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Lindsay G. Leavitt – 029110 

Lleavitt@jsslaw.com 

JENNINGS, STROUSS & SALMON, P.L.C. 

A Professional Limited Liability Company 

One East Washington Street 

Suite 1900 

Phoenix, Arizona 85004-2554 

Telephone: (602) 262-5911 

Attorneys for Defendant 

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA 

Fernando Gastelum,

 Plaintiff 

vs. 

Kalisha, LLC, 

Defendant

No. 2:18-cv-00143-DLR

RESPONSE IN OPPOSITION TO 

PLAINTIFF’S FEES, COSTS AND 

EXPENSES 

Defendant Kalisha, LLC (“Kalisha” or “Defendant”), through counsel, 

respectfully responds in opposition to Plaintiffs’ Application for Fees, Costs and 

Expenses (“Application”), filed on February 28, 2018 [Doc. # 13], as follows: 

I. INTRODUCTION 

This Court has been asked to determine the amount of “reasonable attorney’s 

fees” Mr. Strojnik should be awarded for drafting a copy-and-paste complaint in 

which the Plaintiff only prevailed on one of his five causes of action. 

 The Court is well aware of Mr. Strojnik and his history of ADA litigation in 

Arizona since 2015.1

 In fact, the State Bar of Arizona has recently moved for an 

interim suspension of Mr. Strojnik’s law license because the State Bar believes that 

 

1

 The revisionist history described in the fee application regarding Mr. Strojnik’s 

ADA litigation in Maricopa County is demonstrably false. Put simply, he served as 

lead counsel in more than 1200 ADA cases that were consolidated and collectively 

dismissed for lack of standing. Mr. Strojnik and his client, Advocates for Individuals 

with Disabilities Foundation, agreed to pay $25,000 in sanctions and agreed not to 

appeal the trial court’s dismissal. 

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Mr. Strojnik “has engaged in conduct the continuation of which will result in 

substantial harm, loss or damage to the public, the legal profession or the 

administration of justice.”2 See Exhibit A. In September 2017 Arizona District Court 

Judge Neil Wake referred to Mr. Strojnik’s litigation tactics—i.e., filing a copy-andpaste complaint and then demanding a minimum of $5,000 in attorneys’ fees to settle 

the case—as “unethical extortion”. See Exhibit B. 

 As more fully discussed below, the Court has ample justification to outright 

deny the Plaintiff’s fee application because, among other reasons, the fee agreement 

between Mr. Strojnik and the Plaintiff is void as a matter of public policy. In a 

deposition taken by undersigned counsel in November 2017, Plaintiff admitted that 

he receives a $350.00 flat rate for any ADA case that settles (or when money is 

collected from the Defendant). At the time of the deposition Plaintiff had settled five 

(5) cases. The Plaintiff admitted that he did not know the amount that the cases had 

settled for—only that he received his $350.00 in a sealed envelope from Mr. Strojnik 

once the money was collected. The language of the fee agreement between Plaintiff 

and Mr. Strojnik purportedly gives Mr. Strojnik “unfettered discretion in all 

settlement matters provided, however, that Client’s consent shall be required when 

the settlement amount is less than $350.00 payable to Client.” At least one of those 

settlement agreements has been entered into evidence in another matter. The case 

settled for $18,750.00. See Exhibit C. This means Plaintiff collected less than 2% of 

the settlement amount with the remaining 98% presumably going to Mr. Strojnik. 

 The procedural history of this case is as simple as it gets. Plaintiff filed a 

copy-and-paste Complaint on January 14, 2018. Defendant’s counsel filed a Notice 

of Appearance on February 15, 2018 and served an Offer of Judgment on that same 

day. The Offer of Judgment was accepted on February 16, 2018. Defendant did not 

 

2

 The Presiding Disciplinary Judge had not yet ruled on the State Bar’s Motion for 

Interim Suspension by the time this Response was filed with the Court. 

