processing this court has had this case before i'm sure you're all familiar with the underlying facts this court reversed the judgment of the district courts in this matter back for determination of attorney we gotten balled up again and want to make sure this court is aware of some underlying facts which really underpin what's happened this was an unusual case we had two insurance bishan case sort of a products liability type louisiana red bishan case this court determined that attorney fees which are allowed under that statute are damages and the court refused to find they were damages and said they're not damages under the definition the policy this court said oh absolutely they are go back and determine attorney fees we had to we had a settlement in this case before the first trial it was called settlement under louisiana law since we have direct action against insurance companies you're actually entitle to settle with the insured in reserve your rights against the insurance company for any cause of action that the insurance liable for and that there's coverage for gas case element i wasn't comfortable just saying ok century insurance company the primary carrier we have a gas case settlement we're going to reserve all our rights we did belt and suspenders we went to a g this is critically important they got into a dispute about how much the primary wise of the two million dollar policy but damages occurred in two years century said we only o two million a g l i see you say no you've got four you stipulate we get four million dollars credit thought about it and i'm getting two point nine in the settlement everybody agrees two point nine century made the argument joe we still think it's two million and we have liability issues you know let's negotiate so we came to two point nine we did a stipulation which is document three ninety seven tab number eight in mine my excerpt in that stipulations we reserved our rights in a july c said we will not be prejudiced to pursue all claims against a word a g r c for damages that the insured caused us that are covered under the policy we stipulated to that fast forward would go through a trial not this council their prior counsel pulled a fast one the judge declares a mistrial after two weeks we come back on damages only the jury comes back at six million seventy thousand dollars plus another award for the cost of the machinery which is not insured so the judge separated that out so they get credit for four million dollars so they only owe two million dollars and so this court affirmed that they wrote a check in the meantime who got into a dispute about how much interest is due on that two million i thought it should be on all the damages and so i said my attorney fees are going to be a hundred  thirty four thousand i've already made nine sixty six in that settlement with century we've got nine sixty six i'm going to judge i'm going to get another eight thirty four because that's what they're going to end up owing around three point something million two point nine oh wait no no no no no we have a stipulation all damages over four million well the judge by the way this is not judge james wonderful guy munroe he had the case for a few months early on it went to judge foote who had the first trial it went to judge john waters for the second trial in judge james donna alters recused himself after this court's ruling judge james get it put back on his desk after five or six years seven hundred docket interest and he looks at it and i've said judge i'm entitled to about one point eight something the nine sixty six plus eight thirty four he writes a beautiful opinion about boy you great lawyer you've done great work look at all the work you did thirty three percent is reasonable in fact i would have gone with forty percent but ward you're not entitled to eight thirty four you're only tired of serving fifty six because i should have been marked down the one point seven because after i filed the motion he ruled i'm not entitled to judicial interest on the lost wages because he couldn't tell if they were past or future and i said that's not my fault that's their fault he says no no no it's your fault i'm only going to give you interest from the data judgment i said fine so my attorney fees on this part and i immediately paid it they paid this two point two million my fee turned out he award and seven hundred fifty thousand he said i'm going to deny your motion for eight hundred thirty four thousand but granted for seven thirty five zero seven fifty seven i asked for a rehearing as a judge you missed it he in his opinion he  said yeah you got you've already been paid nine sixty six my client paid me nine sixty six my client had been reimbursed for those damages this court said those are damages he said you've already been paid for that  million has recovered a total of five million one hundred ninety six thousand seven hundred eighty dollars so my fee has been one million seven hundred thousand they've only been reimbursed for the part the seven hundred  of looked at that but we granted a new trial on the issue of paternity fees and said ok yeah you're right mr ward you did get nine sixty six but look at everything i'm going to stick with the seven thirty five he doesn't give any reason why he says well it's i could've gone by hour just i went with an attorney for you so it's a balancing he discusses nothing about why my clients basically getting fourteen percent of what they paid in attorney fees it's basically less than half of what they paid he said thirty three percent fire why would even go to forty but what do you awarded when they got their damages back right except for attorney fees fine that's all well let me quote what this court said about whether those are damages or attorney fees we conclude from the foregoing that the attorney fees in this redivision actually are properly included within holy books damages and the district court erred by refusing to characterize them as well clued within the policy ensuring a group you can't separate attorney fees from loss of income a third of what the total recovery was or rate of two hundred fifty an hour or so did he abuses discretion on the amount and did he make a legal area i think he made his analysis was based on a boat that he mixed up the facts in by the way me getting paid is not the issue it's what my clients paid now i know there are cases to say we don't care what you can't place with check going to be written to me to my client i've already been paid my client already paid me the judgment has been paid the settlement was paid my client paid me back in two thousand and eleven it's i'm not here as the party seeking feeds my clients here trying to figure out why they're not being reimbursed for list item of damage it would be like your honor the judge saying yeah the jury awarded six million dollars say to me that that is for a loss profit or i'm going to forget about the lost property i'm