Pine, Matter of
| Decision Date | 25 April 1983 |
| Docket Number | No. 82-1692,82-1692 |
| Citation | 705 F.2d 936 |
| Parties | In the Matter of Raymond M. PINE, Jr. and Darlene K. Pine, Debtors. Appeal of Barry M. BARASH. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Barry M. Barash, Galesburg, Ill., for appellant.
Stephen R. Olson, Lucas, Brown & McDonald, Galesburg, Ill., for appellee.
Before PELL and POSNER, Circuit Judges, and JAMESON, Senior District Judge. *
The issue on this appeal is the reasonableness of an award of attorney's fees under 15 U.S.C. Sec. 1640(a)(3), a part of the Truth in Lending Act. The appellant, Barash, as trustee of an estate in bankruptcy, sued the appellee, Gale Employees Credit Union, for two violations of the Act, seeking statutory damages of $2,000 under 15 U.S.C. Sec. 1640(a)(2)(A), and won a judgment for that amount in bankruptcy court. The district court reversed with respect to one of the violations, and Barash appealed to this court, which reversed the district court and reinstated the bankruptcy court's judgment. Barash v. Gale Employees Credit Union, 659 F.2d 765 (7th Cir.1981). Although that judgment included a $500 attorney's fee for Barash's efforts before the district court, after Barash prevailed in this court he applied to the bankruptcy court for an award of attorney's fees covering his work in all three courts--bankruptcy, district, and this court--and thus superseding the $500 award. The bankruptcy court awarded Barash $1,000 for his time plus $400 for expenses, and Barash has appealed directly to this court under Pub.L. 95-598, Title IV, Sec. 405(c)(1)(B), Nov. 6, 1978, 92 Stat. 2686, claiming that the bankruptcy court abused its discretion in awarding so little for his time.
Barash put in 40 hours on the case and is asking for $50 an hour, for a total of $2,000. Forty hours represents an extraordinarily parsimonious expenditure of time to prosecute a case successfully through a bankruptcy court, a federal district court, and a federal court of appeals. The appellee says the issue on the merits was a simple one but the panel that decided the appeal thought the issue significant enough to warrant decision by a signed published opinion that takes up four densely printed pages of F.2d. The appellant deserves commendation and reward for his economy of effort and $50 an hour is not overgenerous.
Some of the bankruptcy judge's grounds for awarding only half that are captious. The transcript of the fee hearing begins, Two and a half hours is not an excessive amount of time for preparing a complaint. The bankruptcy judge also objected to the appellant's charging for his travel time. But lawyers normally charge for their travel time. That time is taken away from professional work, and thus involves an opportunity cost which is approximated by the lawyer's normal billing rate multiplied by the time spent in travel.
The bankruptcy judge's only substantial objection concerns the small stakes in the underlying suit. Since one of the violations the appellant was suing on was uncontested, only $1,000 was actually at stake in the litigation. But we do not believe that Congress, in entitling prevailing plaintiffs in Truth in Lending cases to get a reasonable attorney's fee, wanted to limit those awards rigidly to the amount of damages obtained. Cf. McGowan v. King, 661 F.2d 48, 50 (5th Cir.1981). The provision for awarding attorney's fees appears in the subsection of the Act that follows the subsection imposing the $1,000 ceiling on damages in suits to recover excessive finance charges, and provides for attorney's fees "in any case of any successful action to enforce the foregoing liability." Congress must have known that you cannot prosecute a claim for $1,000 through several courts without incurring more than $1,000 in legal fees and expenses. Of course if multiple violations are proved, or actual damages shown, see 15 U.S.C. Sec. 1640(a)(1), or a class action succeeds, see Sec. 1640(a)(2)(B), much larger damage awards than $1,000 are possible. But the language and structure of section 1640 make it doubtful that Congress wanted the provision for awarding attorney's fees to have no efficacy in single-violation suits to recover unlawful finance charges, which would be the practical result...
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In re Szostek
...Kissell's answer, that time spent will be disallowed. The balance, 2.0 hours, will be allowed as reasonable. See Matter of Pine, 705 F.2d 936, 938 (7th Cir.1983) ("two and a half hours is not an excessive amount of time for preparing a TILA Counsel also seeks compensation for discussing the......
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Losurdo Bros. v. Arkin Distributing Co.
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