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even have to file an Answer. In spite of this, Mr. Strojnik still claims he incurred 

more than $8,000.00 in attorney’s fees. To put this in perspective, Plaintiff filed 85 

(virtually identical) ADA lawsuits between August 1, 2017 and January 30, 2018. 

According to Mr. Strojnik, he is entitled to collect at least $688,500.00 for simply 

drafting those 85 Complaints—and performing no other substantive legal work—

over that six month stretch. Mr. Strojnik’s fee application in this case should not be 

viewed in a vacuum, but rather as part of a broader narrative (and, especially, in light 

of Judge Wake’s and the State Bar’s claims that Mr. Strojnik’s litigation tactics 

amount to unethical extortion). 

Defendant urges the Court to use its discretion to outright deny Mr. Strojnik’s 

application for fees (especially if his license to practice law has been suspended), or 

at the very least to reduce his fees to a “reasonable” amount that does not shock the 

conscience and offend the notions of fairness and equity. 

II. FACTUAL BACKGROUND 

Defendant owns and operates a Sleep Inn franchise located at 2621 South 47th

Place in Phoenix, Arizona. Plaintiff is a resident of Casa Grande, Arizona who had 

not stayed in a Phoenix-area hotel for several years prior to being introduced to Mr. 

Strojnik. Currently, he has sued more than 95 Phoenix-area hotels since July 29, 

2017 claiming that he planned to stay in each of them. When asked at his deposition 

why his “desire” to stay in Phoenix-area hotels had suddenly increased from zero in 

2015-2016 to more than 90 hotels within a six month time period, Mr. Gastelum 

replied “No particular reason.” 

 The Complaint in this matter was filed on January 14, 2018, the 78th ADA 

complaint filed by Plaintiff since July 29, 2017. All the Complaints are virtually 

identical—only a handful of paragraphs within the Complaint contain allegations 

unique to the Defendant. 

 Plaintiff’s Complaint contained five claims: (1) ADA, (2) Negligence, (3) 

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Negligent Misrepresentation, (4) Failure to Disclose, and (5) Consumer Fraud/Common 

Law Fraud. Plaintiff is only entitled to his reasonable fees for the ADA claim—there is 

no recovery of fees for work spent on the remaining state law tort claims.3 

 Plaintiff is in the process of retaining Paul Farber, a certified accessibility 

expert, to review the alleged violations at the hotel to determine whether they are 

valid.4 Defendant has committed to remedy any readily achievable violations within a 

reasonable time period. Whether the Plaintiff actually intended to stay at Defendant’s 

hotel, and whether the minor ADA violations at the property actually deter the 

Plaintiff from staying at Defendant’s hotel sufficient to confer Article III standing is 

dubious—regardless, the expense of litigating that issue does not make economic 

sense for Defendant. 

Plaintiff also alleged that he encountered ADA violations on the GreenTree 

website and during the online reservation process. Defendant does not own (or 

control) the GreeTree website—it is owned and controlled by GreenTree Inns Hotel 

Management Group, Inc. Whether Defendant, a franchisee, is actually liable for 

ADA violations on a website that it does not own or control (and thus, whether 

Defendant is even the proper defendant in this lawsuit) is a valid legal issue that, 

again due to its limited financial means, did not make economic sense for Defendant 

to litigate. However, in an analogous case, the Ninth Circuit recently held that tenants 

were not liable for ADA violations in areas that were exclusively under the control of 

the landlord. Kohler v. Bed Bath & Beyond of California, LLC, 780 F.3d 1260, 1266 

(9th Cir. 2015). Defendant is attempting to work with GreenTree Inns Hotel 

Management Group, Inc. to remedy any alleged website ADA violation(s). 

 

3

 Not that it matters. Plaintiff did not prevail on his tort claims. 

4

 Typically less than half of the ADA violations alleged by Plaintiff in his Complaint 

are valid. 

