Opinion ID: 73450
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Drafting the Complaint

Text: In addition to billing 21.74 hours for gathering pre-filing factual 13 information and 38.46 hours for pre-filing legal research, the plaintiffs’ attorneys billed 147.88 hours solely for the drafting work done on the complaint. The defendants argue that 147.88 hours for drafting a complaint, even one that is 179 paragraphs (58 pages) long, is patently excessive and that private clients would not be willing to pay for that many hours. (The attorneys billed $34,773.85 for those 147.88 hours of drafting work alone.) The defendants contend that 38 of the 179 paragraphs of the complaint were taken in whole or in part from the filings in a similar case, ACLU v. Reno, 929 F.Supp 824 (E.D. Pa. 1996), aff’d, Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844, 117 S. Ct. 2329 (1997). That other case, which had been filed at the time this case commenced, concerned a First Amendment challenge to a federal statute prohibiting the transmission of pornographic and indecent speech to minors over the Internet. The plaintiffs respond by noting that their attorneys submitted sworn affidavits stating that their billing records accurately reflect the time required to draft the complaint in this case. Citing Perkins v. Mobile Hous. Bd., 847 F.2d 735, 738 (11th Cir. 1988), they argue that the district court properly declined to exclude any of the claimed hours for drafting the complaint because, they say, [s]worn testimony [by plaintiffs' attorneys] that . . . [they] took the time claimed 14 is evidence of considerable weight on the issue of the time required in the usual case and therefore, it must appear that the time claimed is obviously and convincingly excessive under the circumstances. But giving weight to sworn statements of fee applicants does not mean accepting those statements as gospel. Courts should not delegate their duty to examine and judge the reasonableness of fee applications to the applicants. Having conducted our own review of the complaint and the entire record in this case, we conclude that 147.88 hours for drafting the complaint was excessive–even “obviously and convincingly excessive”–under the circumstances of this case. While there may be a complaint that reasonably requires 147.88 hours to draft, the complaint in this case is not it. Thirty-six of the complaint’s paragraphs contain information taken in whole or in part from the complaint and the proposed findings of fact in the ACLU v. Reno case.2 So, 20 percent of the complaint’s 179 paragraphs are 2 Although the defendants contend that 38 of the complaint’s paragraphs were adapted from the ACLU v. Reno filings, our review of the documents leads us to conclude that the actual number is 36. Compare R1: 1 ¶ ¶ 1,3, 4, 9, 16, 17, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 42, 43, 44, 47, 50, 87, 110, 111, 112, 114, 156, 157, 160, 161, 162, 163, 177, 178 with R 4: 36 Ex. E ¶ ¶ 1, 5, 7, 10, 24, 25, 38, 40, 44, 46, 47, 49, 53, 62, 80, 81, 82, 87, 150, 153, 174, 175 and R4: 36 Ex. F ¶ ¶ 27, 155, 156, 157, 160, 161, 162, 286, 291, 292, 303, 304, 305, 308, 485, 15 derived from publicly available filings in another case. Those filings were not only publicly available, they were also easily accessible to these plaintiffs’ attorneys because two of them were also attorneys for the plaintiffs in ACLU v. Reno. An attorney is not entitled to be paid in a case for the work he or another attorney did in some other case. That reason alone would justify holding that the district court abused its discretion by failing to exclude any of the 147.88 hours billed for drafting the complaint. See Norman, 836 F.2d at 1301 (district court must exclude excessive, redundant, or unnecessary hours from the fee award). There is another reason, too. When the plaintiffs filed their complaint they also filed a motion for preliminary injunction, a brief, and fourteen affidavits (one for each of the named plaintiffs). The attorneys billed 97.8 hours for preparation of those affidavits. The defendants have not directly challenged that aspect of the fee application, so the full amount of the hours spent on the fourteen affidavits will be paid.3 No problem there. 