just profits past and future and then we have property damage and then we have attorney fees the jury awarded all of this we agreed the judge would handle the attorney fees and he has not awarded attorney fees for what they he gives no reason why it is an abuse of discretion but if you read his first opinion he makes a mistake he's just mistaken he thinks the i'm there to get my fees you've already collected nine sixty hey that's already been done they settled that you know even if the tony's fees as it is part of damages and they still have to be reasonable amount that's right and he went through an analysis and found that thirty three percent is very reasonable and he found  forty percent would have been reasonable but then he jumped in he said so your motion is denied to the extent it seeks a thirty four i wasn't seeking thirty four i was seeking the nine sixty six plus eight thirty four he said i'm go grant that to seven fifty seven because that's one third of what he actually at the end of the day and i will give that a chariot up in front of him because all these numbers are getting a little you know i i didn't in fact i'll never agree again just to do it by motion i think we should have a hearing in front of the judge where we could make sure everybody understood the problem was judge it was it was split up into two cases there was an ironclad stipulation they only got a four million dollars credit they got their credit now they're getting credit for another nine hundred sixty six thousand on top of that they convinced this judge or maybe i confused the judge the nine sixty six has already been paid if my client had written me a check for the whole one point seven they could have argued  they've already paid the one point seven they don't have any attorney for years that that's just wrong it's not me trying to get the fees it's the client trying to be reimbursed for the fees you want to find in his opinion any  nine sixty six but i think i think seven fifty seven is mine that was the end of this court has a long history of looking at fiu saying hey it's  of discretion and really we don't want to get into these we in the nuts and bolts we're not accounted sweer not there with their green hat on punching these numbers the judge is in a position since he has the whole case to know what happened that's not true in this case it's like everything that could be wrong is wrong i had judge james for a few motions back in two thousand and nine two thousand and nine then had judge foote for a couple years for many maybe it is me judge and i don't know but at the end of the day my client knows everything there is to know about read a bishop now in they were told by this court that your attorney fees are part of your damages they don't understand if that's true before this court and i remember saying judge ridley here the last time that we were here judge james conducted a thorough analysis of the underlying facts now he wasn't involved in the case from day one where he was involved from day one  got out and it was the case was sent to judge forward and then sent to judge walter for a little while but in connection with with these motions there were other motions pending about supersedeas bond that supercedes bonds but  interest and penalties and there was a host of other issues that were and motions that were filed so when you read his record and i go through that a minute it's clear he he conducted a thorough analysis of this case including the fact that holly book provided limited billing records which included work on other climbs and work for other defendant judge  reasonable in the abstract he was always ruling that in the context of a two million two hundred ninety six thousand dollar recovery he never said one third was reasonable in the abstract i don't believe that this was a mistake on the part of judge james the first opinion may have been somewhat and artfully written but i'll believe it was a mistake and i don't believe he ever says a one third recovery in the abstract is  is reasonable in fact if he had done that i think that would be arbitrary and capricious there's no case law that says one third paying someone the attorney's fees pursuant to the contingency fee contract in the abstract is reasonable to say and if you can if you can pin it in on this case yes and under particular facts if you can do that then yes but but that when the fact and that wasn't the case that wasn't what judge judge james found his ruling was always in the context of this two main dollars and so what i think he did and i think it's pretty clear what he did i mean let me just jump to that was he followed the legal rule that courts are not bound by the terms of good tennessee fee contract when awarding attorneys fees he followed the rule that yes an award of of attorneys fees pursuant to the contingency contract could be appropriate but only where the fee requested reasonable the question is is the fee requested reasonable judge james considered the contingency fee contract he considered the fact the holly was seeking one point eight million or one point seven million in turns fees he considered the experience of counsel he considered the billing records that showed over three thousand hours of work in connection with that we  d an analysis of that work showing that some of the work was all other climbs some of the work was for other defendants and even if you paid mr ward two hundred fifty dollars an hour for every hour even the paralegal work for travel time for everything you know that's about seven hundred fifty we thought his appropriate attorney fees should be about six hundred thousand based on all what we c tell from the records but the records were not very detailed and you couldn't you couldn't identify i mean there was a lot of there was a lot of argument a lot of work done on coverage there was no distinction between those things in the in the  in the bill judge james consider the number of depositions he considered the extent of discovery he considered the fact that there were two trials he considered the six hundred forty docket entries the number of exhibits and he  looked all that but again he also considered that polly brooke was only entitled to recover work on the read of bishan class he considered the fact that we were contesting the amount of these fees and again even if we pointed out in the trial court brief even if you gave mr ward's farm three hundred dollars an hour for every hour he had written down even a paralegal time everything i was only nine hundred thousand dollars there's no way to get to one point seven or one point eight million dollars in a reasonable analysis there's  there's no there's there's courts that have that have looked at afar and looked at the billing and when it comes out about the side they're ok with that but there's no court says in his opinion the court would have acted within its discretion to perform a line by line analysis of the limited