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II. LEGAL ARGUMENT 

A. The Court has the discretion to (and should) outright deny Plaintiff’s 

fee application. 

A prevailing plaintiff under the ADA should ordinarily recover a reasonable 

attorney’s fee unless special circumstances would render such an award unjust. 

Barrios v. Cal. Interscholastic Fed’n, 277 F.3d 1128, 1134 (9th Cir. 2002) (Emphasis 

added). 

The Arizona District Court has already held that Mr. Strojnik’s extortionist 

litigation tactics warrant an outright denial of attorney’s fees. On September 1, 2017, 

Judge Neil Wake of the District Court of Arizona issued an eleven page ruling 

against another serial ADA litigant represented by Mr. Strojnik, which culminated 

with the following conclusion: 

In this case, the complaint demanded a minimum of $5,000 in 

attorney’s fees. In a simple form complaint case like this, it is 

impossible that the fee for preparing and filing the complaint could be 

$5,000. Moreover, the federal disability statute allows the award of 

only “a reasonable attorney’s fee,” not any fee the attorney may 

demand. No fee is the reasonable fee for an unnecessary lawsuit 

that a demand letter would have taken care of. A demand for a fee 

beyond what is reasonable is a demand without legal basis under 

the ADA. 

Advocates for Individuals with Disabilities LLC v. MidFirst Bank, 2017 WL 3872419 

at *6 (D. Ariz. September 5, 2017). See Exhibit A.5 

Judge Wake’s opinion rejecting attorneys’ fees for serial ADA plaintiffs is 

entirely consistent with United States Supreme Court precedent. In Buckhannon Bd. 

and Care Home, Inc. v. West Virginia Dept. of Health and Human Resources, 532 

U.S. 598, 121 S.Ct. 1835 (2001), the Supreme Court found that one of the purposes 

 

5

 While the ruling in Advocates for Individuals with Disabilities LLC v. MidFirst 

Bank is not binding, it certainly is persuasive. Gustafson v. Goodman Manufacturing 

Company LP, 2016 WL 1029333 at *3 (D. Ariz. March 14, 2016). 

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in giving a trial court discretion to outright deny an award of attorneys’ fees to a 

prevailing plaintiff in an ADA case is to discourage “extortionist” behavior. Id. at 

618, 640 (“And Congress assigned responsibility for awarding fees not to automatons 

unable to recognize extortionists, but to judges expected and instructed to exercise 

‘discretion’”). Judge Wake’s opinion lamented that serial ADA plaintiffs’ 

“extortionist practices” (led by Mr. Strojnik) had become “pervasive” in Arizona. 

By the time Judge Wake had issued his rejection of Mr. Strojnik’s “unethical” 

and “extortionate” demands for $5,000, Mr. Strojnik and Mr. Gastelum had already 

filed more than two dozen of these ADA lawsuits demanding tens of thousands in 

fees following service of the complaints. This litigation tactic is precisely why the 

ADA granted (and the U.S. Supreme Court emphasized the importance of) trial 

courts’ discretion to rein in the extortionate behavior of plaintiff’s attorneys who 

collect millions in attorneys’ fees under the guise of civil rights litigation. 

The State Bar of Arizona agrees with Judge Wake’s ruling and has taken the 

extraordinary measure of seeking an immediate suspension of Mr. Strojnik’s law 

license because his litigation tactics in these ADA cases has caused “substantial 

harm, loss or damage to the public, the legal profession or the administration of 

justice.” They also argue that Mr. Strojnik’s ADA lawsuits “appear to be nothing 

more than vehicles for [Mr. Strojnik] to extort unreasonable attorney’s fees from 

defendants.” See Exhibit A. 

 The Court may also deny the Plaintiff’s fee application because the underlying 

fee agreement between Plaintiff and Mr. Strojnik violates Ethical Rule 1.2. 

