y

notes are less experienced, that the senior attorneys at Edelman, Combs & Latturner, also do
nothing to convince this court that the hourly rates they seek are unreasonable?

That being said, DaimlerChrysler does identify certain entries that are troubling to the
court, particularly the duplication of attorney time for several tasks and an inconsistency in the
number of hours logged by several attorneys in attending the same court hearing. These, as well
as entries that do not specify whether certain activities were directed solely towards
DaimlerChrysler, lead the court to conclude that plaintiffs’ fee demand must be reduced
somewhat.

In acase in which the fee request is “small,” the Seventh Circuit has held that this court
has the authority, in the exercise of its discretion, to apply a blanket reduction to a fee request
rather than expend the enormous amount of time it would take to go through the plaintiffs’
timesheets entry by entry. Heiar v. Crawford County, 746 F.2d 1190, 1204 (7" Cir. 1984).
Although the amount of fees sought by plaintiffs in the instant case may be a bit more than

“small” (as referred to in Heiar), to conduct a hearing on the numerous, petty objections raised by

DaimlerChrysler would no doubt multiply the fees incurred by the parties (and taxable, at least in
part, to the objecting defendant) more than the amount actually in dispute — not to mention the
enormous expenditure of that scarcest commodity, court time, by the court? Consequently, the

court concludes that it has the power to order a blanket reduction given the facts of this case,

2Those rates are $375.00 per hour for Daniel Edelman and James Lattumer, $215.00 an
hour for Michelle Teggelaar, $175.00 an hour for junior associates, and $105.00 and $100.00 for
paralegals.

3 Another option available to the court, the appointment of a special master pursuant to
Fed. R. Civ. P. 53, could result in some savings of the court’s resources, but not that of the
parties,



y .

number of entries and the time logged by several attorneys that might have been considered
unnecessary, and by reducing their hourly rates from those originally claimed.

More importantly, DaimlerChrysler’s response is deficient in a number of respects. First,
although it articulates criticism of several types of charges found in plaintiffs’ attorneys’ time
records, it fails to suggest the amount of a reasonable fee. DaimlerChrysler merely concludes
that, “plaintiffs” fee award should be greatly reduced.” It is not this court’s job to serve as a
bookkeeper or accountant for the parties. A responsible position requires an opponent of an
award of attorneys’ fees to which a prevailing party is entitled to compute and suggest the
amount of a reasonable fee.

In addition, DaimlerChrysler, in attacking the hourly rate charged by plaintiffs’ counsel,
incorrectly states the rates sought and neglects to acknowledge the lower figures suggested by
plaintiffs’ counsel in its fee petition. Moreover, DaimlerChrysler presents no evidence in the
form of affidavit or otherwise suggesting that the rates sought by the lawyers in plaintiffs’ law
firm are excessive. The senior attorneys at Edelman, Combs & Latturner are well known to this
court as competent, skilled and experienced in consumer protection litigation. The hourly rates
they seek are in line with Judge Holderman’s recent decision in Payton v. New Century Mortgage
Corp., 2004 WL 524693 (N.D. Ill. 2004), and are supported by the affidavit submitted by
plaintiffs in connection with their fee petition. DaimlerChrysler’s assertions that its own counsel

charged less, and lower rates are charged by other consumer protection attorneys, who the court



after taking a “closer look” at the parties’ submissions. See Dutchak v. Central States, 932 F.2d
591, 597 (7" Cir. 1991). Thus, the court has examined the chart prepared by DaimlerChrysler
listing its objections pursuant to L.R. 54.3, considered the nature and difficulty of this litigation,

and applied its experience both as a former practitioner in this field (see Heiar, 746 F.2d at 1204),

and as a judge who has heard and decided numerous consumer fraud cases. The court therefore
reduces plaintiffs’ fee request for the work in the underlying case by 20%.

With respect to costs, plaintiff's are correct in objecting to DaimlerChrysler’s belated
disagreement over the amount of costs sought, which was voiced for the first time in Daimler
Chrysler’s response to plaintiffs’ petition for fees and costs. No objection was raised during the
L.R. 54.3 process and, once again, DaimlerChrysler fails to suggest a proper amount of costs,
concluding, as it did with respect to fees, that plaintiffs’ “expenses should be denied, or in the
alternative, greatly reduced.” Accordingly, the court will award plaintiffs the full amount of
costs sought in its petition, which the court finds to be reasonable.

Finally, plaintiffs’ request for $8,981.00 in fees to prosecute the fee petition (to which no
objection was filed) is, in this court’s opinion, excessive. It results from a failure by both sides to
comply with the spirit of the local rule as discussed above, although the court finds the greatest
fault with defendants in this regard. The court will exercise its discretion to reduce the fees in
connection with the fee petition by 40%.