489, 554, 555, 556, 559, 567, 570,572, 574, 575, 587, 606, 615, 620, 665. 3 We note that the defendants did argue that it was unnecessary to use 14 plaintiffs to challenge the unconstitutionality of the statute, and it therefore follows that 14 affidavits were not necessary to support the preliminary injunction motion. However, that argument is conclusory and fails to convince us the district court clearly erred in finding as a fact that each of the 14 plaintiffs’ claims “was unique and necessary to illustrate the myriad effects of the [challenged] statute on the 16 The problem is here. Our comparison of the fourteen affidavits with the 179-paragraph complaint reveals that the bulk of the complaint is simply an edited version of those affidavits. Paragraphs 4-17 and 87-171 of the complaint contain background information on the plaintiffs and describe the impact of the Georgia Act on their activities. All of the information in those 99 paragraphs is taken from the fourteen affidavits.4 It has merely been re-edited. In addition, another 48 paragraphs of the complaint (paragraphs 26-73) contain general background allegations about computer communications, the Internet, and anonymous communication on the Internet. Virtually all of the allegations in those 48 paragraphs is derived from information contained in one of those fourteen affidavits the plaintiffs filed in support of the motion for a preliminary diverse class of Internet users.” 4 Compare R1: 1 ¶ ¶ 4, 87-91, 170-71 with R1: 3 Ex M ¶ ¶ 2, 4, 5, 7, 9-12; R1: 1 ¶ ¶ 5, 92-96, 170-71 with R1: 3 Ex G ¶ ¶ 2, 4, 6-8, 10, 11; R1: 1 ¶ ¶ 6, 97100, 170 with R1: 3 Ex J ¶ ¶ 2-4, 6-8; R1: 1 ¶ ¶ 7, 101-103, 170 with R1: 3 Ex I ¶ ¶ 2-6; R1: 1 ¶ ¶ 8, 104-109, 168, 170, 171 with R1: 3 Ex F ¶ ¶ 1-5, 9-12, 17-19, 22, 25-28; R1: 1 ¶ ¶ 9, 110-115,168, 170-71 with R1: 3 Ex A ¶ ¶ 1-5, 9, 11-13; R1: 1 ¶ ¶ 10, 116-121, 169-71 with R1: 3 Ex E ¶ ¶ 1-2, 4, 9-15, 14; R1: 1 ¶ ¶ 11, 122-132, 169-71 with R1: 3 Ex D ¶ ¶ 2-7, 9, 11-13, 15-18; R1: 1 ¶ ¶ 12, 133-138 with R1: 3 Ex N ¶ ¶ 2-8, 13-15; R1: 1 ¶ ¶ 13, 139-144, 168, 170 with R1: 3 Ex C ¶ ¶ 1, 3-5, 7- 11; R1: 1 ¶ ¶ 14, 145-150, 169-71 with R1: 3 Ex K ¶ ¶ 2-8, 10; R1: 1 ¶ ¶ 15, 151155, 169-71 with R1: 3 Ex L ¶ ¶ 2-8; R1: 1 ¶ ¶ 16, 156-160, 169-71 with R1: 3 Ex H ¶ ¶ 1, 5-7, 10-13, 16, 17; and R1: 1 ¶ ¶ 17, 161-168, 170, 171 with R1: 3 Ex B ¶ ¶ 1, 2, 4-15, 18, 19. 17 injunction.5 All together, 147 of the 179 paragraphs in the complaint, or 82 percent of them, are edited versions of the contemporaneously filed affidavits, the work on which was billed separately and will be paid.6 Only 32 paragraphs in the complaint are not derived from the affidavits. Of those 32 paragraphs, four7 contain information taken from the ACLU v. Reno complaint, three8 consist of verbatim quotations of the allegedly unconstitutional Georgia act challenged by the plaintiffs, and one9 simply realleges the previous 174 paragraphs. Thus, of the 179 paragraphs, only 24 consist of material not derived from some other source. Under these circumstances, and given the fact that the attorneys have billed and will be paid an additional 97.8 hours to prepare the affidavits, the district court abused its discretion by failing to exclude as excessive some of the 147.88 hours billed for drafting the complaint. 5 Compare R1: 1 ¶ ¶ 26-73 with R1: 3 Ex A ¶ ¶ 14-61. 6 There is some overlap between these 147 paragraphs consisting of information taken from the affidavits and the previously referenced 36 paragraphs taken from the ACLU v. Reno filings. Specifically, 32 of the 147 paragraphs derived from the affidavits also contain information taken from the ACLU v. Reno filings. 7 R1:1 ¶ ¶ 1, 3, 177, and 178. 8 R1:1 ¶ ¶ 21-23. 9 R1:1 ¶ 175. 