Sommerfield v. City of Chi.
| Decision Date | 10 January 2013 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 06 C 3132 |
| Parties | DETLEF SOMMERFIELD, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF CHICAGO, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
Hon. Harry D. Leinenweber
Before the Court are the Parties' Objections to the Report and Recommendation of Magistrate Judge Jeffery Cole regarding Plaintiff's fee petition. For the reasons stated herein, the Court overrules the parties' objections and adopts Magistrate Judge Cole's Report and Recommendation.
The Court presumes familiarity with its October 31, 2012 Opinion and with Magistrate Judge Cole's excellent recitation of the relevant facts in this matter. ECF Nos. 712, 709. Accordingly, an abbreviated version of the facts follows.
In 2006, Plaintiff Detlef Sommerfield ("Plaintiff" or Sommerfield") filed the instant suit against the City of Chicago ("the City") and Sergeant Knasiak alleging various counts of religious and national origin discrimination, retaliation, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Eventually, the caseproceeded to trial on three counts which claimed the City violated Title VII. Count I alleged religious harassment, Count II alleged national origin harassment, and Count III alleged retaliatory harassment. The jury returned a verdict for the Plaintiff on Counts I and II, awarding Plaintiff $30,000 and found in favor of the City on Count III.
On June 8, 2012, Plaintiff filed a Motion for Attorneys Fees. Due to the fact that this case was transferred to this Court only a few months prior to trial, and because Judge Cole patiently presided over the case during many of the proceedings for which Plaintiff seeks fees, the Court referred Plaintiff's Petition to Judge Cole pursuant to Local Rule 72.1.
On October 29, 2012, Judge Cole issued his Report and Recommendation ("the Report") for this Court's consideration. ECF No. 709. In it, he recommended that the Court reduce Plaintiff's fees from $1.5 million to an amount not to exceed $430,000. Both parties timely filed objections and responses to the Report for the Court's consideration.
Federal Rule of Civil procedure 72(b) governs dispositive motions referred to a magistrate judge. FED. R. CIV. P. 72(b). A district court reviews de novo any portion of a magistrate judge's report and recommendation to which written objections have been filed. Id. "The district judge may accept, reject, or modify therecommended disposition; receive further evidence; or return the matter to the magistrate judge with further instructions." FED. R. CIV. P. 72(b)(3).
The Report begins by noting the exorbitant amount of time that has lapsed since this case began in 2006. Judge Cole found this was largely due to the time spent "on protracted and often unnecessary discovery disputes." Report at 1. The Report then points out the disproportionality that exists between Plaintiff's $1.5 million requested fees and the $30,000 jury award. Id. In determining what the proper fee award should be, Judge Cole examined the reasonableness of Plaintiff's claimed hours and the reasonableness of Plaintiff's claimed hourly rate to calculate the appropriate lodestar figure. He then reviewed the Hensley factors and found a 50% reduction was warranted. See Hensley v. Eckhert, 461 U.S. 424 (1983). The Court agrees with this method. See Johnson v. GDF, Inc., 668 F.3d 927, 929 (7th Cir. 2012) ().
In analyzing Plaintiff's 3,812 claimed hours and reviewing each of the Defendant's objections with respect to those hours,Judge Cole suggested that this Court deduct 864 hours. Next, the Report analyzed the reasonableness of Plaintiff's requested hourly rate of $395 per hour. In finding Plaintiff's supporting evidence for such a rate to be "a mixed bag" and finding Plaintiff's attorney's ("Mr. Longo" or "Longo") litigation tactics to at times be "unreasonable, unfounded, repetitive, and dishonest," Judge Cole recommended that the hourly rate be reduced to an amount not greater than $300. Report at 26-27.
After calculating the lodestar, the Report considered Plaintiff's partial success at trial and the proportionality of Plaintiff's claimed fees with the damages recovered. Judge Cole also considered Mr. Longo's "pattern of filing frivolous and unsupported motions," as well as other distasteful litigation tactics. Id. at 28. In light of these considerations, Judge Cole suggested that the lodestar be reduced by 50% to yield a fee not to exceed $430,000.
