Opinion ID: 2719704
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Travel Hours Reduction

Text: Martinez next contends that the district court erred in deducting the 38 hours of travel time. He acknowledges that there is “no hard and fast rule” regarding travel time, but asserts that the court improperly discredited Mr. Cornell’s declaration, which emphasized that the travel time was the result of limited availability of lawyers handling police dog compensation cases. 8 Case: 14-10427 Date Filed: 08/21/2014 Page: 9 of 14 To determine the number of hours reasonably expended in the litigation, the court must exclude hours “that would be unreasonable to bill to a client and therefore to one’s adversary irrespective of the skill, reputation or experience of counsel.” Barnes, 168 F.3d at 428 (quoting Norman, 836 F.2d at 1301) (emphasis in original). In addition, although there are no precise rules with respect to travel time, a fee applicant seeking to recover expenses incurred for retaining non-local counsel generally “must show a lack of attorneys practicing in that place who are willing and able to handle his claims.” See id. at 437 (applying this standard with regard to reasonable hourly rates). The district court did not clearly err in excluding Mr. Cornell’s travel hours. Martinez presented no evidence showing a lack of local counsel willing and able to handle his police canine compensation claim. Other than Mr. Cornell’s declaration, which states that “few employment lawyers wish to take [police canine cases] on,” nothing was presented to the district court to indicate whether Martinez even attempted to retain counsel other than Mr. Cornell. The court found that Mr. Cornell is located in Weston, Florida, approximately a 3.5 trip to the Tampa courthouse where the case was filed and tried, which resulted in the 38 travel hours. We respect Martinez’s right to retain counsel of his choice, but, like the district court, we do not think it reasonable to pass the costs of Mr. Cornell’s travel on to the Sheriff’s Office without a showing of a lack of local counsel. 9 Case: 14-10427 Date Filed: 08/21/2014 Page: 10 of 14 C. Lodestar Reduction and Reasonableness of the Fee Award Martinez argues that the 75% reduction of the lodestar was “confiscatory” and that the court placed undue emphasis on the results obtained. He asserts that he successfully defended the defendant’s motion for summary judgment on every contested ground, prevailed on one of claims that went to trial, and expended half of the overall time after summary judgment. He contends that the district court’s award was unreasonable because the various reductions, taken together, cut the requested award by over 86% and amounted to a rate of less than $60 per hour for an experienced and well-qualified attorney. A lodestar figure “is itself strongly presumed to be reasonable.” Resolution Trust Corp. v. Hallmark Buildings, Inc., 996 F.2d 1144, 1150 (11th Cir. 1993); see Perdue v. Kenny A. ex rel. Winn, 559 U.S. 542, 552, 130 S. Ct. 1662, 1673, 176 L. Ed. 2d 494 (2010). Nonetheless, the district court may adjust the lodestar for “results obtained.” Hensley, 461 U.S. at 434, 103 S. Ct. at 1940. Relevant here, when “a plaintiff has achieved only partial or limited success, the product of hours reasonably expended on the litigation as a whole times a reasonable hourly rate may be an excessive amount. This will be true even where the plaintiff’s claims were interrelated, nonfrivolous, and raised in good faith.” Id. at 436, 103 S. Ct. at 1941. Accordingly, the district court has discretion to reduce an award to account 10 Case: 14-10427 Date Filed: 08/21/2014 Page: 11 of 14 for situations where the lodestar figure is unreasonable in light of the limited success obtained. See id. at 436-37, 103 S. Ct. at 1941. The district court did not abuse its discretion in reducing the lodestar figure by 75% and awarding $10,900.50 in attorney’s fees. Martinez was only partially successful in his claims, so the court was permitted to adjust the lodestar downward. See id. at 434-37, 103 S. Ct. at 1940-41. Because the court found that it was unable to determine the number of hours spent on the unsuccessful claims, it had discretion to “simply reduce the award to account for the limited success.” Id. at 436-37, 103 S. Ct. at 1941. The district court’s reduction of the lodestar was reasonably proportionate to Martinez’s success in the lawsuit. In his amended response to the Sheriff’s Office’s interrogatories, Martinez had estimated his total damages at $236,952.87, and had sought $61,030.13, or about 25.75% of the total damages, for the only claim on which he recovered (for after-hours care of Darla). Ultimately, Martinez recovered only $1,075.44 on that claim, or about 1.8% of the $61,030.13 sought. Therefore, the district court, rather than being “confiscatory” or unfairly punitive in light of the modest recovery obtained, appears to have credited Martinez with success on the full amount of asserted damages for the claim based on after-hours care of Darla. Accordingly, we conclude that the district court’s attorney’s fees award was firmly within the bounds of its discretion. 11 Case: 14-10427 Date Filed: 08/21/2014 Page: 12 of 14 We also reject Martinez’s various other challenges to the fee award. The district court did not impermissibly “double count” because the factors considered by the court in determining the lodestar figure were not considered by the court in adjusting the lodestar downward by 75%. See Bivins v. Wrap It Up, Inc., 548 F.3d 1348, 1352 (11th Cir. 2008). Indeed, the court followed the proper procedure in determining the award by first calculating the lodestar figure (reasonable hours times reasonable rate) and then adjusting that figure for results obtained. See Norman, 836 F.2d at 1299-304. Moreover, while the court may have been permitted to apply the 75% reduction only to time spent before summary judgment, Martinez has not shown that it was an abuse of discretion not to do so. Because we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in awarding attorney’s fees, we necessarily reject Martinez’s contentions that the court erred by failing to consider purported discovery abuses or by awarding a fee insufficient to vindicate the intent of the Congress in enacting the FLSA. See, e.g., Perdue, 559 U.S. at 552, 130 S. Ct. at 1672 (“[A] ‘reasonable’ fee is a fee that is sufficient to induce a capable attorney to undertake the representation of a meritorious . . . case.”). Any additional hours Mr. Cornell may have spent as a result of opposing counsel’s purported misconduct were included in the court’s reasonable-hours determination, and so were reflected in the final award. And, in light of the $1,075.44 award on the merits, we cannot say that an attorney’s fees 12 Case: 14-10427 Date Filed: 08/21/2014 Page: 13 of 14 award of $10,900.50 frustrated congressional intent or was insufficient to induce to capable attorney to undertake representation of the case. For the reasons stated, we affirm the district court’s award of $10,900.50 in attorney’s fees in favor of Martinez and his counsel and the denial of Martinez’s Rule 59(e) motion.