May 21, 2003, this Court entered an Amended Opinion granting judgment in favor of ICO and ECARG with regard to ICO and ECARG's 42 U.S.C. § 7002(a)(1)(B) claims against Honeywell. See Interfaith Community Organization v. Honeywell Int'l Inc., 263 F.Supp.2d 796 (D.N.J.2003). The Amended Opinion Awarded ICO and ECARG fees and costs that were "incurred in furtherance of its RCRA claim against Honeywell in this action." Id. at 850.
On July 18, 2003, ICO filed Plaintiff's Application for an Award of Litigation Costs, Including Attorneys' Fees and Expert Witness' Fees ("ICO Fee Application"). The ICO Fee Application sought reimbursement of $4,706,506.09 in attorneys fees and expenses. On November 13, 2003, ICO filed Plaintiff's Reply Brief in Support of Their Application for an Award of Litigation Costs, Including Attorneys' Fees and Expert Witness' Fees ("ICO Reply"), reducing ICO's request from $4,706,506.09 to $4,587,990.22.
On July 21, 2003, ECARG filed a Petition for an Award of Attorneys' Fees, Expert Witness Fees and Other Costs Related to ECARG's RCRA claim ("ECARG Fee Petition"). The ECARG Fee Petition sought $7,652,080.24 in attorneys' fees and expenses. On November 14, ECARG filed a Reply in Further Support of the ECARG Fee Petition ("ECARG Reply"), reducing its request from $7,652,080.24 to $7,642,385.82.
The parties to this action appeared before this Court on May 4, 2004 for a hearing on the record.
Section 7002(e) of the Resources Conservation and Recovery Act ("RCRA") 42 U.S.C. 6972(e) provides that the Court "may award costs of litigation (including reasonable attorneys' and expert witness fees) to any prevailing or substantially prevailing party, whenever the court determines such an award is appropriate." This Court having determined that ICO and ECARG are prevailing parties in this litigation, stating in an Order dated May 16, 2003:
Having prevailed on their RCRA claims, [ICO] and ECARG are entitled to an award of attorneys' fees, costs and expenses they have incurred in furtherance of their RCRA claims in this action.
Lindy Brothers Builders, Inc. of Philadelphia v. American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp., 487 F.2d 161, 167 (3d Cir.1973) establishes the principle that the "lodestar" is calculated by multiplying the number of hours reasonably expended by a reasonable hourly rate. The lodestar method is presumed to yield a reasonable fee. Washington v. Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas, 89 F.3d 1031, 1035 (3d Cir.1996) (internal citations omitted).
There are several issues that must be addressed in determining the award of attorneys' fees and costs in this matter. The first issue is whether the ECARG and ICO petitions are duplicative (i.e. whether these two parties seek separate compensation for the same work — as they both litigated RCRA claims against Honeywell). Second, as applies to counsel for ICO, Terris, Pravlik & Millian, L.L.P. (the "Terris Firm") and counsel for ECARG, Wallace King Marraro & Branson, P.L.C. ("Wallace King"), whether New Jersey or Washington, D.C. rates should apply, and what those rates are. Third, this Court, in calculating the "lodestar" must determine whether the claimed number of hours expended by counsel here are reasonable. Thus, this Court must determine how much of the parties' work is recoverable, what rate to apply to the work, and multiply that rate by the reasonable number of hours expended to arrive at the "lodestar" amount.
The first issue that this Court must assess in deriving the "lodestar" is whether or not ICO and ECARG's pursuit of their RCRA claims were unnecessarily duplicative. Honeywell argues that whatever fee this Court awards, it should be tailored to reflect the reasonable and necessary costs for trying the RCRA claim one time. Honeywell asserts that ICO and ECARG's fee applications seek reimbursement as if each applicant was the sole RCRA plaintiff and was required to bear the entire cost of prosecuting the RCRA claim, but that in reality the two applicants prosecuted nearly identical RCRA citizen suit claims that sought and achieved a single result.
