Opinion ID: 779977
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the determination of amount

Text: 23 We review only for abuse of discretion the amount of attorney's fees awarded by the district court. See Farley v. Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co., 197 F.3d 1322, 1340 (11th Cir.1999). The district court awarded Toto $260,034.29 in attorney's fees and costs. MBM and McMahan challenge that award on several grounds, only some of which merit discussion here. 24
25 MBM and McMahan contend that Toto's calculations of the amount of attorney's fees to which he was entitled was inflated by more than $70,000. They assert that on March 6, 2000, Toto's counsel discounted all of his attorney's fees to $136,103.54. They claim Toto's fee application sought that amount plus $51,394.76 in subsequent invoices, and that those figures totaled $187,498.30, not the $260,447.72 requested by Toto. 26 Toto disagrees with MBM and McMahan about the March 6, 2000 discount and, therefore, about the total amount sought. According to Toto, as of March 6, 2000, he had paid $71,730 in attorney's fees and had an outstanding balance of $151,226.16. He asserts that only the outstanding balance was discounted by ten percent (from $151,226.16 to $136,103.54), and that the $71,730 he had already paid was not affected by that discount. He says that for services up to March 6, 2000, he sought in his fee application $71,730 plus $136,103.54, which totals $207,833.54. Additionally, he sought $51,394.76 in subsequent invoices for fees incurred thereafter. 27 Our review of the Verified Bill of Fees and Costs shows that, as of March 6, 2000, Toto had been billed for attorney's fees and costs in the amount of $222,956.16 ($1,125.00 for May 1999; $1,941.04 for June 1999; $74,682.71 for July, August, September, and October 1999; and $145,207.41 for November and December 1999). The Verified Bill states that [o]n March 6, 2000 ... [Toto's attorney] agreed... to discount the then outstanding balance of $151,226.16 by ten percent to $136,103.54. (emphasis added). The term outstanding balance refers to the amount unpaid as of that date, see Black's Law Dictionary 1129 (7th ed.1999); it does not refer to fees already paid. Therefore, any fees that were already paid were not affected by the ten-percent discount. Although the Verified Bill did not explicitly state that Toto had already paid $71,730, the implication was clear, because the $222,956.16 of attorney's fees and costs would reduce to an unpaid balance of $151,226.16 only if Toto had paid the difference of $71,730. Toto did not give up his claim to the full amount of the $71,730 he had already paid. 28 Adding the $71,730 that Toto had already paid to the $136,103.54 that resulted from the ten percent discount of the unpaid balance, and then adding to that sum the $48,282.26 of attorney's fees and costs from January, February, and March 2000, and the $3,112.50 anticipated for April 2000, the total comes to $259,228.30. Because the district court had already awarded taxable costs of $4,799.33 pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1920, that amount is subtracted from $259,228.30, and the balance is $254,428.97. 29 In the verified bill, Toto sought $260,447.72. That figure is erroneous according to our calculations, because it is $6,018.75 more than the $254,428.97 to which Toto was entitled. (There is no reason to think that the error is anything other than a mathematical one.) We will remand to the district court for it to reduce the amount of attorney's fees awarded Toto by $6,018.75.
