Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-85-01912/USCOURTS-ca10-85-01912-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 210
Nature of Suit: Land Condemnation
Cause of Action: 

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~nite() jtates Qlourt of J\ppeals 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

OFFICE OF THE CLERK 

C404 UNITED STATES COURTHOUSE 

DENVER, COLORADO 80294 

RO B E RT L. HO EC K E R February 8, 1988 TELEPHONE 

(303) 844-3157 

<FTSl 564·3157 CLERK 

TO: 

RE: 

ALL RECIPIENTS OF THE CAPTIONED OPINION 

Nos. 85-1788; 85-1789; 85-1892 and 85-1912 

Brown v. Phillips Petroleum, et al 

Filed February 3, 1988 bv Judge Deanell R. Tacha 

Attached are new pages 5, 7 and 12 to be substituted for 

pages 5,7 and 12 in the original opinion which was sent to 

you on February 3, 1988. 

Very truly yours, 

ROBERT L. HOECKER, Clerk 

~ ' ! 

By ____ '_· =1 ----=''-'. -,--------- Patrick Fisher 

Chief Deputy Clerk 

Appellate Case: 85-1912 Document: 010110017208 Date Filed: 02/03/1988 Page: 1 
I. 

An award of attorneys' fees is a matter uniquely within the 

discretion of the trial judge who "has intimate knowledge of the 

efforts expended and the value of the services rendered." United 

States Y...:. Anglin~ Stevenson, 145 F.2d 622, 630 (10th Cir. 1944), 

cert. denied, 324 U.S. 844 (1945). We view the award here in the 

context of approximately twenty-five years of litigation including 

several state and federal district court cases, at least six 

appeals to this circuit, massive discovery and evidentiary 

development, and several thousand docket entries. The total 

record of related cases in this matter is among the largest ever 

amassed in this circuit. Perhaps most significantly for the 

questions before us, the district court judge who determined the 

attorneys' fee award was involved in substantia1ly all of this 

litigation. His experience with and knowledge about the course of 

the litigation compels appellate court deference to his 

determination in the absence of an abuse of discretion. Lucero v. 

City of Trinidad, 815 F.2d 1384, 1386 (10th Cir. 1987). 

The fee the trial court establishes must be reasonable. In 

statutory fee cases "the most useful starting point for 

determining the amount of a reasonable fee is the number of hours 

reasonably expended on the litigation multiplied by a reasonable 

hourly rate." Hensley Y...:. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 430, 434 (1983). 

This formulation, generally known as the lodestar method, provides 

the starting point for appellate court review of statutory fee 

awards to determine whether a trial court has abused its 

discretion. The trial court in this case expressly did not rely 

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Appellate Case: 85-1912 Document: 010110017208 Date Filed: 02/03/1988 Page: 2 
without contributing to its costs are unjustly enriched at the 

successful litigant's expense." Boeing Co. Y.:.. Van Gamert, 444 

U.S. 472, 478 (1980). Common fund fees derive in part from the 

common law premise that a trustee is entitled to reimbursement 

from the fund administered. Trustees Y..!. Greenough, 105 U.S. 527, 

532 (1881). Fees in common fund cases are extracted from the 

predetermined damage recovery rather than obtained from the losing 

party. Thus, common fund fees are neither intrinsically punitive 

nor designed to further any statutory public policy. Conversely, 

statutory fees are intended to further a legislative purpose by 

punishing the nonprevailing party and encouraging private parties 

to enforce substantive statutory rights. See H. Newberg, Attorney 

Fee Awards, § 2.06 (2d ed. 1986); see generally, Report of the 

Third Circuit Task Force, Court Awarded Attorney Fees, 108 FRD 237 

(1985). Thus, unlike statutory fees, which result in a shifting 

of the fee burden to the losing party, common fund fees result in 

a sharing of the fees among those benefited by the litigation. As 

the footnote in Blum recognizes, another important difference is 

that normally a large number of people or entities benefit from a 

common fund case while the number benefited is not "a 

consideration of significance in calculating in the award of 

statutory attorneys' fees." Blum, 465 U.S. at 900 n.16. 

