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Justia › US Law › Case Law › Federal Courts › District Courts › District of Columbia › District of Columbia › 1994 › Brown v. Pro Football, Inc.
PRO FOOTBALL, INC., d/b/a Washington Redskins, et al., Defendants.
Civ. A. No. 90-1071 (RCL).
*109 *110 *111 Joseph A. Yablonski, Yablonski, Both & Edelman, Washington, DC, for plaintiffs.
Peter J. Nickles, Covington & Burling, Washington, DC, for defendants.
This case comes before this court on plaintiffs' motion for reconsideration of this court's order of December 13, 1993 and on the parties' supplemental briefings requested by that order.
Having considered plaintiffs' motion to reconsider, defendants' opposition, and plaintiffs' reply, the motion to reconsider shall be granted in part.
Having considered plaintiffs' supplemental memorandum on their request for fees and *112 costs, defendants' response, and plaintiffs' reply, and the entire record herein, this court will award plaintiffs $1,744,578.41 in attorney's fees and litigation costs.
Plaintiffs ask this court to reconsider its refusal to allow expenses for defendants' witnesses and its refusal to allow compensation for the trial time of three of plaintiffs' lawyers. Each of these two decisions is reconsidered in turn.
Plaintiffs request reconsideration of this court's refusal to tax the expenses of defendants' witnesses that plaintiffs incurred. (Mem. Op. 839 F. Supp. 905, 916-17.) Plaintiffs did not explain in their original pleadings why they were paying the costs of defendants' witnesses' in the first place. Nor did plaintiffs submit statements of defendants' witnesses' expenses or the number of days the witnesses attended proceedings in this case. Without this information, this court could not award plaintiffs the expenses they sought.
The parties' economical agreement is an impressive example of cooperation between parties to keep litigation costs down, especially when the party that is incurring the costs anticipates thrusting the costs on another party under a fee-shifting statute. More arrangements like this in future cases could make litigation more efficient and cost-shifting more fair.
Having discovered what costs are included in plaintiffs' request, this court will award plaintiffs their requested $1,764.00. The per diem costs are within the $40 statutory cap. 28 U.S.C. § 1821(b). The transportation costs which are reasonable, well-documented with travel invoices (Pls.' Mot. for Recons., Ex. A), and uncontested shall also be allowed. 28 U.S.C. § 1821(c) (taxing actual, reasonable travel costs). The $440 boot that defendants contributed to equalize the bargain encouraged this highly commendable cost-saving agreement between the parties, and it shall also be allowed.
Concededly, boot is not one of the enumerated costs that Congress has authorized this court to shift under 28 U.S.C. § 1821, nor is boot one of the traditional costs of litigation shifted under the Clayton Act. Traditionally, after all, opposing counsel have tried to ruin each other with escalating legal costs, not to cooperate in keeping *113 costs down. However, in authorizing the shifting of traditional costs, Congress could not have meant that only the wasteful and expensive costs that counsel traditionally incur may be shifted, and that the small boot designed to encourage innovative cost-saving arrangements of enlightened parties may not be shifted. Such a rule might have the perverse effect of discouraging efficient arrangements, and Congress could not have intended that.
Plaintiffs' original fee application pleading left the court with the impression that Messrs. Colwell, Moser, and Kaler attended the trial either out of curiosity or for training, and that they performed only a few minimal clerical chores during trial. In their supplemental declaration accompanying their motion to reconsider, however, plaintiffs have detailed the important duties that Messrs. Colwell, Moser, and Kaler performed during trial. Mr. Moser, for example, "access[ed] several thousand pages of Plaintiffs' exhibits, in hard copy form, on transparencies and in blown-up form and coordinat[ed] those exhibits with the witness who was testifying [and] worked with the Court reporter in the preparation of, delivery, and review of daily transcripts." Mr. Kaler "had responsibilities relating principally to the designation and reading of depositions." Mr. Colwell "had the principal responsibility for jury instructions and for coordinating ongoing trial developments with the testimony of Dr. Hamilton." Messrs. Moser's and Kaler's presence at trial "assured a smooth, orderly presentation of proof' in a case involving about fifteen witnesses. (Supplemental Decl. of Joseph A. Yablonski at ¶ 24.) Defendants contest none of these characterizations of the work of these three.