 ER 1.2(a) provides that: 

 A lawyer shall abide by a client’s decisions concerning the objectives 

of representation and, as required by ER 1.4, shall consult with the 

client as to the means by which they are to be pursued. A lawyer may 

take such action on behalf of the client as is impliedly authorized to 

carry out the representation. A lawyer shall abide by a client’s 

decision whether to settle a matter. 

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Ariz. Op. 94-02 explains that a “client may not be asked to agree to representation so 

limited in scope that the client surrenders the right to settle his or her own matter.” 

 The Comment to ER 1.2(a) also provides that the “decisions specified in ER 

1.2(a), such as whether to settle a civil matter, must also be made by the client.”

(Emphasis added). See Exhibit D. The fee agreement between Mr. Gastelum and Mr. 

Strojnik gives Mr. Strojnik unfettered discretion to settle the Plaintiff’s case, thus it 

violates ER 1.2(a). When a fee agreement in Arizona violates public policy by failing 

to comply with the Rules of Professional Conduct, the attorney is not entitled to any 

fee. Peterson v. Anderson, 155 Ariz. 108, 745 P.2d 166 (App. 1987). 

 Accordingly, Mr. Strojnik is not permitted to recover a fee in this matter 

because his fee agreement violates ER 1.2(a)

B. In the event the Court opts to award fees to Plaintiff, it should find 

that Mr. Strojnik’s 12.5 hours expended and $650 hourly rate for a 

copy-and-paste Complaint are not justified under the Kerr factors. 

The ADA states that the court “in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party... 

a reasonable attorney’s fee, including litigation expenses, and costs...” 42 U.S.C. § 

12205. 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 v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 437 (1983) (Emphasis added). Trial 

courts are not accountants, though, and “may take into account their overall sense of a 

suit, and may use estimates in calculating and allocating an attorney’s time.” Fox v. Vice, 

131 S.Ct. 2205, 2216 (2011) (Emphasis added). 

Utilization of the Kerr factors, therefore, “provides a measuring stick whereby 

an appeals court can evaluate whether the district court acted within its broad 

discretion to enhance or reduce a fee award based on the facts of a particular case.” 

Holhbein v. Utah Land Resources, LLC, 2015 WL 1413503 at *4 (D. Nevada, March 

27, 2015). 

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 The Kerr factors include: 

 (1) the time and labor required, (2) the novelty and difficulty of the questions 

involved, (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) whether the fee is fixed or contingent, (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. Kerr v. Screen Extras Guild, Inc. 

526 F.2d 67, 70 (9th Cir. 1975) 

The Ninth Circuit has also recognized that an initial “haircut” of 10% is 

warranted when the defendant makes a good faith effort to comply with the ADA once 

they received notice of the specific violations. Gonzales v. City of Maywood, 729 F.3d 

1196, 1203 (9th Cir. 2013). This percentage reduction is based on an exercise of the 

Court’s discretion and may be made “without a more specific explanation.” Id. (citing 

Moreno v. City of Sacramento, 534 F.3d 1106, 1112 (9th Cir. 2008)). 

 Time and Labor Expended 

 As expressed by Judge Wake, it is “impossible” that the fees incurred for 

preparing a simple form copy-and-paste Complaint could amount to $5,000, let alone 

the $6,045 (9.3 hours at $650/hour) that Mr. Strojnik claims he incurred in preparing 

and filing this particular complaint. 

 The following are some, but not all, of the time entries that are unreasonable: 

• Mr. Strojnik claims he spent 1.5 hours in an in-person meeting with Mr. 

Gastelum to discuss the “issues raised by the client and matters of 

representation.”6 

 

6

 It appears this “in person meeting” between Mr. Gastelum and Mr. Strojnik “to 

discuss matters of representation” is a standard entry in every case. For example, 

attached are three other Statements of Account provided by Mr. Strojnik in fee 

applications in which he bills for this same meeting. See Exhibit E. What could Mr. 

