A recent Law.com story by Michael Mora, “Florida Federal Judge Slashes $1.8M Ask in Attorney Fees By Over 50%”, reports that a federal judge in Tampa granted in part over $850,000 in attorney fees for the lawyers of one Am Law 100 firm, but only after cutting the original amount by more than half.  U.S. District Judge Thomas Barber entered the order in a case involving the plaintiff, Creative Choice Homes XXX LCC, who sued the defendants, Amtax Holdings 690 LLC and Protech 2005-C LLC, over partnership agreements, resulting in counterclaims and a judicial finding that, in fact, it was the plaintiffs who breached the partnership agreement.

Barber dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims with prejudice and the Clerk of Court entered judgment in favor of the defendants against the plaintiffs.  The defendants, represented by a team of Baker Donelson litigators, soon after requested nearly $883,300 in attorney fees in one case and close to $900,400 in an identical case filed by the plaintiff.  Now, Barber ruled that the plaintiffs owe the defendants over $420,300 for fees in the first case and more than $431,600 in the second case, which is about $950,000 less than the defendant’s initial request.  The first case involved a deal for the “Fountainview Apartments” and the second case involved a deal on the “Park Terrace Apartments.”

David Davenport, a partner at BC Davenport in Minneapolis, was among the attorneys who represented the plaintiff in the case.  Davenport said his law firm took up the case after the plaintiff filed the action and soon after one of its partners admitted to errors that caused the breach.  The focus of the litigation then became over liability, he said.  Barber tried both cases in a three-day bench trial in December 2021 and issued his ruling that the plaintiffs breached the partnership agreement in April 2022, court records show.

Davenport said that they have appealed the trial court’s April 2022 final judgment, but commended Barber on his fee award analysis.  “The ruling was insightful about the inefficiencies of nearly $1 million in attorney fees that the court found to be unreasonable,” Davenport added.  Steven Griffith, a shareholder at Baker Donelson in its New Orleans, Louisiana, office and one of the lead attorneys for the defendants, did not respond to a request seeking comment.

In the Fountainview litigation, the federal court awarded shareholders Laura Carlisle in New Orleans and Desislava Docheva in Fort Lauderdale $400 and $250 as a reasonable hourly rate, with total hours of over 350 and over 285, respectively, following a 40% reduction, which amounted to $140,760 and $71,640, court documents show.  By contrast, in the Park Terrace litigation, the federal court awarded Carlisle and Griffith $400 and $510 as a reasonable hourly rate, with total hours after a 40% reduction of more than 270 and 208, which amounted to more than $109,460 and $106,330, respectively, court documents show.

Edward Mullins, an attorney fees expert and a partner at Reed smith in Miami, said the hourly fee reduction Barber entered was similar to other federal district courts.  Still, the reduction resulted in an award that is below market, in part, because of “redundancies and inefficiencies” in the billing, and because the amount of attorney fees “must be reasonable.”

“A fees petition is forcing the losing party to pay the fees when that party had no control over the staffing or the rates charged,” Mullins said in an email.  “There is a good analogy that [U.S. Chief Magistrate] Judge Edwin Torres used before, paraphrasing: a client can decide to pay for a Ferrari in order to get from Point A to Point B, but the losing party only has to pay for a Ford.”