These detailed and unchallenged task descriptions reveal that contrary to the court's original impression, Messrs. Colwell, Moser, and Kaler attended trial to keep a complex case running smoothly, not merely to observe or to satisfy curiosity. Yet they did not do enough to warrant the full rates of lawyers for their time at trial, and plaintiffs have not argued that their performance of such tasks was enriched by their special knowledge of the case. Accordingly, they shall be compensated for only seventy-five percent of their time at trial. See, e.g., Action on Smoking and Health v. C.A.B., 724 F.2d 211, 222-23 (D.C.Cir.1984) ["ASH"] (reducing hours by twenty-five percent).
The new facts that plaintiffs have provided in their motion for reconsideration should have been included in their original fee application. Making piecemeal additions to the record in reconsideration motions is not the proper way to litigate. The only reason the court is willing to consider such late additions in this case is that the court had already agreed to consider supplemental memoranda on other issues. Absent such *114 very exceptional circumstances, such piecemeal litigation will not be tolerated.
The Order of December 13, 1993 gave the parties the opportunity to conduct further discovery and to file supplemental memoranda in order to help this court determine the reasonable hourly rate to which plaintiffs' counsel are entitled under Section 4 of the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C. § 15(a), the number of hours for which plaintiffs should be compensated, and whether plaintiffs should be compensated for investigation costs. Each of these issues is considered below in light of the parties' well-argued supplemental briefs.
The keystone issue of this case is whether plaintiffs' counsel have met the two-pronged test of Save Our Cumberland Mountains, Inc. v. Hodel, 857 F.2d 1516 (D.C.Cir.1988) (en banc) ["SOCM"]. Under SOCM, plaintiffs must show first, that the work their counsel have done in this case promotes the public interest, and second, that their counsel have charged below-market rates which reflect counsels' non-economic goals. If plaintiffs do not meet both of these tests, they may recover nothing more than the rates that their counsel have charged them. If plaintiffs do meet both of these tests, they are entitled to the prevailing market rates for the legal work their counsel performed.
The original pleadings did not provide enough information for this court to determine whether plaintiffs had satisfied the second prong. The supplemental memoranda, which are supported with updated and extensive documentation, have provided a wealth of information to help the court. Having reviewed and analyzed the matrices, affidavits, and surveys of the supplemental memoranda, this court concludes that plaintiffs' counsel generally received below-market rates.
The rates that plaintiffs' lead counsel, Mr. Joseph A. Yablonski, has charged plaintiffs in this case are less than the Laffey matrix's rates and the U.S. Attorney's fee matrix rates. Throughout the Brown litigation, he charged plaintiffs less than the market rates recorded in the two matrices.
However, this court cannot rely on hearsay newspaper surveys. See, e.g., United States v. Casson, 434 F.2d 415, 418 (D.C.Cir.1970) ("Hearsay newspaper statements are not a sufficient basis for overcoming the best evidence of which the case is susceptible and the presumption of regularity."). If the parties had deposed the journalists who compiled the surveys, perhaps the surveys' reliability could have been probed. The parties, however, did not do so.
Putting the newspaper surveys to one side, the evidence before the court is the two matrices and several affidavits, all of which record a prevailing market rate that is higher than the fees that lead counsel charged. Similarly, the fees charged by other members of plaintiffs' legal team by Messrs. Both and Edelman; by Colwell; by Moser and Kaler; and by the law clerks are all below market. Accordingly, plaintiffs have established that their counsel charged below-market rates, and have satisfied the second prong of the SOCM test.