Strojnik and Mr. Gastelum be meeting about for 1.5 hours regarding matters of 

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• It was not reasonable for Mr. Strojnik to spend 1.60 hours doing a “due 

diligence” visit to the Defendant’s hotel. This visit would have been better 

accomplished by an ADA expert at a much cheaper hourly rate. For example, 

Defendant’s ADA expert Mr. Farber charges $175/hour. 

• The 1.2 hours Mr. Strojnik claimed to spend reviewing the Defendant’s 

website for violations of 28 CFR § 36.302(e) is unreasonable. A purportedly 

skilled ADA lawyer like Mr. Strojnik should be able to identify § 36.302(e) 

violations within two to three minutes—it is impossible that it would take 1.2 

hours, especially considering this is the 78th ADA lawsuit filed by Mr. Strojnik 

alleging violations of § 36.302.(e). 

• The MIDP responses (.5 hours) and Discovery Requests (.25 hours) prepared 

by Mr. Strojnik were unreasonable. The MIDP responses were not due until 

30 days after Defendant filed its Answer and the Discovery Requests could 

not even be served until after both parties exchanged their MIDP responses. 

Because this case was resolved prior to Defendant even filing its Answer, any 

time allegedly spent by Mr. Strojnik preparing the MIDP responses and 

Discovery Requests was unreasonable and should be disregarded by the Court. 

• Twenty-one (21) of the thirty-nine (39) time entries on Mr. Strojnik’s 

Statement of Account were billed as .1 or .15 for doing mundane tasks that 

could have been competently performed by a legal assistant or paralegal (at a 

much lower hourly rate).7 

• The Court must consider that a substantial portion of Mr. Strojnik’s time was 

spent preparing to litigate the state tort claims Plaintiff alleged: Negligence, 

Negligent Misrepresentation, Failure to Disclose, Consumer Fraud and 

Common Law Fraud. The Plaintiff did not prevail on those claims nor is Mr. 

Strojnik entitled to collect fees for time spent working on those claims (which 

comprised 80% of the claims brought). 

 i. Lack of Pre-Litigation Notice 

 Lack of pre-litigation notice is one of the main factors the Court may consider 

when determining whether to reduce the amount of attorney’s fees it awards to the 

 

representation in this case that had not been discussed in the same meeting on 

apparently 77 previous occasions? Perhaps this meeting makes sense in the first 

couple of ADA cases they filed, but it is unreasonable for the 77th ADA Complaint. 

7

 For example, Mr. Strojnik billed a .1 for “Review Doc 3 – Consent Form” and a 

separate .1 entry on that same day for “Review Doc 3-1 – Consent Form 

Instructions”. Considering this was the 78th ADA lawsuit he has filed in Federal 

Court since July 29, 2017, it is unreasonable to bill several hours’ worth of .1 entries. 

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“prevailing plaintiff.” Jankey v. Poop Deck, 537 F.3d 1122, 1132 (9th Cir. 2008) 

(Emphasis added). 

 A district court may, in its protraction analysis, consider whether a 

plaintiff provided pre-litigation notice. Pre-litigation notice is not 

required, and failing to provide notice is not unjust, but district courts 

have discretion to consider all kinds of non-required conduct in 

deciding whether litigants have protracted litigation. 

 While a district court may not reduce fees on the premise that the suit 

should not have been filed at all before providing notice, it does have 

discretion to determine whether failing to provide pre-litigation notice 

resulted in unnecessary fees during the course of the litigation—that is, 

fees that would have been lower had there been notice before filing. 

Jankey, 537 F.3d at 1132. 

