Opinion ID: 815692
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Appropriate documentation and award amount

Text: In raising the failure by the Ohio Attorney General’s office to provide a detailed accounting of their hours, Lexington does not argue that the award amount was excessive or improperly calculated, but that the district court abused its discretion by awarding any fees and costs at all to Kent State. This argument also fails. While we share Lexington’s concern about the lack of specificity in Kent State’s documentation, the district court properly considered this factor by significantly reducing the final award. Lexington is correct that a “fee applicant (whether a plaintiff or a defendant) must . . . submit appropriate documentation to meet ‘the burden of establishing entitlement to an award.’” Fox v. Vice, --- U.S. ----, 131 S. Ct. 2205, 2216 (2011) (quoting Hensley, 461 U.S. at 437). By submitting bare affidavits specifying the number of hours each attorney worked on the remand motion, the Ohio Attorney General’s office failed to meet this burden. It is a substantial leap, however, to suggest that the failure to provide appropriate documentation should bar a court from awarding any fees at all. The relevant precedent does not reflect such a harsh rule. Rather, “[w]here the documentation of hours is inadequate, the district 13 court may reduce the award accordingly.” Reed v. Rhodes, 179 F.3d 453, 472 (6th Cir. 1999) (quoting Hensley, 461 U.S. at 433) (emphasis added). Lexington directs this court to Kennecott Corp. v. EPA, in which the D.C. Circuit noted that “[f]ee applicants bear the heavy obligation to present well-documented claims.” 804 F.2d 763, 767 (D.C. Cir. 1986) (internal quotation marks omitted). That case does not, however, support Lexington’s argument. In Kennecott, the plaintiffs’ documentation contained largely “summaries” of monthly work that did not segregate work done for clients on unrelated cases. Id. at 766–67. The court did not, however, penalize the plaintiffs by entirely eliminating the fee award. Instead, the court reduced the ultimate award by fifteen percent, noting that a fee award “may be discounted as a result of poor documentation.” Id. at 767; see also Hensley, 461 U.S. at 438 n.13 (noting that the district court had properly reduced the fee award by thirty percent to account for inexperience and failure to keep contemporaneous time records). While fee awards in civil rights cases provide incentives for attorneys to take on cases they otherwise would not, see Geier v. Sundquist, 372 F.3d 784, 789 (6th Cir. 2004), fees are justified under the remand statute because they “reduce[] the attractiveness of removal as a method for delaying litigation and imposing costs on the plaintiff.” Martin, 546 U.S. at 140. Thus, even where a plaintiff has failed to provide proper documentation for the requested award, the granting of some fee award—even if significantly reduced—serves the purpose of the statute by deterring improperly sought removals. Cf. Wikol ex rel. Wikol v. Birmingham Pub. Sch. Bd. of Educ., 360 F.3d 604, 611 14 (6th Cir. 2004) (rejecting “the argument that a plaintiff’s bad acts” such as “false and misleading” billings warrant the denial of attorney fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1988).3 A trial court has the discretion to consider the goals of the fee statute, along with other factors such as the success of the parties, but the court may abuse its discretion when it does so without a “clear and concise” explanation. See Gonter v. Hunt Valve Co., Inc., 510 F.3d 610, 617 (6th Cir. 2007); Hensley, 461 U.S. at 437 (“It remains important . . . for the district court to provide a concise but clear explanation of its reasons for the fee award.”). The district court in this case provided a clear and concise explanation for the fee award and therefore did not abuse its discretion. The court recognized that the Ohio Attorney General had not fully met its burden of providing specific documentation of the reported 165 attorney hours, and the court therefore significantly reduced the fee award—almost in half—from $21,760 to $11,072.50. The court limited reimbursement for unsuccessful arguments and for motions that would likely be resolved in state court, but also acknowledged that it had been able to review the filings on the remand motion and to “personally observe counsel during numerous proceedings.” Kent State, 2011 WL 1578505, at . Cf. Gonter, 510 F.3d at 619 (“[C]ourts can easily verify the time lawyers spend at trial and in depositions . . . .”). The court also weighed other equitable considerations, including the fact that the Attorney General’s office requested a remarkably low hourly rate of $125 per hour, and the fact that Attorney General’s office does not keep records in the same way that attorneys in private practice do. 3 Lexington contends that Ohio state case law interpreting Ohio Rule 1.5 would limit Kent State’s recovery in this case. To the extent this is true, however, it does not affect the conclusion that the federal district court has discretion to grant a reduced award under § 1447(c). Cf. First Bank of Marietta v. Hartford Underwriters Ins. Co., 307 F.3d 501, 529 (6th Cir. 2002) (holding that Fed. R. Civ. P. 11, not the comparable Ohio rule, governs the award of fees for frivolous conduct). 15 As the Supreme Court recently held in Fox, “trial courts need not, and indeed should not, become green-eyeshade accountants.” Fox, 131 S. Ct. at 2216. The essential goal in shifting fees (to either party) is to do rough justice, not to achieve auditing perfection. So trial courts may take into account their overall sense of a suit, and may use estimates in calculating and allocating an attorney’s time. And appellate courts must give substantial deference to these determinations, in light of “the district court’s superior understanding of the litigation.” Id. (quoting Hensley, 461 U.S. at 437). The district court in this case adequately explained its actions. Faced with the limited information provided by the Ohio Attorney General’s office, the court used “estimates in calculating and allocating attorney’s time,” with the goal of “rough justice.” Fox, 131 S. Ct. at 2216. We find no abuse of discretion.