Both ICO and ECARG incurred an enormous amount of attorney hours; more than 10,000 by ICO and 9,000 by ECARG, and paralegal hours; 2,797 by ICO and 4,738 by ECARG, prosecuting their RCRA claims. Honeywell asserts even where ICO and ECARG claim to have coordinated efforts, that they have done so in name only. As an example, Honeywell notes that ICO and ECARG filed a joint motion for summary judgment, but each spent large amounts of time on the unsuccessful effort; 362.5 attorney hours by ICO and 200 attorney hours by ECARG. While this is a significant amount of time, Defendant does not demonstrate how a large number of hours is necessarily indicative of duplicative efforts or lack of coordination.
Ultimately, it is the duty of the party seeking fees to exclude such hours from its initial calculation of the total hours expended. Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 434, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983). Honeywell asserts that while ICO and ECARG are within their rights to pursue very similar claims independently, that duplicative and redundant costs cannot be shifted to Honeywell. See e.g. Halderman v. Pennhurst State Sch. & Hosp., 49 F.3d 939, 943-44 (3d Cir.1995). Honeywell insists that it should only be liable for the fees and costs necessary to the litigation of a "single and well-managed action." Gerena-Valentin v. Koch, 739 F.2d 755, 759 (2d Cir.1984).
ECARG is essentially an intervener in this matter, independently choosing to file a complaint against the Defendant, Honeywell. Courts in other circuits have awarded interveners attorneys' fees under fee-shifting statutes. See e.g. EPA v. Envtl. Waste Control, Inc., 710 F.Supp. 1172, 1248 (N.D.Ind.1989) aff'd, 917 F.2d 327 (7th Cir.1990) ().
Furthermore, ICO and ECARG are not fully aligned in interest. ECARG was a Defendant for the entire litigation against whom Plaintiffs sought a finding of liability. Only later did ECARG choose to pursue its RCRA claim against Honeywell.
Furthermore, ECARG and ICO are adverse parties in this litigation, thus ECARG had no control over ICO's case. Also, while ICO, as an environmental group, focused its claim on the imminent and substantial endangerment that the chromium contamination presents to the environment at or near the Site, ECARG, as owner of the Site, presented a RCRA claim that was more focused on the human health risks posed by contamination at the Site.
While it is the case that both ICO and ECARG pursued RCRA claims, this similarity alone is insufficient to render all of their work as duplicative. This was an immensely complicated litigation, and ICO and ECARG were adverse parties throughout. Accordingly, this Court declines Honeywell's request to treat ICO and ECARG as a "single prevailing party" for fee recovery purposes
The second issue that must be determined with regard to this fee application is what fee should apply to the Terris Firm and to Wallace King.1 Both of these firms are based in Washington, D.C. and wish to have the Washington, D.C. market rates apply to their fee applications. Honeywell asserts that New Jersey rates should apply, but that if this Court is to determine that Washington, D.C. rates should apply, that those rates be controlled by the Laffey Matrix.2
The starting point in determining a reasonable hourly rate is the attorneys' usual billing rate, but this is not dispositive. See Alan Hirsch & Diane Sheehey, Federal Judicial Center, Awarding Attorneys' Fees & Managing Fee Litigation 20 (1994); compare Cunningham v. City of McKeesport, 753 F.2d 262, 268 (3d Cir.1985) (), vacated on other grounds, 478 U.S. 1015, 106 S.Ct. 3324, 92 L.Ed.2d 731 (1986), original decision reinstated, 807 F.2d 49 (3d Cir.1986), cert. denied, 481 U.S. 1049, 107 S.Ct. 2179, 95 L.Ed.2d 836 (1987) with Student Pub. Interest Research Group v. AT & T Bell Lab., 842 F.2d 1436, 1443-45 (3d Cir.1988) ().
In Blum v. Stenson, 465 U.S. 886, 890, 104 S.Ct. 1541, 79 L.Ed.2d 891 (1984), the Supreme Court held that attorneys from the Legal Aid Society of New York, a non-profit law office, were entitled to a fee based on prevailing market rates rather than the cost to such lawyers for providing their services. In AT & T Bell Laboratories, the Third Circuit has determined the, under Blum, that the normal...
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