 Defendant’s principal, Dipesh Patel, has signed a declaration stating that he 

would have responded to a pre-litigation notice from Mr. Gastelum and would have 

immediately undertaken remedial efforts. See Exhibit F. While pre-litigation notice is 

not specifically required by the ADA, it is generally the custom in civil rights 

disputes. Pre-litigation notices can prevent both sides from incurring unnecessary 

attorneys’ fees by exploring the possibility of early resolution. Why Plaintiff chose 

not to provide notice to Defendant prior to filing suit is not a mystery. The answer is 

money—Plaintiff would not have received his $350.00 flat rate and Mr. Strojnik 

would not have been able to claim more than ten thousand in fees and costs had they 

provided pre-litigation notice. 

 Novelty and Difficulty of the Issues Involved 

This case is routine for Mr. Strojnik—it was the 78th ADA complaint filed by 

the Plaintiff between July 29, 2017 and January 8, 2018. The issues are 

straightforward. Pursuant to 28 CFR § 36.302(e), a hotel’s website must allow 

individuals with disabilities to (1) reserve accessible guest rooms online and (2) to 

identify the accessible features of the property in enough detail so that an individual 

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with disabilities can determine whether the property meets his or her accessibility 

needs. The other ADA violations alleged in the Complaint are run-of-the-mill ADA 

violations. 

The straightforwardness of this case weighs against a high fee rate and a high 

fee award. See Moreno v. City of Sacramento, 534 F.3d 1106, 1116 (holding that the 

district court “may properly use the simplicity of a given task as justification for a 

reduction in the rate for the hours spent performing that task or as a justification for a 

reduction in the overall rate”). 

Regardless, Mr. Strojnik’s hourly rate of $650.00 is unreasonable on its face.

According to the survey of hourly rates published in the State Bar of Arizona 2016 

Economics of Law Practice in Arizona the median hourly rate in Arizona for a plaintiff 

litigation attorney with 30 – 39 years of experience is $299 and for a plaintiff personal 

injury attorney is $312. See Exhibit G. In other words, Mr. Strojnik’s claimed rate of 

$650/hour is more than double the average rates charged by Arizona plaintiffs’ lawyers 

with similar years of experience. His rate is especially unreasonable in light of the 

simplistic legal and procedural issues involved in this matter. 

 Furthermore, the 104.80 hours that Mr. Strojnik claims he devoted to “pre-filing 

due diligence” in July 2017 should not be apportioned to this case, the 78th ADA case he 

filed since conducting that pre-filing due diligence. Those 104.80 hours should have 

been billed to the first lawsuit he filed, Gastelum v. MCPHX17, LLC, 2:17-cv-02536-

DGC, and not to this case (or any subsequent case) in a pro-rata fashion. 

The skill requisite to perform the legal service properly. 

A legal assistant or paralegal could have performed the vast majority of work 

in this case. As Mr. Strojnik concedes, the Complaint is virtually identical to the 77 

he had previously filed. Mr. Strojnik’s Statement of Account demonstrates that 

(besides the copy-and-paste Complaint) there was no substantive legal work 

performed in this case. Even if Mr. Strojnik was considered by the Court to be a 

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highly experienced ADA attorney—despite having lost more than 1200 ADA cases 

in one day—none of that experience was needed to prosecute or resolve this lawsuit. 

The preclusion of other employment by Mr. Strojnik due to 

acceptance of the case and his customary fee. 

Mr. Strojnik concedes that representing Mr. Gastelum takes up approximately 

90% of his time—together they average approximately 20 new case filings a month. 

Mr. Strojnik does not indicate that any of his other (non pro-bono) clients currently 

or in the past have ever retained his services at a rate of $650 per hour. This factor 

cuts in favor of reducing his fee amount. 

 Whether fee is fixed or contingent. 

 Pursuant to the fee agreement between Mr. Gastelum and Mr. Strojnik, Mr. 

Gastelum will never be personally liable to pay Mr. Strojnik’s fees, even if Mr. 

Gastelum does not prevail in the matter. The fee agreement states that in the event “a 

particular Claim does not result in a settlement or an award of costs, expenses and 

fees, then Attorney shall be entitled to recover his costs and expenses from the 

proceeds of another Claim or waive the costs and expenses at his discretion.” This 

factor cuts in favor of reducing Mr. Strojnik’s claim for fees. 

