Opinion ID: 2517252
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Did the District Court Abuse its Discretion in Determining the Amount of Attorney Fees to Award for the Proceedings on Remand?

Text: Ed contends that the $15,193.13 awarded by the district court is unreasonable in amount. He first challenges the inclusion of $170.63 for computer assisted research in the award of attorney fees. Ed makes several arguments regarding the computer assisted research, which are simply misstatements of the record. He asserts that Mike's attorneys and expert witnesses agreed that the cost of computer assisted research was not applicable and the district court orally acknowledged that fact. What Ed fails to mention is that these statements were made regarding the award of attorney fees for the proceedings that occurred prior to the first appeal, they were not made with respect to the request for attorney fees for the remand proceedings. Ed also asserts that the district court found that the cost of computer assisted research should not in the interest of justice be awarded against Ed. What Ed fails to mention is that the district court so stated in ruling that because that cost had been included in the award of attorney fees, it would not in the interest of justice be awarded as a discretionary cost. Ed has failed to show that the district court abused its discretion in awarding $170.63 as the cost of computer assisted research as part of the award of attorney fees. Ed next contends that the district court abused its discretion in awarding $2,182.50 in attorney fees for the time spent by Merlyn Clark, the majority of which was spent conferring with Mike's expert regarding attorney fees and preparing affidavits in support of the request for attorney fees. Ed argues that there was no showing that it was necessary to retain an expert to review the billings from Mike's attorneys and to express an opinion regarding the reasonableness of those charges. Ed vigorously challenged the amount of attorney fees claimed by Mike, specifically identifying charges totaling $143,614.00 that he contended were unreasonable in amount. The initial attorney fee award was vacated in Lettunich I because of the lack of information in the record supporting the reasonableness of the award. The district court did not abuse its discretion in awarding attorney fees for the time spent by Mr. Clark in consulting with the expert witness and in preparing affidavits that provided information lacking at the time of the initial award. Finally, Ed contends that the district court should not have awarded attorney fees for time spent by both Mr. Clark and co-counsel on remand and that co-counsel should have delegated at least some of the drafting, editing and research to a paralegal. Ed does not point to any specific facts that would show an abuse of discretion on the part of the district court. The district court carefully reviewed the charges for Mr. Clark's time and refused to award $6,020.55 of those charges. Ed's vague assertion that co-counsel could have delegated some unspecified portion of his work to a paralegal does not come close to showing an abuse of discretion by the district court.