Notwithstanding these differences, the percentage reflected 

in a common fund award must be reasonable; and, as in the 

statutory fee cases, the district court must "articulate specific 

reasons for fee awards to give us an adequate basis," Ramos, 713 

F.2d at 552, to review the reasonableness of the percentage and 

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·! 

Appellate Case: 85-1912 Document: 010110017208 Date Filed: 02/03/1988 Page: 3 
Awarded Attorney Fees, 108 FRD 237, 251 (1985). Attorneys' fees 

necessarily reduce the amount that the common fund beneficiaries 

recover. Instead of serving as an arbiter in an adversarial 

setting, as is the case in a statutory fee controversy, the trial 

judge must determine·a reasonable fee by weighing the appropriate 

interests of the beneficiaries in light of the efforts of counsel 

on their behalf. The need for meaningful appellate review in 

these cases requires the trial court to articulate clearly the 

factors and supporting evidence that it relies upon. The trial 

judge in this case met this requirement. We find no abuse of 

discretion in the award of an amount equal to 16.5% of the common 

fund where the relevant Johnson factors were considered and the 

court's determination is supported by evidence in the record. 

II. 

One of the cases not tried by this trial judge and the 

subject of the cross-appeal was Ashland Oil, Inc. Y.!.. Phillips 

Petroleum Co., 364 F. Supp. (N.D. Okla. 1973), which was filed in 

the Northern District of Oklahoma and resulted in this court's en 

bane decision approving the workback valuation method for valuing 

the helium. Ashland Oil Inc. Y.!.. Phillips Petroleum Co., 554 F.2d 

381 (10th Cir.) (en bane), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 921 (1977). 

This method was then employed in the remainder of the cases that 

were tried in the district court in Kansas. 

Cross-Appellant, Ashland Oil Co. (Ashland), seeks reversal of 

the district court's determination that Ashland is foreclosed from 

seeking an award of fees and expenses because of this court's 

holding in Ashland I. That case, however, was in a different 

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Appellate Case: 85-1912 Document: 010110017208 Date Filed: 02/03/1988 Page: 4 
PUBLISH -

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

OLIVER s. BROWN, et al., 

Plaintiffs, 

v. 

PHILLIPS PETROLEUM COMPANY, etc., et al., 

Defendants-Appellants, 

MOBIL OIL CORPORATION, et al., 

Defendants, 

ASHLAND OIL, INC., et al., 

Defendants-Appellees. 

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FILED 

Unit.ed States Court of Appeals Tenth Cir,..11it 

FEB on 1968 

ROBERT L. HOf~CKER 

Clerk 

Nos. 85-1788 

85-1789 

85-1892 

85-1912 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED.STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF KANSAS 

(D.C. NOS. KC-1980 and W-4613) 

Richard C. Hite and Steven D. Gough, (W. A. Kahrs of Kahrs, 

Nelson, Fanning, Hite & Kellogg, of Wichita, Kansas; and Charles 

T. Krol and Mary S. Haskins, of Denver, Colorado, with them on the 

briefs), of Kahrs, Nelson, Fanning, Hite & Kellogg, of Wichita, 

Kansas, for the Defendant-Appellant and Cross-Appellee, Amoco 

Production Co. 

John A. Rayll, Jr. and Craig A. Coulter, of Coulter & Rayll, of 

Tulsa, Oklahoma; Stanford J. Smith, Jr. and Alan G. Metzger, of 

Robbins, Tinker, Smith & Metzger, of Wichita, Kansas; and Graydon 

D. Luthey, of Cities Service Oil and Gas Corporation, of Tulsa, 

Oklahoma, on the briefs for Defendant-Appellant and CrossAppellee, Cities Service Oil and Gas Corporation. 

Joseph W. Kennedy and Robert w. Coykendall, of Morris, Laing, 

Evans, Brock & Kennedy, Chartered, of Wichita, Kansas; and John L. 