30 MBM and McMahan contend the district court's award of any attorney's fees beyond the $152,268.71 incurred as of December 21, 1999 was in error because Toto's counsel voluntarily limited the fee application to those incurred by that date. Toto's attorney's affidavit, submitted as part of the fee application, stated that he cut off the claimed time immediately following the entry of the summary judgment [on December 21, 1999], even though the client has incurred fees to pursue the issue of entitlement to fees which is fairly recoverable. 31 That language could be plausibly interpreted in two ways. It could be construed to mean that any fees incurred from December 21, 1999 to any time in the future were cut off, in the way MBM and McMahan insist. Or it could be read to mean that Toto was not going to seek fees incurred from December 21, 1999, to the date the affidavit was executed, January 20, 2000. Toto claims he initially decided to forego fees incurred during that period in order to simplify the fee application — and in the hope that making such allowance would obviate a fight on reasonableness — which obviously has not happened. As a result of the dispute over fees, Toto now wants to recover fees incurred during that period and afterwards. 32 Although the district court did not explicitly address this issue, it is clear from its order that the court read the fee application as not limiting the recovery of attorney's fees to those incurred before December 21, 1999, because the amount awarded was $260,034.29, well in excess of the $152,268.71 incurred as of that date. Given the ambiguity of the attorney's fee affidavit, the district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing Toto to recover attorney's fees incurred after January 20, 2000. But the attorney's affidavit clearly excluded any fees incurred from December 21, 1999 to January 20, 2000, and Toto never amended his application to seek those fees. Therefore, fees from that period should not have been awarded, and we remand to the district court to determine that amount and subtract it from the attorney's fees award. 33
34 Determining that time spent calculating the amount of attorney's fees due was not recoverable, the district court lowered Toto's fees request by $905, which is the amount of attorney's fees billed for preparing the fees application. MBM and McMahan contend the district court did not go far enough. They say that it should also have excluded any fees for litigating the issue of how much fees were due, which they calculate would have reduced the award by another $51,973.75. 35 The Florida Supreme Court has held that, while attorney's fees incurred for litigating the issue of entitlement to attorney's fees are recoverable, fees incurred for litigating the amount of attorney's fees are not. State Farm Fire & Cas. Co. v. Palma, 629 So.2d 830, 833 (Fla.1993). In the context of a contingency fee agreement, the Palma court explained that the work involved in litigating the amount of attorney's fees inures solely to the attorney's benefit and cannot be considered services rendered in procuring full payment of the judgment. Id. It noted the contrary federal court practice of allowing recovery of attorney's fees for litigating both entitlement and amount issues, and it distinguished that practice based on different statutory purposes. The purpose underlying most federal statutory fee authorizations, the Court explained, is to encourage attorneys to represent indigent clients, and allowing recovery for fees from litigating the amount of fees comports with that purpose. Id. In contrast, the Florida statute involved in that case has a different purpose — to discourage the contesting of valid claims ... and to reimburse successful insureds for their attorney's fees, which led the Florida Supreme Court to the conclusion that the statute's purpose would not be furthered by permitting the award of attorney's fees incurred in litigating the amount of them due. Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). 36 In this case we deal with attorney's fees awarded pursuant to § 768.79, the purpose of which is to `terminate all claims, end disputes, and obviate the need for further intervention of the judicial process' by encouraging parties to exercise their `organic right ... to contract a settlement, which by definition concludes all claims unless the contract of settlement specifies otherwise.' MGR Equip. Corp. v. Wilson Ice Enters., Inc., 731 So.2d 1262, 1264 (Fla.1999) (quoting Unicare Health Facilities, Inc. v. Mort, 553 So.2d 159, 161 (Fla.1989)). That purpose does not include encouraging the representation of indigents and does not support an award of attorney's fees incurred litigating the amount of those fees. See also Diaz v. Santa Fe Healthcare, Inc., 642 So.2d 765, 766 (Fla. 1st DCA 1994) (holding that where at least one of the purposes of a statute awarding attorney's fees is to encourage attorneys to represent indigent persons ... the trial court has discretion... to make a fee award ... which encompasses the time spent establishing the amount of the fee). 37 Toto attempts to distinguish Palma by noting that it concerned a contingency fee agreement, whereas [t]his is an hourly fee case [and Toto's attorneys] will get paid... regardless of any fee recovery. We are unpersuaded by that argument, because the Florida Supreme Court has explained that whether attorney's fees should be awarded for litigating the amount of fees due depends on the purpose of the statute under which the fees are sought; it does not depend on the method of calculating them. Palma, 629 So.2d at 833. 38 The district court should have decreased Toto's attorney's fee award by the amount spent litigating the amount of attorney's fees to which he was entitled. MBM and McMahan claim that amount is $51,973.75, but they do not tell us how they arrived at that figure. On remand the district court should determine the amount of attorney's fees incurred by Toto in litigating the amount of attorney's fees, and subtract that amount from the fees to be awarded to him.