Stragapede v. City of Evanston, 12 C 08879

• Decision Date: 19 October 2016
• Docket Number: No. 12 C 08879,12 C 08879
• Citation: 215 F.Supp.3d 708
• Parties: Biagio STRAGAPEDE, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF EVANSTON, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois

215 F.Supp.3d 708

Biagio STRAGAPEDE, Plaintiff,

v.CITY OF EVANSTON, Defendant.

No. 12 C 08879

United States District Court, N.D. Illinois, Eastern Division.

Signed October 19, 2016

Richard Lee Stavins, Robbins, Salomon & Patt, Ltd., Tracy Ellen Stevenson, Law Offices of Tracy E. Stevenson, P.C., Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff.

W. Grant Farrar, Corporation Counsel, Henry Julius Ford, Jr., Mario Treto, Jr., City of Evanston Law Department, Evanston, IL, for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

Honorable Edmond E. Chang, United States District Judge

Biagio Stragapede filed this lawsuit, alleging that his former employer, the City of Evanston, discriminated against him in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq.¹ On March 13, 2015, after a week-long trial, the jury returned a verdict for Stragapede. R. 127, 03/13/15 Minute Entry.² Stragapede now moves under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(d) for reasonable attorneys' fees and costs as permitted by the ADA. See R. 225, Pl.'s Am. Fee Pet.; see also 42 U.S.C. § 12205. For the reasons discussed below, the Court awards Stragapede $345,355.40 in attorneys' fees and $10,114.27 in costs.

I. Background

The Court detailed the facts of this case in its summary judgment opinion, R. 70, and recounted them in its post-trial opinion, R. 191. Only a brief summary of the litigation is necessary for purposes of this opinion.

Gino Stragapede began working as a water service worker for the City of Evanston in 1996. In 2009, Stragapede suffered a non-work-related head injury

while at home. He returned to work in early 2010. Later that year, the City fired Stagapede, and in November 2012, Stragapede filed this lawsuit, alleging that the City discriminated against him in violation of the ADA. After nearly three years of litigation and a week-long trial, the jury returned a verdict for Stragapede. 03/13/15 Minute Entry. The jury awarded Stragapede $225,000 in compensatory damages for past and future emotional pain and suffering, id. , and the Court later held that Stragapede was entitled to $354,070.72 in back pay plus post-judgment interest, R. 151. The City thereafter moved for a new trial, judgment as a matter of law, remittitur, and amendment of the judgment, all of which the Court denied. See R. 191. The City has since appealed to the Seventh Circuit; the appeal is on the merits of the judgment, so this Court still has jurisdiction to decide the fee petition.

II. Standard

In determining the reasonableness of a fee award, the Court begins with the lodestar figure, which represents "the number of hours reasonably expended on the litigation multiplied by the reasonable hourly rate." See Estate of Enoch v. Tienor , 570 F.3d 821, 823 (7th Cir. 2009) (citing Hensley v. Eckerhart , 461 U.S. 424, 433, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983) ). The Court may then adjust that figure based on the factors set forth in Hensley v. Eckerhart , such as the time and labor required, the novelty or difficulty of the case, the degree of the success achieved, the experience and ability of the attorneys, the adequacy of the documentation of the hours, and whether appropriate billing judgment was used. 461 U.S. at 429–30 & n.3, 103 S.Ct. 1933. The party requesting the fee has the burden of proving its reasonableness, including the hourly rate and appropriate hours expended. Id. at 437, 103 S.Ct. 1933 ; see also, e.g. , Benito M. v. Bd. of Educ. of Chi., Dist. 299 , 544 F.Supp.2d 713, 720 (N.D. Ill. 2008). Finally, federal district courts have considerable discretion in granting an award of attorneys' fees. See Gastineau v. Wright , 592 F.3d 747, 748 (7th Cir. 2010).

III. Analysis

In this case, Stragapede seeks $357,286.50 in attorneys' fees and $10,114.27 for related costs.³ R. 225–1, Joint Statement ¶ 3; Pl.'s Am. Fee Pet. at 2. The City does not dispute that the rates charged by Stragapede's attorneys are reasonable. See R. 225–2, Def.'s Local Rule 54.3(d) Correspondence at 1; R. 225–2 at Exh. 1, Def.'s Local Rule 54.3(d) Objections to Pl.'s Am. Fee Pet. Instead, the City objects to some of the hours expended on the case. Specifically, the City identifies six broad-based objections to Stragapede's fee petition: (1) some entries are duplicative and some work was overstaffed; (2) excessive time was spent on certain legal tasks; (3) "block billed" entries are too vaguely described; (4) some entries charge for clerical work; (5) some entries and costs include improper charges related to the labor arbitration brought by Stragapede's union; and (6) some entry descriptions are excessively redacted so that the City cannot determine their reasonableness. See R. 225–2, Def.'s Local Rule 54.3(d) Correspondence; R. 225–2 at Exh. 1, Def.'s Local Rule 54.3(d) Objections to Pl.'s Am. Fee Pet.; R. 238, Def.'s Resp. Br. In all, the City contends that the total requested fees should be reduced to $238,779.00, and that the total requested costs should be reduced to $8,831.40. R. 225–1, Joint Statement ¶ 5; Def.'s Resp. Br. at 1. The Court addresses each set of objections, as well as Stragapede's request for prejudgment interest on the fee award, in turn.⁴

