Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_03-cv-00100/USCOURTS-cand-3_03-cv-00100-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
CCV
Defendant
Computer Check Verification
Defendant
Credit International, Inc.
Defendant
Noelle Johnson
Plaintiff

Document Text:

United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

NOELLE JOHNSON,

Plaintiff,

 v.

CREDIT INTERNATIONAL, INC., a

corporation, d/b/a CCV and COMPUTER

CHECK VERIFICATION,

Defendants. 

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No. C-03-100 SC

ORDER RE: PLAINTIFF'S

MOTION FOR AWARD OF

ATTORNEYS' FEES AND

COSTS 

I. INTRODUCTION

Plaintiff Noelle Johnson ("Plaintiff") filed this suit as a

class action against Defendant Credit International, Inc.

("Defendant"). The suit alleged violations of the Fair Debt

Collection Practice Act ("FDCPA"), 15 U.S.C. §§ 1692, et seq., and

the California Unfair Competition Law, Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code §§

17200, et seq. In February 2005, the parties reached a settlement

in favor of Plaintiff. The settlement called for Plaintiff to

receive attorneys' fees, but having been unable to mutually agree

on an amount, Plaintiff has now moved this Court for an award of

attorneys' fees and costs.

II. BACKGROUND

Plaintiff Noelle Johnson wrote a check in August 2000 to Cost

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Plus, a retail store. Motion at 1. The check failed to clear,

and Plaintiff acknowledges that she has only made partial payment

on the check since then. Id. In 2002, Plaintiff began to receive

collection demands from Defendant. Plaintiff alleges in her

Complaint that the demand letters "misrepresented the character,

amount or legal status of alleged debts" and demanded "amounts

that could not lawfully be recovered against a person who has

written a check that did not clear." Amended Complaint at 6. 

Plaintiff's Amended Complaint alleged that these activities

violated the FDCPA, as well as state law. 

On February 2, 2005, Judgment in favor of Plaintiff and

against Defendant was entered by this Court pursuant to a Fed. R.

Civ. P. 68 settlement. Although made with "no admission of

liability," Defendant agreed to pay Plaintiff Johnson a total of

$1,000, which is the maximum amount recoverable under 15 U.S.C. §

1692k, to repay all interest fees collected from California

residents who received letters similar to those received by

Plaintiff Johnson, and to be permanently enjoined from attempting

to collect interest against insufficient funds checks from

California residents. Judgment, Exhibit A. Furthermore,

Defendant agreed to pay "reasonable attorneys' fees and costs to

be agreed to by the parties or, absent agreement, to be determined

by the Court." Id. Having been unable to agree mutually on an

amount, Plaintiff's Motion for Attorneys' Fees and Costs is now

before the Court.

III. LEGAL STANDARD

The FDCPA states that a plaintiff may recover "the costs of

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the action, together with a reasonable attorney's fee as

determined by the court." 15 U.S.C. § 1692k(a)(3). With respect

to awarding attorneys' fees in general, the Ninth Circuit has

stated, "District courts must calculate awards for attorneys' fees

using the 'lodestar' method. The 'lodestar' is calculated by

multiplying the number of hours the prevailing party reasonably

expended on the litigation by a reasonable hourly rate." Ferland

v. Conrad Credit Corp., 244 F.3d 1145, 1149 (9th Cir. 2001)

(internal citations and quotations omitted).

"The fee applicant bears the burden of documenting the

appropriate hours expended in the litigation and must submit

evidence in support of those hours worked. The party opposing the

fee application has a burden of rebuttal that requires submission

of evidence to the district court challenging the accuracy and

reasonableness of the hours charged or the facts asserted by the

prevailing party ...." Gates v. Deukmejian, 987 F.2d 1392, 1397-

98 (9th Cir. 1992).

A district court that reduces the amount claimed by a

prevailing party should identify the hours spent inefficiently and

provide an explanation as to the particular degree of reduction. 

Ferland, 244 F.3d at 1150. Blanket reductions in attorneys' fees

motions are discouraged and subject to higher scrutiny upon

review. Gates, 987 F.2d at 1399. Nevertheless, "the district

court has the authority to make across-the-board percentage cuts

either in the number of hours claimed or in the final lodestar

figure as a practical means of trimming the fat from a fee

application." Id.

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IV. DISCUSSION

Plaintiff claims attorneys' fees in the amount of $38,098.50. 