billing records provided and awarded fees only for those hours accounted for which were not duplicative and which were properly to claims of the car up to the claims against carver however the court had concerns that such an award would have failed to adequately account for other factors favoring a greater award for hollywood so that's what he did i mean he looked  all this he looked at the number of hours he looked at our arguments and he awarded seven fifty seven which was a third of what the recovery was from a g l say but when you look at your only burden is to prove it's not an abuse of discretion right that's true absolutely and they does and in the louisiana i mean the louisiana supreme court does not insist that contingency fees be followed in these with instructions to find out what the reasonable attorney's fee was the court did that and it ward two hundred thirty seven thousand dollars roughly apply to file a motion for a new trial you makes the same cases the only case i mean counsel cites dylan ascii case and which the plaintiffs made that argument but again the court of appeal didn't adopt that argument the court of appeal i'm not aware of any of appeal argument case where they said we're going to give you one third as attorneys phase irrespective of what the work you did they've always looked at what was the work you did let's start like a lodestar with the hours you is starting from that premise judge james's opinion was absolutely correct and he clarifies that in a second opinion he says objections from holly broke about the time spent again he says i could have done as i could have done the line by line i didn't think that was necessary and he and he awarded the one third he goes on to say holly brook has not persuaded this court differently so i guess judge as judge jones said the plaintiff's burden is to prove that judge james abused his discretion when you look at the record as hollow when you look at three thousand hours and work even when you look at that you can get to one point eight million one point seven maybe you get to six or seven hundred thousand you can it up a little bit that's what judge james did but i don't think you can conclude from any of this that what judge james did was an abuse of discretion this court i think in fact it was judge jones and the and the enery higher so for content gasoline products liability geisha and so the trial court behind things are not required to be so excruciating only explicit in this area of my new show decisions of fees awards consume more paper than did the cases from which there rose and fox versus vice the supreme court said the court the district courts can use estimates and calculate i mean i think that's what judge james did a he looked at the hours did you know obviously didn't go line by line he said he didn't go line by line but he looked at the hours he looked at the big picture he made an award it is consistent and in the range of of an appropriate hourly phase based on the number of hours spent and again i just don't see how this court we we could have appeal this ruling as well we looked at it said look i don't like it i figure proper a war was six hundred thousand but i can't make the argument judge james abused his discretion i think it goes the other way as well i'll see how you can conclude even of this court were to conclude that one point seven or one point eight might be reasonable i don't see how you conclude seven hundred fifty seven is not reasonable under these facts in fact i would suggest you you can't find that one point seven or one point of judge james did not consider the hours judge james if you look at his original opinion it's page two five six four eight in the record  point five million a pain two point two he says you're wrong joe mr ward you're wrong it's not eight hundred thirty four it's seven fifty seven i'm going towards seven fifty seven he completely forgot are you talking about a transcript of a hearing now that what are you out loading from i'm talking about his reasons i understand is that doing the new trial resumes in the original new trial all right in the original he says in addition to the nine sixty six already paid the in attorney fees holly brook now six an additional eight thirty four that is not what we were seeking we were seeking that the nine sixty six plus the attorney fees on this satellite mean just tell you i mean i'm looking i mean there were parts of the ruling there were slightly confusing but i think the conclusion is is beyond dispute judge his number seven hundred  fifty seven nine forty years dollars right he got that number by applying thirty three percent against want the defendants paid two point two million two point two million he didn't do it an analysis of my time slips and by the way contrary to mr richards says my time slips did not include stuff on other other matters and it wasn't complete time slips are made clear the judge understood that i didn't keep time slips very well this was not an insurance defense case for me this was a contingency fee case my secretary after thirty seven years keeps time otherwise i would have had anything she does keep time it was some over three thousand hours but we pointed out to the judge there were a lot of things we  did you can see from the record that are not even in this but to say will some of that include working against other defendants this defendant took the position that the other defendants the other product manufacturers who made downstream equipment caused the problem so i was in the position of not only prosecuting their machine the gateway equipment to this plant i was also having to bring in experts in all the to defend the other defendants at the end of the day so if i had put their time in which i didn't it would have been it would have been reasonable too but the end of the day it is a it is an abuse of discretion for a judge simply to take out his calculator and say ok i know you've got nine sixty six already paid let's look at the second payment times point three three it's nine five seven that's what you get what i'm a judge you made a mistake yeah but look at everything i think that's fair judge how can that that is so arbitrary but you did get paid by i have been paid one hundred percent seven million one point seven million and some change my client the the plaintiff and i know that your argument but i mean just which is about one third of the five six million exactly one third of the five million they paid but judge you are falling into the same trap that judge james did it's not whether i got paid or didn't get paid it's what damages were occasioned by their machinery and at the end of the day is that is the reasonable he said a third is very reasonable i would have gone forty percent back my fee initially was forty percent but after of all settlement or something where they agreed to pay costs we said look we'll do it for a third he would have gone forty percent but