Opinion ID: 885550
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Reasonable Hours.

Text: ¶ 49 Whether the District Court abused its discretion by reducing the Patients' requested hours? ¶ 50 The second factor that a trial court must determine in reaching a lodestar figure is the number of hours reasonably expended by the prevailing party's attorneys. The Patients contend that their counsel made a good faith effort to exclude inefficient and duplicative hours and that the District Court abused its discretion by reducing their billable hours further without explaining how it arrived at a specific percentage reduction. ¶ 51 The Supreme Court has described the determination of reasonable hours as follows: The party seeking an award of fees should submit evidence supporting the hours worked and rates claimed. Where the documentation of hours is inadequate, the district court may reduce the award accordingly. The district court also should exclude from this initial fee calculation hours that were not reasonably expended. S.Rep. No. 94-1011, p. 6 (1976). Cases may be overstaffed, and the skill and experience of lawyers vary widely. Counsel for the prevailing party should make a good faith effort to exclude from a fee request hours that are excessive, redundant, or otherwise unnecessary, just as a lawyer in private practice ethically is obligated to exclude such hours from his fee submission. In the private sector, `billing judgment' is an important component in fee setting. It is no less important here. Hours that are not properly billed to one's client also are not properly billed to one's adversary pursuant to statutory authority. Copeland v. Marshall (D.C.Cir.1980), 641 F.2d 880, 891 (en banc). Hensley, 461 U.S. at 433-34, 103 S.Ct. at 1939-40. ¶ 52 Following the lead of the Supreme Court, other courts have stressed that the familiarity of a trial court with the underlying litigation warrants considerable deference to its findings on such matters as whether the hours claimed by prevailing counsel are redundant. See, e.g., Davis, 976 F.2d at 1544 (citing Hensley, 461 U.S. at 437, 103 S.Ct. at 1941). We agree. Unlike determinations of the prevailing market rate or the relevant community which are capable of a more thorough review because of a trial court's necessary reliance on facts submitted to it by the parties, a trial court's determination that the hours claimed by a prevailing party are redundant or inefficient can be based entirely on its personal observations. However, this does not mean that a district court can decide arbitrarily to reduce the hours claimed by a prevailing party. A district court must provide a concise but clear explanation of the lodestar, including a discussion of the factors it relied upon in determining the number of hours reasonably expended and, if it employs a percentage reduction, how it arrived at the chosen percentage. See Stewart v. Gates (9th Cir. 1993), 987 F.2d 1450, 1453 (citation omitted). ¶ 53 In determining a reasonable number of hours, the District Court stated: 11. This case was significantly overstaffed by Plaintiffs. For example, at times there were four Plaintiffs' attorneys present at depositions. During the trial Plaintiffs had as many as six attorneys in attendance. One attorney, Andrea Olsen, spent more than 100 hours on post-trial work, which was in addition to the significant number of hours on such work by other members of Plaintiffs' legal team; although Ms. Olsen's fee request already reflects a 25 percent reduction in the number of hours, a further reduction is warranted. 12. The use of out-of-state attorneys also resulted in additional and unnecessary hours. For example, Victor Bolden's hours include, in addition to travel time for each trip to Montana, the one-hour trip between his home and the New York airport. While travel time is generally compensable, in this case the number of hours was excessive. 13. Two attorneys, James Goetz and Helen Herskoff, played no significant role in this case and their efforts largely duplicated the work of other attorneys. .... 22. The number of hours spent on [the fee petition] is excessive, particularly in light of Mr. Renz's skill and experience in this area. The issues are neither novel nor complex. The court finds that 25 percent of the hours requested were unnecessary. ¶ 54 We think that this is a sufficiently concise but clear explanation of the District Court's reason for reducing the Patient's requested hours. We do not agree with the Patient's assertion that the District Court should rely upon the plaintiff's good faith effort [to exercise billing judgment] when it determines the basic fee. A trial court is required to independently review a submission of billable hours by a prevailing party to determine the number of hours reasonably expended. See Deukmejian, 987 F.2d at 1401. Furthermore, we note that the Patients have not pointed us to any specific examples where their attorneys exercised billing judgment by reducing the number of hours charged for the categories specifically noted by the District Court, namely, multiple representation at both the depositions and at trial. For example, as the Hospital points out, the Patients billed for two attorneys, Mr. Bolden and Ms. Olsen, for taking notes at trial. Accordingly, we conclude that the District Court's finding that the services the Patient's attorneys provided were inefficient or duplicative is not clearly erroneous. ¶ 55 However, in light of our conclusion that the Patients acted reasonably in seeking out-of-forum representation, we conclude that the District Court erred to the extent that it reduced the hours of out-of-state attorneys solely because they incurred more travel time or other additional, unnecessary hours as compared with what an in-state attorney would have incurred. Because it was reasonable for the Patients to seek out-of-state representation, it was also reasonable for the Patients to incur the extra expenses associated with out-of-state representation, including travel time. We remand to the District Court for a redetermination of its reduction of the hours of out-of-state counsel which were based solely on the fact that those counsel incurred travel time.