Plaintiffs have also established that their counsel lowered their fees out of public interest motives, satisfying the first prong. By enacting a mandatory fee-shifting statute to help antitrust plaintiffs bring suits, Congress determined that antitrust actions were in the public interest. Congress believed that the proper enforcement of the antitrust laws is important to the nation's economic health. See, e.g., Hawaii v. Standard Oil Co., 405 U.S. 251, 262, 92 S. Ct. 885, 891, 31 L. Ed. 2d 184 (1972) ("Every violation of the antitrust laws is a blow to the free-enterprise system envisaged by Congress."). The method Congress chose for the enforcement of the antitrust laws is largely private lawsuits. See, e.g., Alyeska Pipeline Co. v. Wilderness Society, 421 U.S. 240, 263, 95 S. Ct. 1612, 1624, 44 L. Ed. 2d 141 (1975) (citing antitrust as "prime example" of law that Congress intended to be enforced by private *116 actions); Zenith Corp. v. Hazeltine, 395 U.S. 100, 130-31, 89 S. Ct. 1562, 1580, 23 L. Ed. 2d 129 (1969) (encouraging private antitrust actions "serve[s] the high purpose of enforcing the antitrust laws"); Perma Life Mufflers, Inc. v. International Parts Corp., 392 U.S. 134, 139, 88 S. Ct. 1981, 1984, 20 L. Ed. 2d 982 (1968) (private antitrust actions are the "bulwark of antitrust enforcement").
In sum, the evidence that plaintiffs have produced in their supplemental memoranda convinces this court that nothing has materially changed since 1988, when the Court of Appeals ruled that Mr. Yablonski charged below market rates in order to take cases for the public good. See SOCM, 857 F.2d at 1518. Then, as now, his clients may recover his market rates not his lower, actual rates for his work.
Having determined that plaintiffs are entitled to prevailing market rates, this court turns to the next task of ascertaining the prevailing market rates for the work that plaintiffs' counsel performed.
Plaintiffs are, of course, entitled to the fees that their counsels' services demand in the marketplace. For the impressive antitrust work counsel performed in this case, plaintiffs are entitled to the fees that similarly experienced antitrust lawyers command in the District of Columbia. Although it is "widely believed" that antitrust lawyers are among the most generously compensated attorneys, plaintiffs' best efforts have not produced evidence that a submarket of antitrust lawyers actually command different (higher) fees than other lawyers in town. (Pls.' Supp.Mem. at 6, 17.) From plaintiffs' evidence, it appears that lawyers performing antitrust work charge the same rates as lawyers performing many other types of legal work. (Pls.' Supp.Mem. at 6.) Accordingly, plaintiffs may only recover these general commercial rates for their counsels' antitrust work in this case.
The general commercial rates can be gleaned from the matrices and affidavits that plaintiffs have produced. (The newspaper surveys that plaintiffs produced are not competent evidence. See supra at 10.) Since lawyers' rates vary with years of experience, the rates of each member of plaintiffs' legal team will be examined separately.
Similarly, the evidence for other lawyers who worked with Mr. Yablonski on this case Messrs. Both and Edelman; Colwell; Moser and Kaler; and the law clerks supports their requested hourly rates. Accordingly, plaintiffs will receive their requested rates for each member of their legal team.
As this court has already determined, plaintiffs are entitled to current rates instead of historical rates in order to compensate for the three-year delay in payment. (Mem.Op. 839 F. Supp. at 918.) Lengthy delays in payment warrant compensation, and the award of current rates concededly a rough measure of compensation has been approved by the Supreme Court. See Missouri v. Jenkins, 491 U.S. 274, 283-84, 109 S. Ct. 2463, 2469, 105 L. Ed. 2d 229 (1989).
Yet the regular payments simply shifted the hardship from plaintiffs' counsel to plaintiffs. Plaintiffs, if not their counsel, were deprived for three to four years of the use of the funds that they paid to counsel. "The fact that the cost is borne by the client and not the attorney does not alleviate the hardship of waiting for attorney's fees until the end of the litigation. Any other result would create an incentive for plaintiffs not to pay their attorneys until the conclusion of the litigation." Gulfstream III Associates, Inc. v. Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., 995 F.2d 414, 425 (3d Cir. 1993). Since plaintiffs' attorneys plan to reimburse plaintiffs for the fees paid to date (Pls.' Supp. Reply at 16 n. 16), plaintiffs and their counsel can be seen as a single economic unit for these purposes. A hardship to one in effect harms the other. Accordingly, plaintiffs are entitled to an award at current market rates.