1. Duplicative Entries and Overstaffing

The City maintains that Stragapede cannot recover fees for duplicative or redundant work. Def.'s Resp. Br. at 2–5. In particular, the City contends that Stragapede should not receive fees for work done by three of his attorneys—Andrés Gallegos, Jennifer Sender, and Scott Spears⁵ —on the grounds that their work was not needed and amounted to inefficient overstaffing. Id. To support this contention, the City points out that none of those attorneys even had to file an appearance in the case and that their work was limited to very discrete aspects of the litigation. Id.

Courts must "scrutinize fee petitions for duplicative billing when multiple lawyers seek fees." Schlacher v. Law Offices of Phillip J. Rotche & Assocs., P.C. , 574 F.3d 852, 858 (7th Cir. 2009) ; see also Jardien v. Winston Network, Inc. , 888 F.2d 1151, 1160 (7th Cir. 1989). This is in part because law firms have a general tendency to overstaff cases. Jardien , 888 F.2d at 1160. But whether a party's counsel is guilty of staffing overkill depends on the circumstances, including the complexity of the case and the length of the litigation. See, e.g. , Berberena v. Coler , 753 F.2d 629, 633 (7th Cir. 1985) (affirming district court's decision refusing to reduce compensable hours where four attorneys worked on the plaintiff's case in part because "[it] was a difficult case with significant social effects"); LaSalvia v. City of Evanston , 2012 WL 2502703, at *2 (N.D. Ill. June 28, 2012) (reducing a second trial attorney's compensable hours after observing that "Plaintiff makes no suggestion that the case was unusually complex"); Dupuy v. McEwen , 648 F.Supp.2d 1007, 1021 (N.D. Ill. 2009) (assessing the defendant's excessive-time objections in light of the "complexity of [the] lawsuit ... [as] reflected in the numerous orders and reported decisions issued ... over the last decade"). The Court will discuss each of the attorneys to which the City objects.

a. Andrés Gallegos

Andrés Gallegos has been Stragapede's personal lawyer since 1998 and was responsible for bringing this case to the law firm. See R. 225–8, Gallegos Aff. ¶ 7. Gallegos investigated Stragapede's case before filing the complaint; communicated with Stragapede and co-counsel throughout the litigation; and intermittently worked on the case during discovery and summary judgment, as well as at trial. See R. 225–1, Stevenson Aff. at Exh. B, Fees Chart. The City maintains that Stragapede should not receive a fee award for any of the time Gallegos billed to the case, and in the alternative, objects to specific itemized entries recorded by Gallegos. R. 225–2, Def.'s Local Rule 54.3(d) Objections to Pl.'s Am. Fee Pet.

After reviewing the record, the Court concludes that the majority of the time that Gallegos billed to the case was reasonable. The City objects to the 5.30 hours that Gallegos billed for drafting a background memo about the case before Stragapede even filed the complaint. Def.'s Resp. Br. at 3. Even though the entries detailing Gallegos's work on the background memo could be more specific, it is appropriate for attorneys to investigate the merits of a case before filing a complaint. And taking 5.30 hours to memorialize this case's background, given its factual complexities (several discrete events were at issue), is an appropriate amount of time. See Duran v. Town of Cicero , 2012 WL 1279903, at *4 (N.D. Ill. Apr. 16, 2012) (concluding that hours billed to investigating a case was reasonable after observing that "[t]he 6.9 hours seems an appropriate amount of time, and we have no reason to be skeptical about it").

Likewise, the 2.50 hours that Gallegos billed for finalizing the complaint and the 1.70 hours he billed for reviewing a research clerk's research memo in October 2012 are also reasonable. Gallegos and Tracy Stevenson (Gallegos's co-counsel and Stragapede's lead trial counsel) spent less than 10 hours combined on drafting the multi-count complaint. And spending a modest amount of time reviewing applicable ADA law—it is not as if Gallegos spent hours and hours conducting the research himself—to ensure that the allegations in the complaint were sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss does not constitute duplicative work. See Duran , 2012 WL 1279903, at *5 (observing that "the drafting of the complaint in this case was a major project in itself, and conferring with co-counsel, who would share responsibility for it, was necessary"). Stragapede receives credit for all of these entries.

There is, however, one entry⁶ that evidences overstaffing. Gallegos billed two hours to "[a]ttend trial" on March 9, 2015. See R. 225–1, Stevenson Aff. at Exh. B, Fees Chart. The problem is that the entry does not describe what Gallegos actually did during those two hours, other than...