Opinion ID: 488034
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Hours and Expenses

Text: 49 The PMC members challenge the district court's guidelines on the grounds that they improperly failed to credit certain hours and reimburse certain expenses. Specifically, they challenge the court's decision to disallow fifty percent of the time spent on reading scientific literature, to disallow fifty percent of the time spent on travel, to disallow a portion of the time spent reviewing mail and on the telephone, to disallow fifty percent of the time spent reviewing depositions, and to disallow a substantial amount of post-settlement work. As to expenses, they challenge the court's decision to reduce expenses by a percentage when such expenses could not be connected with compensable activity, to set a maximum fee for noncausation expert witnesses, and to treat paralegals as a cost. In sum, they allege that, taken together, if not separately, such radical deductions in their hours and expenses billed constituted an abuse of the court's discretion. 50 The district court is given broad discretion in setting fee awards. Hensley, 461 U.S. at 437, 103 S.Ct. at 1941, Carey, 711 F.2d at 1146. We cannot reverse a district court's finding in this regard merely because we might have weighed the information provided in the fee petitions differently or might have found more of the hours billed as being beneficial to the class. Cf. Anderson v. Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 573-74, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 1511-12, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985). The district judge is in the best position to weigh the respective input of counsel, considering its superior understanding of the litigation. Hensley, 461 U.S. at 437, 103 S.Ct. at 1941. Accordingly, we will reverse a district court's findings as to which hours to compensate only when it is apparent that the size of the award is out of line with the degree of effort reasonably needed to prevail in the litigation. Carey, 711 F.2d at 1146. 51 We find no abuse of discretion here. The critical inquiry when reviewing hours billed to the common fund in a class action is whether the work performed resulted in a benefit to the class. See Grinnell II, 560 F.2d at 1099. In determining which hours were beneficial, we note that there are no hard-and-fast rules, Seigal v. Merrick, 619 F.2d 160, 164 n. 9 (2d Cir.1980), but that [a]mple authority supports reduction in the lodestar figure for overstaffing as well as for other forms of duplicative or inefficient work, id. Moreover, we and other circuits have held that in cases in which substantial numbers of voluminous fee petitions are filed, the district court has the authority to make across-the-board percentage cuts in hours as a practical means of trimming fat from a fee application. Carey, 711 F.2d at 1146; accord Ohio-Sealy Mattress Manufacturing Co. v. Sealy Inc., 776 F.2d 646, 657 (7th Cir.1985); Copeland v. Marshall, 641 F.2d 880, 903 (D.C.Cir.1980) (in banc). But see In re Fine Paper, 751 F.2d at 596 (court must identify with some specificity any disallowed hours). Under such circumstances, no item-by-item accounting of the hours disallowed is necessary or desirable. Ohio-Sealy, 776 F.2d at 658. 52 Here, the fee petitions, to say the least, were voluminous, consisting of tens of thousands of pages of billing sheets and other exhibits. To suggest that the district court could not take advantage of percentage reductions in such a context would be absurd. In reviewing these across-the-board cuts, we find nothing that we could classify as an abuse of discretion. Moreover, it is not unusual for hours of travel time, deposition time and other quasi-administrative items to be compensated at lower rates. E.g., Sun Publishing Co. v. Mecklenburg News, Inc., 594 F.Supp. 1512, 1520 (E.D.Va.1984); Steinberg v. Carey, 470 F.Supp. 471, 479-80 (S.D.N.Y.1979). But see Crumbaker v. Merit Systems Protection Board, 781 F.2d 191, 193-94 (Fed.Cir.1986) (reasonable travel time should be compensated at the same rate as other working time). The district judge gave reasons, though somewhat generalized, for each percentage cut that he made. We find these to be an adequate reflection of the benefit that the class derived from counsel's work. 53 We also find no abuse of discretion in the district court's guidelines for expenses. Counsel are entitled to reimbursement only for those expenses incurred in the course of work that benefitted the class. In re Armored Car Antitrust Litigation, 472 F.Supp. 1357, 1388-89 (N.D.Ga.1979), modified and remanded on other grounds, 645 F.2d 488 (5th Cir.1981). Overstaffing and other extravagances are not recoverable. Id. 54 Given this standard, the district court's finding that the reports of the non-causation witnesses were of only marginal use to the class and were uniformly inadequate suggests that the court in fact was generous in setting the cap for fees to these experts at $5,000 each. Report and Recommendation of United States Magistrate, Re: Fee Petitions, appendixed to and incorporated in Agent Orange, 611 F.Supp. at 1351. We also find no abuse of discretion in the district court's determination that expenses connected with those hours disallowed as not being beneficial to the class should not be reimbursed. See In re Fine Paper Antitrust Litigation, 98 F.R.D. 81, 85 (E.D.Pa.1983), rev'd on other grounds, 751 F.2d 562 (3d Cir.1984). Finally, although we concede that under certain circumstances it may be appropriate not to treat paralegal time as an expense in a large class action, see Dorfman v. First Boston Corp., 70 F.R.D. 366, 374-75 (E.D.Pa.1976), we note that the district court in so doing was simply following our prior directive, see Grinnell I, 495 F.2d at 473. We decline to reevaluate that rule here.