For the reasons set forth above, the court awards fees and costs to plaintiffs as follows:

1. Attomeys’ fees in the underlying action in the amount of $22,308.40;

2. For costs in the amount of $2,629.18; and


Mirae Ontor Foor 1062"

United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois

va icktuteduike | Robert W. Gettleman | ee een judge
CASE NUMBER 03 C 4499 DATE Sept. 28, 2004
| rae Asad Zaghloul v DaimlerChrysler Services
TELE

[In the following box (a) indicate the party filing the motion, e.g., plaintiff, defendant, 3rd party plaintiff, and (b) state briefly the nature

MOTION: of the motion being presented.)

[

DOJune [4, 2004CKET ENTRY:

cn © Filed motion of [ use listing in “Motion” box above.]

(2) oO Brief in support of motion due

Q) imi} Auswer brief to motion duc. . Reply to answer brief due

m Dd Hearing

(5) Qe Status hearing set for

(6) ita} Pretrial conference[held/continued to] [set for/re-set for] on set for at :

(7) i) Trial{set for/re-set for) on at_ .

(8) Oo {Bench/Jury trial} [Hearing] held/continued to at

(9) 0 This case is dismissed [with/without] prejudice and without costs[by/agreement/pursuant to]
COFRCP4(m) General Rule21 CFRCP4I(a)(1) OC FRCP41(a\(2).

(10) HE [Other docker entry! Memorandum opinion and order entered. Accordingly, th¢

| court awards fees and costs to plaintiffas follows: attorneys’ fees in the underlying action
in the amount of $22,308.40; costs in the amount of $2,629.18; fees incurred in connection
| with prosecuting the fee petition in the amount of $5,388.60.

(lt) [For further detail see order attached to the original minute order.]

No notices required, advised in open court.

No notices required
y umber of notices

SEP 28.2004

opting coputy initials

date mailed notice

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Notified counsel by telephone.

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130 form.

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3. For fees incurred in connection with prosecuting the fee petition in the amount of
$5,388.60.

ENTER: September 28, 2004

Robert W. Gettleman
United States District Judge



IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS

EASTERN DIVISION
ASAD ZAGHLOUL and TRACIE ZAGHLOUL )
nee PECCHIA, )
)
Plaintiffs )
) No. 03 C4499

v. )

) Judge Robert W. Gettleman
DAIMLERCHRYSLER SERVICES, LLC; TRANS)
UNION, LLC; EXPERIAN INFORMATION )
SOLUTIONS, INC., )
)
Defendants. )

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

Having settled for the sum of $27,500 from defendant DaimlerChrysler Services, LLC
(“DaimlerChrysler”), along with an undisclosed amount from defendants Trans Union, LLC
(“Trans Union”) and Experian Information Solutions, Inc. (“Experian”) in this action filed under
the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq., plaintiffs’ lawyers now seek $27,885.50
in attorneys’ fees for prosecuting the case, $8,981.00 in fees for the fee petition, and $2,629.18 in
costs from DaimlerChrysler.!

Ignoring the Supreme Court’s admonition that, “[a] request for attorney’s fees should not
result in a second major litigation,” Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S, 424, 437,103 8.Ct. 1933,
1941 (1983), and the spirit if not the letter of Local Rule 54.3, the parties, or more accurately
their lawyers, have filed some 30 pages of briefs and numerous lengthy exhibits in their
disagreement about the amount of fees due plaintiffs in this case. This is more “major litigation”

than the parties engaged in during the underlying dispute. If this were to occur in every case in

‘The settlement with Trans Union and Experian apparently included an undisclosed sum
for attorneys’ fees.



which fee shifting was required, proceedings in such civil litigation would be like the mirrors in
a barbershop, with each pane reflecting a smaller and smaller image of the original, ad infinitum
(or ad nauseam).

Although they went through the motions prescribed by this court’s L.R. 54.3, and
exchanged information and resolved a number of items, the parties seem to have ignored the
overall spirit of the local rule that directs the them to “confer and attempt in good faith to agree
on the amount of fees or related nontaxable expenses that should be awarded prior to filing a fee
motion.” L.R. 53.4(d). Many of DaimlerChrysler’s objections involve tenths of an hour spent
by plaintiffs’ attorneys and less money than it took to complain about these items. Having
thoroughly reviewed the parties’ submissions concerning plaintiffs’ fee request, the court fails to
understand why seemingly competent, rational lawyers could not resolve their remaining
differences without taking their time and the valuable time of this court to sort out their
disagreements.

As the Supreme Court noted in Hensley, 461 U.S. at 433, there is no question that the
starting point of any fee petition in a case like this would be the “lodestar” amount computed by
multiplying the number of hours reasonably expended on the litigation by the reasonable hourly
rate. Although DaimlerChrysler has raised some principled objections to some of the time
entries logged by plaintiffs’ counsel, and although it appears to the court that DaimlerChrysler is
correct to point out that a larger number of attorneys in plaintiffs’ law firm, Edelman, Combs &
Latturner, took part in this litigation than might have been necessary, it also is apparent to the

court that plaintiffs tried to meet DaimlerChrysler’s objections in good faith by eliminating a