Williford and Don L. Jemison, of Phillips Petroleum Company, of 

Bartlesville 1 Oklahoma, on the briefs for Defendant-Appellant and 

Cross-Appellee, Phillips Petroleum Company. 

Appellate Case: 85-1912 Document: 010110017208 Date Filed: 02/03/1988 Page: 5 
Gerald Sawatzky (Robert c. Foulston and Jim H. Goering, of 

Foulston, Siefkin, Powers & Eberhardt, of Wichita, Kansas; and 

Richard Jones, Jerome E. Jones, and Robert J. O'Connor, of 

Hershberger, Patterson, Jones & Roth, of Wichita, Kansas, with him 

on the briefs), of Foulston, Siefkin, Powers & Eberhardt, of 

Wichita, Kansas, for Defendants-Appellees, Ashland Oil, Inc., 

Atlantic Richfield Company, Cabot Petroleum Corp., Damson Oil 

Corp. (formerly Dorchester Gas Producing Co.), Helmerich & Payne, 

Inc., Texaco, Inc., ·oiamond Shamrock Corp., Mapo Production Co., 

Mobil Oil Corp., Superior Oil Co., Gulf Oil Co., Lessee Producer 

Class, and Cross-Appellant, Ashland Oil, Inc. 

Before MCKAY, TACHA, and BALDOCK, Circuit Judges. 

TACHA, Circuit Judge 

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Appellate Case: 85-1912 Document: 010110017208 Date Filed: 02/03/1988 Page: 6 
This case arises-out of a complex series of cases that has 

been in litigation since the early 1960s. The underlying cases 

involve generally the ownership and valuation of helium extracted 

by National Helium Corporation and sold to the federal government 

from 1963 to 1973. ·The only issues on appeal and cross-appeal in 

this case are (1) whether the trial court abused its discretion in 

awarding attorneys' fees on the basis of a percentage of a common 

fund, and (2) whether Ashland Oil is precluded from recovering a 

share of the common fund because of a prior holding of this court. 

We affirm the court's award of attorneys' fees and hold that 

Ashland Oil is not precluded from recovering from the common fund. 

We remand for a determination of appropriate attorneys' fees in 

the cross-appeal. 

The issues litigated in this series of cases related to right 

to payment for and valuation of helium extracted from natural gas 

from the Hugoton and Panhandle areas of Kansas, Oklahoma, and 

Texas. The parties in this appeal are members of the class of 

lessee producers who obtained judgment in 1983 establishing that 

they were entitled to a specified amount for the helium extracted 

by National Helium Corporation. National Helium Corp. v. 

Panhandle Eastern, No. KC-1980 (D. Kan. Nov. 3, 1983). After 

appeals were taken from that judgment, the parties settled the 

protracted controversy by agreeing to payment for the helium at a 

rate of $3.60 per thousand cubic feet plus interest. That 

settlement agreement requiring National Helium to pay 

approximately ninety-one million dollars was submitted to the 

court on October 16, 1984. The landowners' share of the 

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Appellate Case: 85-1912 Document: 010110017208 Date Filed: 02/03/1988 Page: 7 
settlement was approximately sixteen million dollars and the 

lessee producers' share was approximately seventy-five million 

dollars. Several law firms that represented various lessee 

producers and had represented the class of lessee producers 

through most or all ·of the class action litigation filed 

applications for attorneys' fees and expenses to be paid from the 

lessee producers' common fund recovery of seventy-five million 

dollars. These law firms (class counsel} represented appellees 

and cross-appellants in this case. The fee applications were 

accompanied by reconstructed time records and other documentation 

of time spent and work performed. The applications sought 

attorneys' fees in addition to payments the attorneys had received 

throughout the course of the litigation. 

After appropriate notice to the producer class members and 

landowners, the trial court held.hearings on a motion to approve 

the settlement ~greement and on the applications for attorneys' 

fees and litigation expenses. Appellants in this case, three 

lessee producers, opposed the fee applications. The district 

court approved the settlement agreement and awarded class counsel 

an amount equal to 16.5% of the lessee producers' seventy-five 

million dollar share of the common fund. Appellants challenge the 

court's decision to award attorneys' fees based on a percentage of 

the common fund. They claim that the award should have been based 

upon an analysis of the hours reasonably spent multiplied by a 

reasonable hourly rate. 

