Opinion ID: 786554
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Reasonableness of Award

Text: 54 Finally, having determined that an award of attorney fees was warranted, the district court made an independent review of the billing statements and determined that the initial lodestar amount, representing reasonable attorney fees incurred by Diamond Time in this case, was $80,464.04. That amount was then reduced by 20% to account for fees incurred with respect to the negligence claim only. As a result, the district court awarded $64,371.23 in attorney fees to Diamond Time. 55 Plaintiffs do not challenge the calculation of this amount, but argue that it is unreasonable because it does not account for the defendant's unwillingness to settle. The district court rejected this argument, explaining that: 56 The deadline for filing dispositive motions in this case was June 21, 2002. The plaintiffs' initial settlement demand was not made until September 30, 2002. The plaintiffs cannot be heard now to complain that the defendant did not settle in a timely manner when the first offer to settle was not made until three months after the dispositive motion deadline, and just two months prior to trial, at which point the defendant had already incurred almost two-thirds of the amount of attorney's fees it now seeks. 57 255 F.Supp.2d at 801-02. Plaintiffs contend that because this conclusion rested on incorrect or incomplete facts concerning their first offer to settle, the district court abused its discretion in refusing to further reduce the amount of attorney fees. 58 First, plaintiffs argue that the district court obviously overlooked the short declaration submitted by their attorney, Richard Busch, in which he stated that defendant's counsel, Horton Frank, rebuffed an attempt to settle all the claims against Diamond Time in June 2002. That declaration specifically states that Busch approached Frank during a break in depositions sometime in June 2002 and offered to dismiss the claims for a very minimal amount of money. Frank apparently replied that plaintiffs would have to agree to dismiss the claims with prejudice and to pay all or part of Diamond Time's attorney fees and costs. It is true that the district court did not mention this oral exchange in its opinion. The court also did not mention the letters dated April 8, 2002, and July 31, 2002, in which defendant's counsel asked that plaintiffs make a settlement demand. In the April letter, defendant's counsel conveyed both that Diamond Time had limited financial resources and that it had begun incurring expenses in preparation of its dispositive motion. The letter also stated that: 59 At the case management conference, Judge Higgins made it very clear that he expected you to put a price on your horse and to let the Defendants in the case know what the price was for purposes of settlement. If you intend to do so, I ask that you take what I have told you in this letter into account. If you do not intend to do so, my client will simply move forward and continue to defend the litigation. 60 Plaintiffs did not respond except by making the informal offer in June 2002. On July 31, 2002, Frank wrote to plaintiffs' counsel as a follow up to that exchange and expressed willingness to discuss settlement. On September 30, 2002, plaintiffs made its first written offer to dismiss all the lawsuits against Diamond Time for payment of $20,000. 11 61 Despite the failure of the district court to discuss plaintiffs' oral offer to settle for a very minimal amount, we find no abuse of discretion in the district court's refusal to reduce the amount of the attorney fees to account for defendant's unwillingness to settle. Defendant did not display unwillingness to discuss settlement, only an unwillingness to pay plaintiffs money it did not have, in order to settle claims it believed would be dismissed with prejudice, when it had already incurred significant attorney fees in defending itself. Cf. Diamond Star Bldg. Corp. v. Freed, 30 F.3d 503, 506-07 (4th Cir.1994) (reversing denial of attorney fees and finding it an abuse of discretion to penalize the prevailing defendant for refusing to admit liability and pay to settle a frivolous action). 62 In concluding that the attorney fees incurred by defendant were reasonable, the district court noted that Diamond Time was represented by only a single copyright attorney and that Diamond Time had limited its discovery and motion practice due to its limited financial resources. Plaintiffs, on the other hand, chose to litigate aggressively each and every issue against each and every defendant, regardless of a particular defendant's resources or the strengths of the claims against it. The fees incurred by the defendant here were justified and necessary to guard against the plaintiffs' take-no-prisoners tactics. Bridgeport, 255 F.Supp.2d at 802. 63 AFFIRMED.