Opinion ID: 1219144
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Identification of Fees and Expenses Attributable to Tributary Claim

Text: AWDI as well as the objectors understood that determining an appropriate award might be difficult due to the possibility of overlap between the work performed and information gathered by the objectors to defend against the nontributary claim which went to trial and the efforts directed to defend against the tributary claim which was dismissed. This difficulty occurred in part because until AWDI unexpectedly moved to dismiss the tributary claim, the objectors had no reason to distinguish carefully between the two claims in maintaining their records of work performed and expenses incurred. The party requesting an award of attorney fees bears the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence its entitlement to such an award. Kinsey v. Preeson, 746 P.2d 542, 551-52 (Colo.1987) (citing Board of County Comm'rs v. Auslaender, 745 P.2d 999, 1001-02 (Colo.1987)); see § 13-25-127, 6A C.R.S. (1987) (burden of proof in any civil action, except claim for exemplary damages or body execution, shall be by a preponderance of the evidence); Spensieri v. Farmers Alliance Mutual Ins. Co., 804 P.2d 268, 271 (Colo.App.1990) (If the attorney provides a reason and rational basis for the work done, he or she should be compensated accordingly....); see also Blum v. Stenson, 465 U.S. 886, 897, 104 S.Ct. 1541, 1548, 79 L.Ed.2d 891 (1984) (when the fee claimant has carried his burden of showing that the claimed rate and number of hours are reasonable, the product is presumed to be the reasonable fee contemplated by 42 U.S.C. § 1988). Counsel is not required to record in great detail how each minute of his time was expended. But at least counsel should identify the general subject matter of his time expenditures. Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 437 n. 12, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 1941 n. 12, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983). This was done. In this case the objectors' attorneys introduced time records kept contemporaneously with work done. The extent of the information varied, and the records kept by the private attorneys were generally more detailed than those of the government attorneys, but all included the date, the attorney, the time expended, and a general statement of work done. [43] In addition, attorneys for the objectors testified as to the manner in which they allocated fees and expenses between the tributary and nontributary issues for the purpose of their claims under C.R.C.P. 41(a)(2). For instance, the lead attorney for the United States testified that virtually all of his time was devoted to the tributary claim, but we decided to make the figure 85 percent, which is, I think, a very conservative estimate. The attorney for Oliver Powell Roemer III and Howard Platz testified that the concerns of both of those clients were limited to the tributary claim. He averred, By definition, if the water was nontributary, it could not affect their water rights. Only tributary claims could affect their water rights. Accordingly, the fees and expenses incurred on behalf of those clients were limited to the tributary claim. In response to AWDI's assertion that the objectors' work defending against the tributary claim must have been used in litigating the nontributary claim, an attorney for Rio Grande Water Users Association and San Luis Valley Water Conservancy District stated: There's a big difference between trying a tributary claim and a nontributary claim. In a nontributary claim, all you've got to show is impact on any stream of one-tenth of 1 percent. In a tributary claim, you've got to know which stream systems are impacted and what amounts with a good deal of greater precision.... This attorney also testified, [Y]ou spend a lot of time on a whole broad range of issues related toon a tributary case that would never come up in a nontributary setting. In order to allocate accurately the time spent on each claim, this counsel reviewed all of his firm's billing statements, covering attorney fees and expenses, and went through line by line, item by item, for every month and every year since the inception of this litigation and made a determination of what time I felt was fairly attributable to our work on the tributary claim and excluded all remaining time and used that to come up with a total number of hours and a total amount of expenses. As a result of this review, he determined that fifty-eight percent of the attorney fees was attributable to the tributary claim. The attorney for Rio Grande Water Conservation District testified that he too went through the bills submitted by his firm to the District from 1987 through 1991 in order to identify those attorney fees and expenses related to the tributary claim. Expert witness fees and expenses were allocated in a similar fashion. The objectors' attorneys testified that those experts involved in aspects of both the tributary and the nontributary claims were asked to itemize their monthly bills and provide a breakdown of costs they considered attributable to the tributary and nontributary claims, and that they did so. In most instances, documents in the form of letters, bills, and/or affidavits from expert witnesses were admitted to support the attorney testimony. Although all these allocations were made after the fact, they nonetheless provide support for the court's award determinations. The trial court was provided with an adequate evidentiary basis to find as it did that the objectors' allocations were adequate. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, in a case involving an application for attorney fees and costs under the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Award Act, recognized: [S]ome lawyers will not have kept contemporaneous time records. We do not forbid, retrospectively, the use of reconstructed time records and do not demand that the reconstructed hours be arbitrarily reduced. Ramos v. Lamm, 713 F.2d 546, 553 n. 2 (10th Cir.1983). In a number of other cases as well, reconstructed time records have been held adequate to establish time expended. See Pawlak v. Greenawalt, 713 F.2d 972, 978 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 1042, 104 S.Ct. 707, 79 L.Ed.2d 172 (1984); Bonnette v. California Health & Welfare Agency, 704 F.2d 1465, 1473 (9th Cir.1983); Johnson v. University College, 706 F.2d 1205, 1207 (11th Cir.1983), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 994, 104 S.Ct. 489, 78 L.Ed.2d 684 (1983); Weber v. Weinberger, 651 F.Supp. 1379, 1393 (W.D.Mich.1987). Here, the contemporaneous time records existed and were presented to the court; only the relevant allocations had to be supplied in part by estimates. None of the objectors realized at the time the records were kept that AWDI would later be required to pay the attorney fees and expenses and that division by issue would be necessary, and AWDI claims no bad faith on the part of the objectors in this case. It is elementary that the trier of fact can look to either testimony or exhibits which have been admitted into evidence for the facts upon which to base his decision. Hartman v. Freedman, 197 Colo. 275, 280, 591 P.2d 1318, 1321 (Colo.1979). Based on our own review of the record, we conclude that the evidence, including billing records and testimony concerning allocation of time and expenses, was sufficient to permit the trial court, applying the proper standard, to allocate fees and expenses between those that were allowable and those that were not. We therefore sustain the trial court's allocation.