Not surprisingly, Plaintiff objected to the entire reduction in the Report. Specifically, Plaintiff objects that the Report (1) ignored the City's claimed hours; (2) ignored the affidavits Plaintiff submitted in support of his hourly rate; (3) referenced irrelevant factors in reducing the fee; (4) failed to take into account only those objections raised by the City in their response to Plaintiff's petition; and (5) erred by taking into account theproportionality of Plaintiff's requested fees with Plaintiff's success at trial.
Plaintiff argues that the reduction in the Report is inappropriate because it fails to consider that the City spent 5,890 hours on this case. Plaintiff claims that courts routinely take into account the hours claimed from the opposing party when determining whether the prevailing party's hours are reasonable. Other than this bare assertion, Plaintiff offers no authority for support.
When determining the number of hours reasonably expended on the litigation, the court first considers the number of hours worked and subtracts hours spent on "unrelated [and] unsuccessful claims and hours" and subtracts all hours which the attorney failed to provide adequate documentation. Ohio-Sealy Mattress Mfg. Co. v. Sealy Inc., 776 F.2d 646, 651 (7th Cir. 1985). Additionally, when determining what hours are reasonable, the Court excludes those hours which are "excessive, redundant, or otherwise unnecessary . . ." Hensley, 461 U.S. at 434.
With respect to Plaintiff's contention that his claimed hours are reasonable because of the number of hours the City spent on this litigation, the Court disagrees. The Court recognizes that Local Rule 54.3(d)(5)(A) requires an opposing party to provide "the time and work records . . . pertaining to the litigation . . ." ifthe opposing party questions the number of hours spent by the prevailing party to prevent "hypocritical objections." Farfaras v. Citizens Bank & Trust of Chicago, 433 F.3d 558, 569 (7th Cir. 2006); L.R. 54.3(d)(5)(A). Here, it is clear that the City complied with the Local Rule. While it is undeniable that the City's claimed hours exceed Plaintiff's, those hours include the time spent defending Plaintiff's unsuccessful (and at times frivolous and unnecessary) motions. Moreover, the Report thoroughly explains why each of the 864 hours was excluded.
As an example, the Report excluded 82.8 hours Mr. Longo claimed was spent on a motion for sanctions. Judge Cole reasoned that such hours should be excluded because the motion addressed "events that occurred two years prior and Mr. Longo had not established bad faith or prejudice[,] [and] [t]he motion was unreasonable and inordinately stale." Report at 18. As another example, the Report excluded 70 hours Longo claimed was spent on one of his many motions for reconsideration. In finding these hours unreasonable, the Court noted that this motion was "a prime example of needless and baseless motions for reconsideration[,]" and "did not even pause to note or acknowledge the rigid standard governing such motions." Id. at 20.
Indeed, the docket indicates that Mr. Longo filed motions of this nature repeatedly. In light of this, the Court is not surprised that the City was forced to spend as much time as it didin responding to such motions. Mr. Longo argues that because the City spent substantial time in responding to his motions this "demonstrate[s] that the [P]laintiff's prosecution was skillful[.]" Pl.'s Objection to Report Regarding Fee Pet. at 1. The Court finds this argument lacks merit. The mere fact that the City had to spend time responding to baseless or unnecessary motions does not automatically transform the hours Longo spent on drafting such motions to be reasonable. Accordingly, the Court overrules Plaintiff's first objection.
Next, Plaintiff argues that the Report failed to consider the affidavits Longo provided to support his claimed rate of $395 per hour and support his claimed hours. Plaintiff states that the Report "ignored established case law that undisputed affidavits must be accepted as true when deciding fee petitions." Pl.'s Objection to Report Regarding Fee Pet. at 1. Here again, the Court finds Plaintiff's interpretation of the relevant case law skewed. First, for the reasons stated above, the Court does not find that the affiants who stated Plaintiff's claimed hours were reasonable somehow trump Judge Cole's findings that Plaintiff's unnecessary and baseless motions are not to be compensated. A prevailing party who merely tells an attorney in a related area of law the number of hours he spent on a case would only provide the attorney attesting that such hours were reasonable a skeletal framework of a case. Itis the court and the judge who understands the finite details and intricacies of a case.
As an example, while Plaintiff claims that the Court must accept as true attorney John P. DeRose's affidavit which states that Plaintiff's time spent was reasonable, the Court wonders if Mr. Longo informed Mr. DeRose that 70 of his claimed hours were spent on a motion to reconsider that failed to recognize the legal standard...
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