Opinion ID: 203277
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Apportionment of Fees.

Text: Against this background, we return to the case at hand. The district court decided that the responsibility for fees should not run jointly and severally, and that apportionment was in order; no one disputes either of these eminently reasonable decisions. The court proceeded to use the relative liability method as a means of effectuating that apportionment, comparing the damages assessed against each defendant to apportion the awarded attorneys' fees. See Torres-Rivera II, 2007 WL 906176, at . Because the total damages assessed against Espada were sixty-five percent of the aggregate damages awarded, the court apportioned responsibility for payment of the fees sixty-five percent to Espada and thirty-five percent to O'Neill. [2] The court based this division on the following arithmetic: it divided each of the portions of the damages awarded against Espada and O'Neill ($220,000 and $120,000, respectively) by the total damages award ($340,000). This calculation resulted in sixty-five percent responsibility for Espada and thirty-five percent for O'Neill. The issue here is the district court's selection of a relative liability method of apportionment. The plaintiffs take umbrage at that choice. They asseverate that since O'Neill was the only defendant to mount a defense  and a ferocious one at that  their lawyers spent virtually all of their time litigating against him. Conversely, very little time was spent litigating against Espada. On this basis, they posit that O'Neill should be held responsible for the lion's share of the awarded fees. O'Neill disagrees with this construct. He emphasizes the broad discretion vested in the district court and argues that a relative liability apportionment of the fee award falls within the encincture of that discretion. This is a case in which the considerable time spent by the plaintiffs in litigating against O'Neill dwarfs the rather modest amount of time spent in litigating against Espada. O'Neill, as was his right, mounted a Stalingrad-type defense, employing four lawyers and battling the plaintiffs at every turn. By contrast, Espada never answered the complaint but, rather, defaulted while the litigation was in an embryonic stage. The time, effort, and energy involved in litigating against O'Neill  a take-no-prisoners opponent  scarcely can be compared to the time, effort, and energy involved in securing a default and proving damages against a non-appearing party. Of course, Espada's actions were front and center. The claims against O'Neill were based on multiple theories of failure to intervene to prevent Espada's unlawful behavior. The first of these required the plaintiffs to show that Espada used excessive force; that O'Neill observed what was transpiring; and that he took no action to prevent the ongoing mayhem. See Torres-Rivera I, 406 F.3d at 51-52. The second theory required the plaintiffs to show that O'Neill assisted Espada in placing one or both of the victims in harm's way. See id. at 52. So viewed, developing the claims against O'Neill depended in part on developing the basis for a case against Espada. But given the entry of default, the plaintiffs would not have had to make the case against Espada except for O'Neill's decision to resist the claims against him. See Goldman, Antonetti, Ferraiuoli, Axtmayer & Hertell v. Medfit Int'l, Inc., 982 F.2d 686, 693 (1st Cir.1993) ([A]n entry of a default against a defendant establishes the defendant's liability.). The rule that we glean from the case law runs along the following lines. Where apportionment is indicated, the choice among available options generally lies within the district court's sound discretion. See Grendel's Den, 749 F.2d at 960. But when the time required to litigate against one defendant is grossly disproportionate to the time required to litigate against another defendant and the two defendants are not in privity, then the time expended method of apportionment should be used. See, e.g., Corder, 947 F.2d at 383. This is a case of the latter stripe: because Espada defaulted, the plaintiffs had no need to spend significant time either in preparing a case against him or in presenting that case to the jury. [3] Thus, it was O'Neill, as the lone defendant actually contesting the plaintiffs' proof, who caused the plaintiffs to incur the bulk of the time expended. The short of it, then, is that the amount of time spent in mounting the case against O'Neill was grossly disproportionate to the amount of time spent in litigating against Espada. We have carefully perused the record, the district court's explanation of the fee award, and the court's comments on the choice of a relative liability method of apportionment. See Torres Rivera II, 2007 WL 906176, at . It is clear from that perusal that the district court did not appropriately weigh the disparity in time expended, nor did it offer any adequate justification for veering off in the direction of relative liability. Fairness and equity dictate that, given this inequality and the apparent absence of any offsetting circumstances, the court should as a matter of law have used the time expended method of apportionment and calculated the approximate time spent in litigating against each defendant. See Grendel's Den, 749 F.2d at 960 (explaining that a court undertaking to fashion a fee award should make every effort to achieve the most fair and sensible solution that is possible). The fee award, therefore, cannot stand.