Appellate Case: 85-1912 Document: 010110017208 Date Filed: 02/03/1988 Page: 8 
I. 

An award of attorneys' fees is a matter uniquely within the 

discretion of the trial judge who "has intimate knowledge of the 

efforts expended and the value of the services rendered." United 

States Y..!.. Anglin~ Stevenson, 145 F.2d 622, 630 (10th Cir. 1944), 

cert. denied, 324 U.S. 844 (1945). We view the award here in the 

context of approximately twenty-five years of litigation including 

several state and federal district court cases, at least six 

appeals to this circuit, massive discovery and evidentiary 

development, and several thousand docket entries. The total 

record of related cases in this matter is among the largest ever 

amassed in this circuit. Perhaps most significantly for the 

questions before us, the district court judge who determined the 

attorneys' fee award was involved in substantially all of this 

litigation. His experience with and knowledge about the course of 

the litigation compels appellate court deference to his 

determination in the absence of an abuse of discretion. Lucero v. 

City of Trinidad, 815 F.2d 1384, 1386 (1987). 

The fee the trial court establishes must be reasonable. In 

statutory fee cases "the most useful starting point for 

determining the amount of a reasonable fee is the number of hours 

reasonably expended on the litigation multiplied by a reasonable 

hourly rate." Hensley Y..!.. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 430, 434 (1983). 

This formulation, generally known as the lodestar method, provides 

the starting point for appellate court review of statutory fee 

~awards to determine whether a trial court has abused its 

discretion. The trial court in this case expressly did not rely 

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Appellate Case: 85-1912 Document: 010110017208 Date Filed: 02/03/1988 Page: 9 
on a lodestar analysis of class counsel's fee application. 

Failure to rely, to some extent, on a reasonable lodestar analysis 

would in most statutory fee cases constitute an abuse of 

discretion. Ramos Y..:. Lamm, 713 F.2d 546, 552-57 (10th Cir. 1983). 

Here we must first decide whether a fee award based on a 

percentage of a common fund, in a case not involving statutory 

fees, is~ se unreasonable. If it is not, we must then 

determine whether the trial court in this case abused its 

discretion nonetheless. 

The Supreme Court has, in our judgment, answered the first 

question presented here. In Blum Y..:. Stenson, a statutory fee 

case, the Court stated: "Unlike the calculation of attorney's 

fees under the 'common fund doctrine' where a reasonable fee is -- --- -

based on~ percentage of the fund bestowed on the class, a 

reasonable fee under§ 1988 reflects the amount of attorney time 

reasonably expended on the litigation." 465 U.S. 884, 900, n.16 

(1984) (emphasis added). Not only does this language implicitly 

recognize basic differences in the rationale for calculating 

attorneys' fees in common fund cases, but the Court also 

explicitly described a percentage calculation as a "reasonable 

fee" in those cases. We hold, therefore, that the award of 

attorneys' fees on a percentage basis in a common fund case is not 

~ se an abuse of discretion. 

The award of attorneys' fees is based on substantially 

different underlying purposes in a common fund case than in a 

statutory fees case. The·common fund doctrine "rests on the 

perception that persons who obtain the benefit of a lawsuit 

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Appellate Case: 85-1912 Document: 010110017208 Date Filed: 02/03/1988 Page: 10 
without contributing to its costs are unjustly enriched at the 

successful litigant's expense." Boeing Co. Y.!. Van Gamert, 444 

U.S. 472, 478 (1980). Common fund fees derive in part from the 

common law premise that a trustee is entitled to reimbursement 

from the fund administered. Trustees Y.!. Greenough, 105 U.S. 527, 

532 (1881). Fees in common fund cases are extracted from the 

predetermined damage recovery rather than obtained from the losing 

party. Thus, common fund fees are neither intrinsically punitive 

nor designed to further any statutory public policy. Conversely, 

statutory fees are intended to further a legislative purpose by 

punishing the nonprevailing party and encouraging private parties 

to enforce substantive statutory rights. See H. Newberg, Attorney 

Fee Awards, § 2.06 (2d ed. 1986); see generally, Report of the 

Third Circuit Task Force, Court Awarded Attorney Fees, 107 FRD 237 

(1985). Thus, unlike statutory fees, which result in a shifting 

of the fee burden to the losing party, common fund fees result in 

a sharing of the fees among those benefited by the litigation. As 

the footnote in Blum recognizes, another important difference is 

that normally a large number of people or entities benefit from a 

common fund case while the number benefited is not "a 

consideration of significance in calculating in the award of 

statutory attorneys' fees." Blum, 465 U.S. at 900 n.16. 

Notwithstanding these differences, the percentage reflected 

in a common fund award must be reasonable; and, as in the 

statutory fee cases, the district court must "articulate specific 

reasons for fee awards to give us an adequate basis," Ramos, 713 

F.2d at 552, to review the reasonableness of the percentage and 

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Appellate Case: 85-1912 Document: 010110017208 Date Filed: 02/03/1988 Page: 11 
thus the reasonableness of the fee award. To determine 

reasonableness, federal courts have relied heavily on the factors 

articulated by the Fifth Circuit in Johnson Y.!.. Georgia Highway 

Express, Inc., 488 F.2d 714 (5th Cir. 1974), in calculating and 

reviewing attorneys' fees awards. See~ Ramos, 713 F.2d at 

552. Because these factors measure the attorneys' contributions, 

they are also appropriate in setting and reviewing percentage fee 

awards in common fund cases. The Johnson factors are: (1) the 

time and labor involved; (2) the novelty and difficulty of the 

questions; (3) the skill requisite to perform the legal service 

properly; (4) the preclusion of other employment by the attorney 

due to acceptance of the case; (5) the customary fee; (6) any 

prearranged fee -- this is helpful but not determinative; (7) time 

limitations imposed by the client or the circumstances; (8) the 

amount involved and the results obtained; (9) the experience, 

reputation, and ability of the attorneys; (10 the undesirability 

of the case; (11) the nature and length of the professional 

relationship with the client; and (12) awards in similar cases. 

488 F.2d at 717-19. 

The trial court in this case found 

that the amount represented by this percentage is 

reasonable and is required to adequately compensate such 

counsel for the legal services performed in this 

litigation for the following reasons: The extraordinary 

complexity and protracted nature of this helium 

litigation since July, 1963; the amount of time spent by 

each of counsel as reflected in the evidence, which 

evidence is accepted by the Court; the high quality of 

the service performed; the novelty of the issues; the 

number of adverse parties and the quality of opposing 

counsel; the vast number of hotly contested issues at 

all stages of this litigation; the number of cases, 

hearings, appeals and other proceedings conducted by 

counsel, the vast number of documents, exhibits, records 

-8-

Appellate Case: 85-1912 Document: 010110017208 Date Filed: 02/03/1988 Page: 12 
and other materials required to be reviewed, analyzed; 

the vast amounts of legal research required on many 

novel substantive and procedural issues; the nature of 

the arrangements by such counsel for payment from 

clients of only minimal or subsistence fees pending 

conclusion of the cases and the highly contingent right 

of recovery from the interpleader fund in view of the 

debatable legal issues relating to liability and 

valuation; the skill and tenacity of counsel in 

conducting settlement negotiations and in refusing to 

accept very substantial and appealing, but inadequate, 

settlement offers at an earlier time; the enormously 

beneficial result conferred thereby upon the members of 

the Class. Such legal services were performed wi1hout 

unnecessary duplication and in an efficient manner. 