Plaintiff also claims costs of $2,293.34. Motion at 12. The

$38,098.50 figure breaks down into: 1) $24,186.50 billed by

attorney O. Randolph Bragg for 55.6 hours at an hourly rate of

$435; 2) $1,232.00 billed by Mr. Bragg's law clerk Craig Shapiro

for 11.2 hours at an hourly rate of $110; 3) $12,680.00 billed by

attorney Paul Arons for 31.7 hours at an hourly rate of $400. 

Motion at 8.

Based on the Court's docket report for this case, the

Plaintiff's attorneys filed the following papers with and made the

following appearances before this Court: 1) filing of the

Complaint and an Amended Complaint, both of which were

approximately 10 pages plus exhibits but largely the same; 2)

filing a Joint Case Management Conference Statement in conjunction

with Defendant, which was approximately 10 pages; 3) appearing

before this Court for a Joint Case Management Conference on June

13, 2003; 4) filing a motion to certify a class, which was

accompanied by a memorandum and several declarations; 5) filing an

acceptance of Defendant's Rule 68 offer; 6) filing an opposition

to Defendant's motion to dismiss, which was rendered moot by the

Court's later Judgment; 7) filing the instant Motion, along with a

related memorandum and declarations; and 8) filing a motion,

subsequently denied, to carry out limited discovery related to the

instant Motion. Plaintiff's attorney also prepared and served

written discovery on Defendant, a process cut short by the Rule 68

settlement, and participated in a three-hour deposition of

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1

 All references to alleged hours are taken from the Bragg

Declaration, Exhibit 1-0, and the Arons Declaration, Exhibit 1.

5

Plaintiff. Motion at 5. Based on these activities, the Court

finds that Plaintiff's attorneys carried out a more than de

minimis amount of litigation activity despite the fact that this

case settled well before trial.

In calculating the appropriate lodestar for this case, this

Court must deduct from the lodestar hours that were "not

reasonably expended." Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 434

(1983). Therefore, having examined the papers and briefs

submitted by the parties, the Court has reviewed each activity

claimed by Plaintiff's attorneys and adjusts the activities as

follows.

First, with respect to the written discovery propounded by

Plaintiff, in June 2003 Mr. Bragg spent 1.1 hours preparing the

discovery materials, Mr. Arons spent 1.8 hours doing the same, and

the legal assistant Mr. Shapiro spent 2 hours.1 However, as

Defendant points out, these discovery questions were just a cutand-paste version of questions from the numerous other FDCPA cases

handled by Plaintiff's attorneys. Ellis Declaration, Exhibits JM. Clearly, Plaintiff's attorneys have recreated this same

document many times in virtually the same format. Therefore, the

Court finds that Mr. Shapiro can properly bill 1 hour for the

discovery requests and Mr. Bragg can bill 0.2 hours. Mr. Arons

may not bill any amount for this activity.

Second, with respect to the Motion for Class Certification,

Mr. Bragg alleges that he spent approximately 8 hours preparing

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the motion itself, supporting documents, and a stipulation to

continue the motion. Mr. Shapiro alleges that he spent 3 hours

doing the same, and Mr. Arons, 0.4 hours. Given that preparing

motions for class certification is one of the principal tasks

undertaken by Plaintiff's attorneys in practicing in this field,

and has been done by them numerous times in the past, see Bragg

Declaration at 6-9, the Court finds these alleged hours to lack

credibility. Therefore, the Court finds that Mr. Bragg can

properly bill 3 hours for the work expended on this motion, Mr.

Shapiro can bill 2 hours, and Mr. Arons 0.2 hours.

Third, with respect to the Motion for Attorneys' Fees which

is now before this Court, Mr. Bragg alleges that he spent 2.1

hours preparing the Motion and carrying out related activities. 

Mr. Arons alleged that he spent 6.8 hours on the same. As

Defendant points out, this Motion was virtually identical to other

attorneys' fees motions filed by these same attorneys in other

cases. Ellis Declaration, Exhibits X-AA. Therefore, the Court

finds that an expenditure of 8.9 hours on this Motion by

Plaintiff's attorneys is unreasonable and excessive. It is

unclear to the Court why Mr. Bragg's legal assistant could not

have carried out most of this work, subject to a brief review by

the two attorneys. Therefore, the Court holds that Mr. Bragg and

Mr. Arons may each bill 0.3 hours for this Motion, and Mr. Shapiro

may bill 2 hours for it.

Fourth, the Court notes that Mr. Bragg traveled from his

office in Chicago to San Francisco for a deposition of Plaintiff. 

Mr. Bragg billed 15.4 hours for travel time, during a portion of

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which he allegedly reviewed documents. Mr. Bragg has not

presented any reason to the Court why local counsel, either Mr.