Yet defendants' supplemental memorandum has not provided this court with any evidence of such lower rates. Defendants had the burden of producing evidence of lower rates for "mixed" high-skill and low-skill work, and they did not meet their burden. They had the chance in their supplemental memorandum to offer evidence that experienced counsel who occasionally perform low-skill (if important) tasks do not command the same high rates of experienced counsel who perform high-skill tasks exclusively. They might have shown that plaintiffs' matrices and affidavits compile the rates of big law firms in which experienced lawyers confine themselves to high-skill tasks, and they might have then argued that plaintiffs may be overcompensated if they get matrix rates for mixed tasks. Yet defendants did not produce such evidence.
Defendants' alternative solution awarding paralegal rates for the hours at issue is also too harsh. Mr. Yablonski's performance of research and clerical tasks accomplished more than a paralegal or law *119 clerk could have accomplished. Immersing himself personally in the facts and management of this case proved a good tactical decision which helped plaintiffs win their case. His performance of low-skill tasks was not a second-best option necessitated by a shortage of law clerks or paralegals on his staff; it was a smart strategic choice.
Accordingly, plaintiffs will recover their requested rates for the contested hours.
The only cost issue for which supplemental memoranda was permitted was the question of investigation and data research costs. Originally, this court disallowed plaintiffs' requested expense of $6,275.78 for "investigation and data research," because it was not clear what the claimed cost covered. Courts have statutory authority only to shift certain costs, and because the court did not know what "investigation and data research" was, the court denied plaintiffs' request rather than risk exceeding its statutory authority to shift fees.
Based on plaintiffs' supplemental memorandum, it appears that plaintiffs' investigation costs are simply one of the incidental legal expenses that lawyers bill to private clients routinely. Defendants have not challenged the reasonableness of the investigation costs. Accordingly, plaintiffs shall be awarded their $6,275.78 in investigation costs.
For litigating this case, plaintiffs will be awarded fees and costs in accordance with the chart set forth as Appendix B to this memorandum opinion. All of the decisions of this memorandum opinion on defendants' witnesses' expenses, on compensation for time at trial, on counsels' rates, on counsels' hours, and on plaintiffs' investigation costs are incorporated into the chart.
3. Plaintiffs' application for attorney's fees and expenses is granted. Defendants shall, within forty-five days of the date of this order, pay plaintiffs attorney's fees and expenses in the amount of $1,744,578.41.
 Brown v. Pro Football, Inc., 839 F. Supp. 905 (D.D.C.1993) ["Mem.Op."].
 The parties' agreement, read literally, asks this court to tax $150 per diem per witness. Yet 28 U.S.C. § 1821(b) permits courts to shift no more than $40 daily for such "per diem" costs. See 10 Wright, Miller & Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2678, at 386 (1983).
Construing the parties' agreement so as not to violate the statute, this court will assume that the parties agreed to convey only $40 per day per witness in "per diem" costs and that the remainder $110 per day per witness is boot.
This construction makes sense, since defendants must have been glad to pay $440 in boot to get plaintiffs to agree to this cost-saving arrangement. The arrangement spared defendants from potential liability for the hundreds of dollars in extra travel costs that plaintiffs would have incurred had their plaintiffs' counsel traveled to the witnesses.
 In their motion to reconsider, plaintiffs also make an alternative argument that because defendants had four to seven lawyers in the courtroom during the trial three at counsel table and several in the gallery plaintiffs should be able to bill for the fees of their five lawyers at plaintiffs' table. Yet the billing practice of defendants' counsel is not directly relevant. What matters is what a reasonable client would pay, not what any particular client including defendants in this case actually paid.
