A recent Law 360 story by Daniel Siegal, “Judge Blasts Atty for Wasting Time, Awards $1.6M in Fees,” reports that a Denver federal judge awarded a host of insurance companies nearly $1.6 million in attorneys' fees for defeating allegations that they unfairly denied coverage to homeowners, holding the plaintiffs’ attorney personally liable for most of the fees and blasting his “prolix, redundant and meandering” filings that wasted the insurers’ time.  In a 22-page ruling, U.S. District Judge John Kane granted the consolidated bid for attorneys' fees filed by dozens of defendants, including Allianz Life Insurance Co. of North America Inc., Chubb Corp. and insurance standards organization ACORD, finding that their request for about $1.6 million in fees was “fully foreseeable” and reasonable given the sprawling allegations.

“Plaintiffs initiated this litigation and were in control of its course.  There is no indication defendants’ counsel acted unreasonably or stepped outside the bounds of competent representation of their clients,” Judge Kane wrote.  “Plaintiffs cannot now complain that the fees incurred by defendants are excessive because such an inordinate number were forced to take part … They have imposed costs on virtually the entire insurance industry, and under the law, they must shoulder the result.”

Judge Kane wrote that the plaintiffs’ attorney, Josue David Hernandez of the Law Office of Josue David Hernandez, must personally bear liability for the attorneys' fees incurred by the defendants in the district court, given “his incessant filing of absurdly lengthy and legally incorrect briefs” and vexatious conduct throughout the litigation.  Some fees were incurred by the defendants on appeal, and Judge Kane asked them to file only the amount of fees that applied to the district court proceeding.

Judge Kane said he analyzed the plaintiffs' positions only to the extent that he could “extract them from the morass” of the briefing filed by Hernandez.  “I have struggled to decipher plaintiffs’ legal arguments throughout this case,” Judge Kane wrote.  “Those that pertain to the attorney fee award are no exception.”  The judge sided with the defendants’ expert witness’ testimony that the hours of legal work they expended defending the case were reasonable and necessary over the plaintiffs’ argument, which was based not an expert’s testimony but an “unreliable and bewildering” 24-factor test of Hernandez’s own concoction.

Judge Kane also noted that throughout the litigation, the plaintiffs had repeatedly made extra work for the defendants, such as filing a 40-page motion for more time to respond to the defendants’ motion to dismiss.  After the defendants filed a seven-page opposition to that motion, the plaintiffs followed with a 47-page reply brief that “illustrates a system gone mad,” the judge said.

Terence Ridley of Wheeler Trigg O’Donnell LLP, who represented First American Property and Insurance Co. and argued on behalf of all fee-seeking defendants, told Law360 that he was honored to argue the motion for the numerous insurers, saying that “the language of the order is important, and the order is important.”  Hernadez told Law360 via email that Judge Kane's ruling had failed to address key issues, including whether Colorado's attorneys fee statute was preempted by federal law, and the fact that the defendants had filed more papers and other documents in the case than the plaintiffs. 

"If one were to take the time to review the actual documents on the public record (which is something I would encourage anyone truly interested in the case to do), they would likely find that the ruling failed to include the necessary treatment of at least eight extremely significant issues raised," he said. 

Named plaintiff Dale Snyder and 17 others filed suit in June 2014, and in a 260-page amended complaint asserted 23 claims against 113 defendants, alleging a broad, multi-decade conspiracy to deny homeowners coverage of damages from floods and fires.  In January 2016, Judge Kane dismissed the suit due to the plaintiffs' failure to include a “short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief” in the complaint.  The Tenth Circuit affirmed that ruling in May 2017 and ordered appellate attorneys' fees to be awarded to the defendants.

The case is Dale Snyder et al. v. ACORD Corporation et al., case number 1:14-cv-01736, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado.