[brief] The October 6 Order should be reversed, and Plaintiff should be granted JNOV pursuant to R. 4:40-2, or, in the alternative, a new trial, because the jury’s verdict was against the weight of the evidence and reasonable minds could not differ as to Plaintiff’s entitlement to judgment against Defendant.  At a minimum, Plaintiff is entitled to a new trial pursuant to R. 4:49-1 to prevent a miscarriage of justice.  The March 11 Order, which granted Defendant’s fee application in the amount of $119,256.40 ("Defendant’s Fee Application"), should also be reversed for several reasons.  First, Plaintiff is entitled to judgment as a matter of law pursuant to R. 4:40-2 and/or a new trial pursuant to R. 4:49-1 to prevent a miscarriage of justice.  Second, Defendant never asserted any counterclaim against Plaintiff and Defendant, therefore, cannot be considered a prevailing party for purposes of a contractual fee shifting provision simply because the jury found Plaintiff had no cause of action against Defendant.  Third, Plaintiff brought this lawsuit in good faith and was successful in obtaining financial information from Defendant relating to [...] d/b/a [...] ("[...]" or the "LLC") to which Plaintiff was entitled pursuant to the parties’ operating agreement (the "Operating Agreement") and the New Jersey Limited Liability Company Act (the "LLC Act"), and which Defendant had failed and refused to provide to Plaintiff prior to discovery in this litigation.  And fourth, Defendant admitted her liability to Plaintiff for at least certain aspects of Plaintiff’s claims, which should preclude a fee award to Defendant.  For example, without limitation, Defendant testified that Plaintiff was entitled to 49% of the profits generated by [...] in 2016, but that she never paid Plaintiff his share of these profits.  3T119:14:7-24.  Defendant also admitted at trial that she improperly charged Plaintiff $6,273 for Defendant’s own car payments to [...] (3T166:11-25) and $4,387.20 for her own insurance payments to [...] (3T162:11-19), as listed on page 103 of the [...] bank ledger.  (Pa170), and she acknowledged that it was a mistake to charge Plaintiff for these amounts.  Id.  Moreover, New Jersey’s general policy disfavoring fee awards, and the limiting language contained in the Operating Agreement, which provides the Court with discretion to determine “. . . who is the prevailing party and the amount of reasonable attorney fees to be paid to the prevailing party . . .” warrants the outright denial of Defendant’s Fee Application.  In the alternative, Plaintiff respectfully submits the trial court should have reduced the fee award to the extent Defendant sought to recover fees and costs for unsuccessfully moving to dismiss Plaintiff’s complaint, and for unsuccessfully opposing Plaintiff’s discovery motions.  Defendant is not entitled to fees for opposing Plaintiff’s successful motions to amend his complaint and/or to compel discovery from Defendant, and to extend the discovery end date, along with other related relief necessitated by Defendant’s failure to comply with discovery.  Defendant should not be awarded fees and costs for raising arguments and objections that were rejected by the Court because Defendant was not the prevailing party at least as to those issues.  In addition, the amount of the fee award should have been further reduced because the amount Defendant sought was excessive and unreasonable based on the procedural history and the totality of the circumstances, including, without limitation, Defendant’s counsel’s block billing practices and failure to address pertinent factors set forth in RPC 1.5(a).  Procedural History