Opinion ID: 157110
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Hearing on fees request

Text: 44 As an independent challenge to the district court's decision, the plaintiffs contend that the court abused its discretion by failing to hold an evidentiary hearing on the attorneys fees issue and then relying on a rationale--i.e. the fairly simple nature of the case--that was not articulated in the defendants' briefs. This claim has no merit because the plaintiffs have been unable to point to any indication in the record that they requested a hearing. Ordinarily, a district court does not abuse its discretion in deciding not to hold an evidentiary hearing when no such request is ever made. Furthermore, many courts have long accepted the proposition that there is no need for an evidentiary hearing in a attorney's fees case when a record has been fully developed through briefs, affidavits, and depositions. See Derfner & Wolf, supra, p 18.06[a] (collecting cases). 45 In this case, the plaintiffs have failed to show that any new information they would have presented at the hearing would have been critical to the district court's consideration. 12 A district court does not abuse its discretion when it fails to hold a hearing at which the parties will simply reiterate arguments they already have made in their briefs. 46 The case relied upon by the plaintiffs for their argument on this point is inapposite. See Michael A. Cramer, MAI, SRPA, Inc. v. United States, 47 F.3d 379, 380-81 (10th Cir.1995). The Cramer case involved a decision by a district court to deny a fee request just three days after the defendant had filed its opposition to the request and before the plaintiff had a chance to respond to the defendant's arguments. Id. In that posture, we held that the district court's failure to supplement the record was an abuse of discretion. See id. at 384. We do not have a similar problem in this case because the record the parties created was quite adequate to resolve the fees issue.