There is ample evidence in the record to support each of the 

reasons relied upon by the trial judge. The court here clearly 

considered all of the relevant Johnson factors and applied them 

appropriately. The trial judge considered the time and work 

involved. The record contains documentation supporting the time 

claims. The court records in this litigation attest to the 

novelty and difficulty of the questions presented. This trial 

judge personally observed many of the relevant stages of this 

series of cases and thus was in a unique position to judge the 

skill requisite to perform the legal service properly as well as 

the experience, reputation, and ability of the attorneys. The 

court specifically relied on these factors in establishing the 

percentage. The record contains evidence that a substantial 

portion of the work of class counsel for many years was devoted to 

these cases, and thus precluded or reduced their opportunity for 

1 In its final order the district court amended the portion of 

its proposed order that contained these findings. The court 

stated, however, that it intended only that its final order be 

"incorporated and-integrated" with the affected part of the 

proposed order; there was no intent to supersede these findings 

and not only are they unaffected by the final order, but they 

clearly support it. 

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Appellate Case: 85-1912 Document: 010110017208 Date Filed: 02/03/1988 Page: 13 
other employment. The "customary fee" factor in a common fund 

case is the same as the factor suggesting consideration of awards 

in similar cases. We note that a review of other federal common 

fund cases demonstrates that a 16.5% attorneys' fee award is 

clearly within the tange of awards deemed reasonable by other 

courts in similar or less lengthy and less complex cases. 2 

The facts underlying both the "time limitations" factor and 

the "length of the professional relationship with the client" 

factor are evident from the remarkable length of class counsel's 

representation and the litigation itself. Finally, as we have 

observed, a decisive factor in this common fund class action case 

is the amount involved and the results obtained. In evaluating 

this factor the trial judge appropriately balanced the interests 

of the beneficiaries in light of the efforts of counsel on their 

behalf. 

Although the Johnson factors are relevant in determining a 

reasonable fee in a common fund case, the inherent differences 

between statutory fee and common fund cases could justify a trial 

judge's decision to assign different relative weights to those 

factors in the two types of cases. For example, the first factor 

2 See, e.g., In re New York City Municipal Securities 

Litigation, [1984 Transfer Binder] Fed. Sec. L. Rep. (CCH), Para 

91,419 (S.D.N.Y. 1984) (33%); In re Warner Communications 

Securities Litigation, 618 F. Supp":° 735 (S.D.N.Y. 1985), aff'd, 

798 F.2d 35 (2d Cir. 1986) (24.5%); Murphy Y..!_ Presly Co., [1981 

Transfer Binder] Fed. Sec. L. Rep. (CCH), Para. 97,975 (C.D. Cal. 

1981) (22.7%); Van Gernert Y..!_ Boeing Co., 516 F. Supp. 412 

(S.D.N.Y. 1981) (37.3%); Bullock v. Kircher, 84 F.R.D. 1 (D.N.J. 

1979) (25.2%); Jezarian Y..!_ Csapo,483 F. Supp. 385 (S.D.N.Y: 1979) 

(23.7%); Valente Y..!.. Pepsico, Inc., (1979 Transfer Binder] Fed. 

Sec. L. Rep. (CCH), Pra. 96,921 (D. Del. 1979) (27%) [Available on 

WESTLAW, DCT database]; and Rothfarb v. Hambrecht, 649 F. Supp. 

183 (N.D. Cal. 1986) (22%). -

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Appellate Case: 85-1912 Document: 010110017208 Date Filed: 02/03/1988 Page: 14 
-- time and labor required -- is an essential touchstone for 

recovery in a statutory fee case where reasonableness is measured 

in part by reference to the lodestar analysis. In a common fund 

case, however, although time and labor required are appropriate 

considerations, the ninth Johnson factor -- the amount involved 

and the results obtained -- may be given greater weight when, as 

in this case, the trial judge determines that the recovery was 

highly contingent and that the efforts of counsel were 

instrumental in realizing recovery on behalf of the class. We 

recognized in Ramos, 713 F.2d at 552, that rarely are all of the 

Johnson factors applicable; this is particularly so in a common 

fund situation. We halo here only that in awarding attorneys' 

fees in a common fund case, the "time and labor involved" factor 

need not be evaluated using the lodestar formulation when, in the 

judgment of the trial court, a reasonable fee is derived by giving 

greater weight to other factors, the basis of which is clearly 

reflected in the record. 3 

We are mindful of the subjective nature of the determination 

a trial judge must make when an award is not anchored in the 

seemingly more objective lodestar formula. The trial judge in a 

common fund case must "act as a fiduciary for the beneficiaries" 

of the fund. Report of the Third Circuit Task Force, Court 

3 Even though the "time and labor involved" factor does not 

necessarily anchor the determination of reasonable fees in the 

common fund situation, it is a relevant factor and the 

availability of contemporaneous time records enhances the trial 

court's ability to properly evaluate it. The attorneys in this 

case did not consistently maintain contemporaneous time records. 

