A recent Law 360 story by Emily Brill, “Cos. Question Union’s $123K Atty Bill in Pension Debt Suit”, reports that two cruise ship contractors questioned a union pension fund's request for $123,000 in attorney fees and costs in Louisiana federal court after the fund won a $2.8 million debt fight with the companies, calling "excessive" the hours the fund said its attorneys spent on the lawsuit.  United Stevedoring of America Inc. and American Guard Services Inc. said that they "believe that 529 hours is excessive for what (to union counsel, at least) is a routine and oft-repeated litigation."

The companies are challenging a request for about $123,000 filed by the New Orleans Employers International Longshoremen's Association Pension Fund after it won a withdrawal liability dispute with USA and AGS this month.  U.S. District Judge Ivan Lemelle ruled that USA incurred $2.8 million in withdrawal liability debt to the fund after ceasing pension contributions on behalf of union-represented longshoremen two years ago. USA withdrew from the fund after losing its cargo-loading contract with Carnival Cruise Lines in March 2021, according to the fund's lawsuit.

Judge Lemelle also ruled that AGS must pay the debt if USA cannot, as the companies were jointly owned as of March 2021.  Judge Lemelle issued his decision in early November, and the fund filed its request for attorney fees and costs Nov. 17.  USA and AGS said that they saw a few areas where the number of billable hours charged by the fund's attorneys could be trimmed, including time spent responding to discovery requests.

"Plaintiffs' counsel recorded some 25 hours over a 4–5-month period beginning in January 2023, for responding to defendants' discovery," USA and AGS said.  "Defendants acknowledge that the discovery process can be time-consuming, but plaintiffs produced nothing in discovery that was not previously produced in the initial disclosures or as exhibits to the complaint."

The companies said they are also concerned about the fund's failure to identify the timekeeper it used to tally up billable hours, saying it "prevents defendants or the court from evaluating the timekeeper's skill and experience to determine the reasonableness of the rate charged."  "No less problematic is plaintiffs' counsels' use of 'block-billing' throughout the application," the companies continued, referring to a "disfavored" timekeeping practice in which attorneys do not list how much time they spent on specific tasks.

"The failure to itemize the time by task precludes defendants (or the court) from evaluating the reasonableness of the time committed to each enumerated task and thus prevents defendants from effectively challenging the amount of time committed by counsel to the matter," USA and AGS said.  The fund claimed it owes about $115,000 to its attorneys and $8,400 to its actuary for their work on the withdrawal liability dispute.  The attorneys litigated the suit, while the actuary supplied an expert witness, the fund said.  In its complaint, filed Aug. 8, 2022, the fund requested that AGS and USA foot the bill for its attorney fees and costs if the fund won the suit.