# In the United States Court of Federal Claims

OFFICE OF SPECIAL MASTERS

No. 14

- 469 V

Filed: January 25, 2019

Not for Publication

************************************* LAURA CECHANOWICZ, *

* Petitioner, *

*

v. *

*

*

SECRETARY OF HEALTH * AND HUMAN SERVICES, *

* Respondent. *

*

*************************************

Danielle A. Strait , Seattle, WA, for petitioner. Darryl R. Wishard , Washington, DC, for respondent.

MILLMAN, Special Master

DECISION AWARDING ATTORNEYS’ FEES AND COSTS 1

On Ju ne 3, 2014, p etitioner filed a petition under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury

A c t, 42 U.S.C. § 300aa

- 10

- 34 (2012), alleging that the human papillomavirus (“HPV”) vaccine

she received on May 27, 2011 caused her rheumatoid arthritis (“RA”) . Pet.

On April 30, 2018, the parties filed a stipulation in which they agreed to settle this case. On the same day, the undersigned issued a decision awarding compensation in the amount and on the terms set forth in the stipulation. On May 9, 2018, the parties filed a joint notice not to

1 Because this unpublished decision contains a reasoned explanation f or the special master’s action in this case, the special master intends to post this unpublished decision on the United States Court of Federal

Claims’ website, in accordance w ith the E

- Government Act of 2002

, 44 U.S.C. § 3501 note (2012) (Federal Management and Promotion of Electronic Government Services)

. This means the d ecision will

be a vailable to anyone with access to the Internet. Vaccine Rule 18(b) states that all decisions of the special masters will be made available to the public unless they contain trade secrets or commercial or financial information that is privileged and confid ential, or medical or similar information whose disclosure would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy. When such a decision is filed, petitioner s have 14 days to identify and move to redact such information prior to the document ’ s disclosu re. If the special master, upon review, agrees that the identified material fits within the banned categories listed above, the special master shall redact such material from public access. Attorneys ’ fees and costs decisions; Reasonable attorneys ’

fees and costs ; duplicative billing; excessive billing2

seek review . On May 10, 2018, judgment entered.

On November 5, 2018, petitioner filed an unopposed motion for an extension of time to file an application for attorney s ’ fees and costs. On November 6, 2018, the undersigned granted petitioner ’ s motion.

On November 19, 2018, petitioner filed an application for attorneys ’ fees and costs, requesting $57,602.70 in attorneys ’ fees and $34,851.40 in attorneys ’ costs, for a total request of $ 92,454.10. Petitioner did not incur personal costs related to the litigation of this matter

.

On November 20, 2018, r espondent filed a response to petitioner’s motion . Doc 73.

R e spondent stated

, that to the extent petitioner ’ s motion requ ires a response from respondent

since neither the Vaccine Act nor Vaccine Rule 13 explicitly requires respondent file a response, “[r]espondent is satisfied the statutory requirements for an award of attorneys’ fees and cost s are met in this case.” Id. at 1

- 2. Respondent respectfully requested that the undersigned rely on her prior experience and exercise her discretion to determine a reasonable award for attorneys’ fees

and costs. Id. at 2

- 3.

On November 21, 2018, petitioner filed a reply to respondent ’ s resp onse to petitioner ’ s motion for attorneys ’ fees and costs , basically consisting of criticism of respondent for not participating in the evaluation of petitioner ’ s application for attorneys ’ fees and costs beyond saying that petitioner should receive them. Doc 74.

On January 23, 2019 , the undersigned issue d an O rder asking petitioner to provide

additional explanation and documentation to support petitione r ’ s application for attorneys ’ fees and costs. On January 24, 2019, petitioner filed supplemental costs information in compliance

with the Order.

This matter is now ripe for adjudication.

The Vaccine Act permits an award of “reasonable attorneys’ fees” and “other costs.”

42 U.S.C. § 300aa

- 15(e)(1)

. The special master has “wide discretion in determining the

reasonableness” of attorn eys’ fees and costs. Perreira v. Sec’y of HHS , 27 Fed. Cl. 29, 34 (1992), aff’d , 33 F.3d 1375 (Fed. Cir. 1994); see also Saxton ex rel. Saxton v. Sec’y of HHS , 3 F.3d 1517, 1519 (Fed. Cir. 1993) (“ Vaccine program special masters are also entitled to use t heir prior experience in reviewing fee applications.”).

