A recent Law 360 story by Abby Wargo, “Honeywell Wants Workers To Cover Atty Fees in ERISA Suit” reports that Honeywell International Inc. told a Michigan federal judge to grant it attorney fees after it won a retirement benefits suit against its former workers, saying the workers' unnecessary prolonging of the suit caused the company to expend additional resources that should be reimbursed.  The corporation asked U.S. District Judge Denise P. Hood to approve its request for a "carefully limited" sum of $263,485 after winning a decade-long suit against the United Autoworkers of America and Honeywell retirees.

Honeywell asked the court to approve only the payment of fees incurred during a period of several months in 2018 and early 2019, rather than the full 11 years of the lawsuit, which it told the judge is a reasonable request compared to the millions of dollars spent throughout the suit.  "Having defeated all of plaintiff's claims, Honeywell should be awarded a narrow portion of its attorneys' fees.  Specifically, the court should award Honeywell's fees most related to plaintiff's second summary judgment filing, as well as the unsupportable vesting claims that plaintiff pursued on appeal," according to the motion for attorney fees.

Honeywell said that it is proposing "voluntary concessions" to its requested award, such as excluding fees paying for the time of noncore legal team members and reducing the rates of the award to less than what Honeywell was actually paying for its lawyers.  If the award is granted, it would be only a small fraction of the millions of dollars Honeywell spent fighting the lawsuit, it said.

But Honeywell said that the plaintiffs were "unpersuaded" by the rulings and moved for summary judgment again, though they still lost. Regardless, the company's attorneys had to spend hundreds more hours on the case than was necessary, it said in the fee motion.