In part this failure must be attributed to the fact that such 

records were neither generally kept nor required during part of 

the period this litigation was pending. 

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Appellate Case: 85-1912 Document: 010110017208 Date Filed: 02/03/1988 Page: 15 
Awarded Attorney Fees, 107 FRD 237, 251 (1985). Attorneys' fees 

necessarily reduce the amount that the common fund beneficiaries 

recover. Instead of serving as an arbiter in an adversarial 

setting, as is the case in a statutory fee controversy, the trial 

judge must determine a reasonable fee by weighing the appropriate 

interests of the beneficiaries in light of the efforts of counsel 

on their behalf. The need for meaningful appellate review in 

these cases requires the trial court to articulate clearly the 

factors and supporting evidence that it relies upon. The trial 

judge in this case met this requirement. We find no abuse of 

discretion in the award of an amount equal to l6o5% of the common 

fund where the relevant Johnson factors were considered and the 

court's determination is supported by evidence in the record. 

II. 

One of the cases not tried by this trial judge and the 

subject of the cross-appeal was Ashland Oil, Inc . .Y..!.. Phillips 

Petroleum Co., 364 F. Supp. (N.D. Okla. 1973), which was filed in 

the Northern District of Oklahoma and resulted in this court's en 

bane decision approving the workback valuation method for valuing 

the helium. Ashland Oil Inc. Y.!. Phillips Petroleum Co., 554 F.2d 

381 (10th Cir.) (en bane), cert. denied; 434 U.S. 921 (1977). 

This method was then employed in the remainder of the cases that 

were tried in the district court in Kansas. 

Cross-Appellant, Ashland Oil Co. (Ashland), seeks reversal of 

the district court's determination that Ashland is foreclosed from 

seeking an award of fees~and expenses because of this court's 

holding in Ashland I. That case, however, was in a different 

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Appellate Case: 85-1912 Document: 010110017208 Date Filed: 02/03/1988 Page: 16 
posture than the case on appeal here. We denied an award of 

attorneys' fees in 1975 because we construed the litigation at 

that time as "plain and simple commercial litigation" involving 

two competing parties -- one of whom would recover against the 

other. Ashland, 554 F.2d at 392 (quoting F.D. Rich Co • .Y..!. 

Industrial Lumber Co., 417 U.S. 116, 130 (1974)). The posture of 

the case now is quite different: Ashland is one of several 

beneficiaries of a common fund. The amount of recovery against 

the liable parties is fixed. 

Our analysis here of the purposes of attorneys' fee awards in 

common fund cases as a form of fee sharing rather than fee 

shifting, demonstrates that a common fund case is quite different 

from simple commercial litigation where one party recovers from 

another and attorneys' fees are generally not recoverable. Here 

Ashland is not attempting to recover attorneys' fees from Phillips 

. in an amount over and above the amount of liability -- such an 

attempt is precluded by this court's Ashland l holding. Rather, 

Ashland is seeking attorneys' fees out of an amount established as 

the total award. Thus, the percentage of the common fund recovery 

that Ashland now seeks differs markedly from the fee request 

considered by this court in Ashland I. Therefore, we hold that 

our Ashland I holding does not preclude Ashland from receiving an 

award of attorneys' fees and costs in this case if, in the opinion 

of the trial court, such an award is justified and warranted. We 

therefore reverse the district court on the cross-appeal and 

remand for ~urther proceedings consistent with this opinion. 

AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART AND REMANDED. 

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