 Defendants emphasize that plaintiffs' counsel charged plaintiffs in this case as much as or more than they have charged other clients. (Defs.' Resp. to Pls.' Supp.Mem. at 6, 8.) Even if true, this does not disprove that the rates the Brown plaintiffs paid were still below market.
 The Laffey fee matrix was developed in Laffey v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., 572 F. Supp. 354, 371-75 (D.D.C.1983), aff'd, 746 F.2d 4 (D.C.Cir.1984), rev'd in part on other grounds, SOCM. The Laffey matrix is set forth in Appendix A of Covington v. District of Columbia, 839 F. Supp. 894, 898 (D.D.C.1993).
The Laffey matrix received a degree of approval from the Court of Appeals and has been employed by six other District of Columbia district judges. See Covington, No. 87-2658, Mem.Op. at 9 nn. 9, 10 (collecting cases).
 The U.S. Attorney's fee matrix was compiled by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia. This matrix, updated for 1993-94, is set forth as Appendix A to this memorandum opinion.
 In 1989-90, Mr. Yablonski received $200-210 per hour from plaintiffs for his work in this case and in other non-antitrust matters. (Pls.' Supp. Mem. at 4.) For work performed in this time period by lawyers of twenty years' experience or more, the U.S. Attorney's fee matrix recorded the prevailing market rate as $260 per hour, and the Laffey fee matrix recorded the prevailing market rate as more than $265.
In 1990-91, Mr. Yablonski received $210 per hour. (Pls.' Supp.Mem. at 4.) For work performed in this time period by lawyers of twenty years' experience or more, the U.S. Attorney's fee matrix recorded the prevailing market rate as $275 per hour, and the Laffey fee matrix recorded the prevailing market rate as more than $265.
In 1991-92, Mr. Yablonski received $220-250 per hour. (Pls.' Supp.Mem. at 4.) For work performed in this time period by lawyers of twenty years' experience or more, the U.S. Attorney's fee matrix recorded the prevailing market rate as $285 per hour, and the Laffey fee matrix recorded the prevailing market rate as more than $265.
As analyzed in the text above, plaintiffs' evidence, viewed critically, supports plaintiffs' original $325 per hour request more firmly than plaintiffs' newly raised request. Accordingly, plaintiffs will be held to their original fee request of $325 per hour.
 For example, the U.S. Attorney's fee matrix would award only $300 per hour for 1992-93.
The Laffey matrix, if extrapolated by adding $10 annually since 1988-89, would award him $305 for 1992-93. See supra n. 9.
The evidence that supports a $325 hourly rate for Mr. Yablonski, analyzed above, easily supports these more modest fee requests for Messrs. Edelman and Both.
Defendants' counter-evidence is drawn only from fee surveys in the Legal Times, which are not competent evidence.
 Plaintiffs seek $105 and $100 per hour for the work of Messrs. Moser and Kaler, respectively. (Pls.' Supp.Mem. at 15.) Both are 1990 law school graduates.
Plaintiffs' evidence supports these fee requests. According to the U.S. Attorney's fee matrix, lawyers with less than three years' experience were billed at $130 per hour in 1992-93.
 Plaintiffs seek $45 per hour for the work of law clerk Maxwell Cohen (Pls.' Supp.Mem. at 15), a rate supported by plaintiffs' evidence. According to the U.S. Attorney's fee matrix, law clerks in the District were billed at $75 per hour in 1992-93.
Plaintiffs also seek $85 per hour for the part-time work of Mr. Moser in late 1991 and early 1992, while he was finishing work towards a masters degree in tax law at Georgetown. (Pls.' Supp.Mem. at 15-16.) (By contrast, plaintiffs seek $105 per hour for Moser's work in late 1992, after he had completed his L.L.M. See supra n. 16.) Recent law graduates like Mr. Moser earned $130 per hour in 1992-93, according to the U.S. Attorney's fee matrix.
 Because 1994 is young and because plaintiffs seek compensation only for work done up to June 1993, the current rates for the purposes of this fee award are the rates of 1992-93, not 1993-94. Plaintiffs' requested rates are all 1992-93 rates.

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