18 Having concluded that a substantial number of the 147.88 hours must be excluded as excessive, the question arises whether we must remand to the district court the issue of the proper number of hours to exclude, or whether we should decide it ourselves. Although we sometimes remand fee determination issues to the district court for further consideration, we have discretion to decide such issues at the appellate level. As we pointed out in Norman, “[f]or decades the law in this circuit has been that ‘[t]he court, either trial or appellate, is itself an expert on the question and may consider its own knowledge and experience concerning reasonable and proper fees and may form an independent judgment either with or without the aid of witnesses as to value.” Norman, 836 F.2d at 1303 (quoting Campbell v. Green, 112 F.2d 143, 144 (5th Cir. 1940)) (emphasis added). Accordingly, “where the time or fees claimed seem expanded or there is a lack of documentation or testimonial support the [appellate] court may make the award on its own experience.” Id. We have relied on our expertise to make fee determinations in several instances without remanding the issue to the district court. See, e.g., B-M-G Inv. Co. v. Continental/Moss Gordin, Inc., 437 F.2d 892, 893 (5th Cir. 1971) (reducing the fee award by $75,000 after determining the award was excessive); 19 In the Matter of TMT Trailer Ferry, Inc., 577 F.2d 1296, 1299-1300 (5th Cir. 1978) (reducing the fee award by over $100,000 after determining the award was excessive); Knighton v. Watkins, 616 F.2d 795, 800-01 (5th Cir. 1980) (relying on this Court’s own expertise to determine a reasonable hourly rate for purposes of calculating the fee award); In the Matter of U.S. Golf Corp., 639 F.2d 1197, 1206-07 (5th Cir. 1981) (same).10 At least three of our sister circuits also have recognized that appellate courts possess the expertise and discretionary authority to resolve certain fee determination issues at the appellate level without the need for further remand. See Halderman v. Pennhurst State School & Hosp., 49 F.3d 939, 942-45 (3d Cir. 1995); Rum Creek Coal Sales, Inc. v. Caperton, 31 F.3d 169, 181 (4th Cir. 1994); Sidag Aktiengesellschaft v. Smoked Foods Prods. Co., Inc., 960 F.2d 564, 566-67 (5th Cir. 1992). For appellate courts to resolve, instead of remand, fee determination issues is consistent with the Supreme Court’s directive in Hensley, 461 U.S. at 437 & n.12, 103 S. Ct. at 1941 & n.12, that a request for attorney fees should not result 10 We may not, however, make the fee award at the appellate level in cases where an evidentiary hearing is required to clarify disputed issues of fact and an evidentiary hearing was requested, but denied, before the district court. See King v. McCord, 621 F.2d 205, 206 (5th Cir. 1980). 20 in “a second major litigation.” By deciding such matters ourselves where possible, we dispose of issues that ought not be extensively litigated, and we exercise an appellate court’s authority to “direct the entry of such appropriate judgment . . . as may be just under the circumstances.” 28 U.S.C. § 2106. Putting an end to attorneys fees issues as soon as possible is, to borrow a phrase from Holmes, a “concession to the shortness of life.” Reeve v. Dennett, 11 N.E. 938, 944 (Mass. 1887). In this instance, we will exercise our discretion and apply our own expertise in fee determination issues to resolve the issue of how many hours should be excluded as excessive for the task of drafting the complaint in this case. Keeping in mind that “the measure of reasonable hours is determined by the profession’s judgment of the time that may be conscionably billed and not the least time in which it might theoretically have been done,” Norman, 836 F.2d at 1306, we conclude that lead counsel McClain and Weber should have been able to draft a complaint comprised primarily of material derived from other sources and with only 24 completely original paragraphs in no more than 40 hours (i.e., 20 hours each). The additional 107.88 hours billed by the plaintiffs’ attorneys for drafting the complaint–13.89 by McClain, 2.93 by 21 Weber, 1.31 by Thorpe, 7.90 by Hansen, and 81.85 by Beeson–should be excluded.