Arons or other local counsel here in the Northern District of

California, could not have carried out this routine deposition. 

Therefore, the Court holds that Mr. Bragg may not bill for his

travel time. He may, however, bill 0.5 hours for his review of

the documents in preparation for the deposition.

Fifth, this Court finds that the declarations of Plaintiff's

attorneys simply lack credibility in certain respects. For

example, Mr. Bragg's custom was to itemize multiple activities

that took place on the same day. Then, because his law firm

rounds up to the nearest tenth of an hour, the result is that an

activity such as preparing a fax of a document is billed for six

minutes on top of preparing the document itself for 54 minutes. 

Bragg Declaration, Exhibit 1-0 at 8. Putting aside the obvious

question of why Mr. Bragg must prepare a fax at his hourly rate of

$435 when he has a variety of assistants to call upon, this Court

asks if Mr. Bragg could have perhaps prepared the document and the

fax all in the same 54 minutes, without an additional six minute

charge. This method of billing items for only one tenth of an

hour appears over 60 times in Mr. Bragg's Declaration. The Court

finds this method of billing to be unreasonable and excessive. 

Unfortunately, the Court has no practical way of divining which

items Mr. Bragg inflated in this manner and which he did not. 

Several of these items have already been disallowed in the above

sections. Therefore, pursuant to its above-described discretion

to make percentage cuts, the Court will reduce Mr. Bragg's

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billings by a total of 5 hours on account of this opaque record

keeping.

Turning to the issue of Plaintiff's alleged costs, since the

Court disallowed any recovery for Mr. Bragg's time spent traveling

to San Francisco, the Court also finds that it would be

inappropriate to allow him to recover for the cost of his travel. 

Therefore, the Court will reduce the amount of recoverable costs

from $2,293.34 to $1,695.74.

Finally, the Court must determine an appropriate hourly rate

for Mr. Bragg, Mr. Arons, and Mr. Shapiro. The rate must be a

"reasonable hourly rate." Ferland, 244 F.3d at 1149. The

reasonable hourly rate is calculated "according to the prevailing

market rates in the relevant community." Blum v. Stenson, 465

U.S. 886, 895 (1984). In the matter at hand, there is no

prevailing market rate because the work that Plaintiff's counsel

does is typically compensated through recovery of attorneys' fees,

as here. Therefore, the Court will look to other cases involving

attorneys' fees recovered pursuant to the FDCPA. Plaintiff would

have the Court rely on Defenbaugh v. JBC & Assocs., No. C-03-0651,

2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16256 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 10, 2004), an

unreported case in this District. In Defenbaugh, the same

attorneys who represented Plaintiff here represented a different

plaintiff in a similar action that terminated with a similar

settlement. In that case, Mr. Bragg recovered at a rate of $435

and Mr. Arons at $400. Notwithstanding the outcome of Defenbaugh,

recently reported case law from a variety of jurisdictions

strongly suggests that these amounts are outside the range of

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market rates in the Northern District. See, e.g., Pinkham v.

Prof'l Claims Bureau, Inc., 367 F. Supp. 2d 338 (E.D.N.Y. 2005)

(holding that $250 per hour was reasonable in an FDCPA case);

Owens v. Howe, 365 F. Supp. 2d 942, 948 (N.D. Ind. 2005) (holding

that $225 per hour was reasonable in an FDCPA case); Mann v.

Acclaim Fin. Services Inc., 348 F. Supp. 2d 923 (S.D. Ohio 2004)

(holding that $200 per hour was reasonable in an FDCPA case). The

Court recognizes that rates for legal work in San Francisco tend

to be at the high end of national averages. Therefore, the Court

finds that the highest rate cited above, $250, is appropriate for

both of Plaintiff's attorneys. The Court finds Mr. Shapiro's rate

of $110 per hour to be reasonable.

V. CONCLUSION

Taking into account all of the above, the Court finds that

Mr. Bragg is to be compensated for a total of 28 hours, calculated

by subtracting the above-described deductions from his alleged

total of 55.6 hours. Similarly, the Court finds that Mr. Arons is

to be compensated for a total of 23.2 hours, calculated by

subtracting the above-described deductions from his alleged total

of 31.7 hours. Also, the Court finds that Mr. Shapiro is to be

compensated for 11.2 hours, with the above adjustments offsetting

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each other. At the above hourly rates, this totals $7000.00,

$5800.00, and $1232.00, respectively. In addition, Plaintiff is

to be awarded $1695.74 in costs. The total attorneys' fees and

costs to be recovered is $15,727.74. 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: July 28 , 2005

 /s/ Samuel Conti 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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