 The amount involved and the results obtained. 

Defendant concedes that Plaintiff should be considered a “prevailing plaintiff’ 

in this matter. Defendant has agreed to remedy the valid ADA violations on its 

property and to work with Choice Hotels to remedy the alleged violations on the 

website. It is important to remember, however, that Plaintiff only prevailed on one of 

the five claims he alleged in his Complaint. The remaining state law tort claims did not 

generate any damages for Plaintiff. This factor cuts in favor of reducing Mr. Strojnik’s 

claim for fees. 

The experience, reputation, and ability of the attorneys. 

While Mr. Strojnik has been practicing commercial litigation for more than 35 

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years, he has only been litigating ADA matters since 2015. As to his reputation, he is 

widely considered to be the most controversial attorney currently practicing in Arizona. 

A google search of his name will reveal numerous articles, news reports, judicial 

opinions, and State Bar disciplinary proceedings disapproving of his ADA litigation 

efforts. While he has served as lead counsel in more than 2000 ADA cases the vast 

majority were consolidated and dismissed by Maricopa Superior Court Judge David 

Talamante. In addition, it does not appear that he has ever taken an ADA case to trial or 

even extensively litigated one. This factor cuts in favor of reducing his fee amount. 

 The ‘undesirability’ of the case. 

As Mr. Strojnik concedes, these lawsuits are not popular in Arizona among the 

business or disability community. This is not because the business community 

opposes the ADA, the current climate is such solely due to Mr. Strojnik’s serial ADA 

litigation—more than 2000 “drive by” ADA lawsuits filed against Arizona 

businesses and commercial landlords since June 2015. Because Mr. Strojnik singlehandedly created the “undesirability” of litigating an ADA case in Arizona, this 

factor cuts in favor of reducing his fee amount. 

 Awards in similar cases.

Undersigned counsel recently litigated a fee application filed by Peter K. 

Strojnik, Jr. (the son of Plaintiff’s counsel) in an ADA “pool lift” lawsuit. Judge 

Hollard reduced Mr. Strojnik Jr.’s hourly rate from $650 to $350 and awarded him 

$3,600 in attorney’s fees and $460 in costs. A copy of Judge Holland’s opinion is 

attached hereto as Exhibit H. 

III. CONCLUSION 

The Court has broad discretion (and ample justification) to deny, or 

significantly reduce Plaintiff’s fee award. A request for $10,970.50 in fees, costs and 

expenses for a case that includes a copy-and-paste Complaint and no other substantive 

legal work is simply unreasonable. Mr. Strojnik’s hourly rate of $650 is also 

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unreasonable—so too is his claim to have spent more than 12 hours of attorney time on 

this matter. Accordingly, the Defendant requests the Court outright deny (or 

significantly reduce) the Plaintiff’s fee application. 

 RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED this 21st day of March, 2018. 

JENNINGS, STROUSS & SALMON, P.L.C. 

By: s/ Lindsay G. Leavitt 

Lindsay G. Leavitt 

One East Washington Street, Suite 1900 

Phoenix, AZ 85004-2554 

Defendant 

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE 

I hereby certify that on March 21, 2018, I electronically transmitted the 

attached document to the Clerk’s Office using the CM/ECF System for filing 

and transmittal of a Notice of Electronic Filing to the following CM/ECF 

registrants: 

Peter Strojnik 

ADA@strojnik.com

STROJNIK, P.C. 

2375 East Camelback Road, Ste. 600 

Phoenix, AZ 85016 

 I hereby certify that on March 21, 2018, I served the attached document by 

mail on the following, who are not registered participants of the CM/ECF 

System: 

 s/ Tana Davis-Digeno 

Case 2:18-cv-00143-DLR Document 16 Filed 03/21/18 Page 14 of 14