S p ecial masters have previously reduced the fees paid to petitioners due to excessive

and duplicative billing. See Ericzon v. Sec’y of HHS , No. 10

- 103V, 2016 WL 447770 (Fed. Cl. Spec. Mstr. Jan. 15, 2016) (reduced overall fee award by 10 percent due to excessive and duplicative billing); Raymo v . Sec’y of HHS , No. 11

- 654V, 2016 WL 7212323 (Fed. Cl. Spec. Mstr. Nov. 2, 2016) (reduced overall fee award by 20 percent), mot. for rev. denied, 129 Fed. Cl. 691 (2016). Special masters have previously noted the inefficiency that results when cases are staffed by multi ple individuals and have reduced fees accordingly. See Sabella v . Sec’y of HHS

, 86 Fed . Cl. 201, 209 (Fed. Cl. 2009).3

I t is firm ly established that billing for clerical and other secretarial work is not permitted in the Vaccine Program. Roche ster v. United States , 18 Cl. Ct. 379, 387 (1989) (denied an award of fees for time billed by a secretary and found that “[these] services ... should be

considered as normal overhead office costs included within the attorneys ’ fees rates”); Mostovoy

v. Sec’ y of HHS

, 2016 WL 720969, at *5 (Fed. Cl. Spec. Mstr. Feb. 4, 2016). Additionally, t he undersigned has previously found it reasonable to reduce the fees paid to petitioners due to billing for intra

- office communication. Soto v. Sec’y of HHS , No. 09

- 897V, 2011 WL 2269423, at *6 (Fed. Cl. Spec. Mstr. June 7, 2011); Carcamo v. Sec’y of HHS , No. 97

- 483V, 2011 WL 2413345, at *7 (Fed. Cl. Spec. Mstr. May 20, 2011).

Based on her experience and review of the billing records submitted by petitioner, the undersigned finds petitioner’s attorneys’ fee s rates to be acceptable a nd in conformance with what the other special masters have awarded Maglio F irm attorneys and paralegals , except for the attorney rates for Ms. Amber Wilson

. Petitioner ’ s request for an hourly rate of $295 fo r 2015 and $308 for 2017 for Ms. Wilson ’ s work will be reduced to an hourly rate of $2 25 for 2015 and $290 for 2017, which reflects what the Office of S pecial Masters has previously awarded Ms.

Wilson based on her experience and work with the Vaccine Program . This rate reduction results

in a deduction of $257.60 of the total attorneys ’ fees award.

A fter reviewing the billing records, the undersigned fin ds that counsel included entries

that are deemed excess ive and duplicative. Counsel included time billed for reviewing electronic

notices of minute entries, which essentially are boilerplate language generated by CMECF to memorialize a conference or hearing involving the Court and the parties

. Even billing the minimum 0.1 hours for review of such entries is, in the undersigned ’ s experience, likely

excessive. See Krieg v. Sec ’ y of HHS , No. 16

- 1226V, 2018 WL 6427133, at * 3 (Fed. Cl. Spec. Mstr. Nov. 2, 2018). Moreover, coun sel requested an award of fees for time where both

attorneys and paralegals billed for review ing the same orders. Notably, some of the orders that

were double

- billed were straightforward orders concerning future filing dates . This task does not

take 0.1 hour to review nor does it require both an attorn ey and paralegal to complete

. As the undersigned has noted in the past, these types of entries are duplicative and excessive. For all

these reasons

, the undersigned will reduce the total amount of attorneys ’ fees awarded by 5%, resulting in a further deduction of $2,867.26

.

Attorneys’ co sts must be reasonabl e as well. See Perreira , 27 Fed. Cl. at 34 (“The conjunction ‘and’ conjoins both ‘att orneys’ fees’ and ‘other costs’ and the word ‘reasonable’ necessarily modifies both . Not only m ust any request for reimbursement of attorneys’ fees be
reasonable, so also must a ny request for reimbursement of costs.”). According to petitioner ’ s additional documentation

, the cost for Lexis research was actually $246.50 and not $247.25 as requested in petitioner ’ s application. E x. 45, at 12 and Ex. 40, at 2. The undersigned will adjust the total attorneys ’ costs a ccording to this slight difference

. Further, p etitioner requested reimbursement for expenses incurred by petitioner ’ s l ife care planner in association with a site visit on May 15, 2017 , where he dined at The Stinking Rose . While it is reasonable to award for meal expenditures, it is unreasonable to award costs for souvenir purch ases. Accordingly

, attorney s ’ costs total award will be reduced by $60.40

. The remainder of attorney s ’ costs are
reasonable.4

Accordingly, the undersigned GRANTS petitioner ’ s application for attorneys ’ fees and

costs. The co urt awards $89,268.84 , representing $54,477.84 in attorneys ’ fees and $34,791 in

attorneys ’ costs, in the form of a check made payable jointly to petiti oner and Maglio Christopher and Toale, PA.

In the absence of a motion for review filed pursuant to RCFC Appendix B, the clerk of the court is directed to enter judgment herewith. 2

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: January 25, 2019 /s/ Laura D. Millman

Laura D. Millman Special Master

2 Pursuant to Vaccine Rule 11(a), e ntry of judgment can be expedited by each party , either separately or jointly, filing a notice renouncing the right to seek review.