Opinion ID: 2783481
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Hours Reasonably Expended on the Litigation

Text: In ascertaining the number of hours reasonably expended on the litigation, the district court should exclude any “excessive, redundant or otherwise unnecessary” hours. Norman v. Hous. Auth. of City of Montgomery, 836 F.2d 1292, 1301 (11th Cir. 1988). The district court also has the discretion to exclude work performed on unrelated actions. Hensley, 461 U.S. at 437 n.12, 103 S. Ct. at 1941. The fee applicant bears the burden to establish that the hours for which fees are sought were “reasonably expended on the litigation.” ACLU of Ga. v. Barnes, 168 F.3d 423, 435 (11th Cir. 1999) (quotation marks omitted). To carry that burden, fee counsel must submit time records showing “time expenditures . . . with sufficient particularity so that the district court can assess the time claimed for each activity . . . .” Id. at 427 (quoting Norman, 836 F.2d at 1303). Here, the district court did not abuse its discretion in determining the number of hours reasonably expended on the litigation. The district court found that 1 We review a district court’s order awarding attorney’s fees for an abuse of discretion, examining questions of law de novo and findings of fact for clear error. Bivins v. Wrap It Up, Inc., 548 F.3d 1348, 1351 (11th Cir. 2008). What constitutes a reasonable hourly rate is a finding of fact subsidiary to the total award, and therefore is reviewed under the clearly erroneous standard. ACLU v. Barnes, 168 F.3d 423, 436 (11th Cir. 1999). Because, the computation of a fee award necessarily involves the exercise of judgment, however, the district court’s factual findings are entitled to deference. Villano v. City of Boynton Beach, 254 F.3d 1302, 1305 (11th Cir. 2001). 3 Case: 14-13107 Date Filed: 03/03/2015 Page: 4 of 11 Maner’s attorneys reasonably expended 151.80 hours, rather than the claimed 272.90 hours, in litigating her Title VII claims. In doing so, the district court thoroughly reviewed the billing sheets submitted by Maner’s attorneys, identified the hours it was excluding and why using extensive notations, and then provided further explanation for its actions in its memorandum order. On appeal, Plaintiff Maner argues the district court should not have excluded time her attorneys spent litigating matters related to her application for state unemployment benefits. We disagree, as those hours concerned a discrete state administrative proceeding and not her federal Title VII lawsuit. See id. at 436 (finding an abuse of discretion where the district court failed to exclude hours not expended on the litigation). We, like the district court before us, are not persuaded by Plaintiff Maner’s argument that those hours were “necessary” or “related” to her federal litigation. Maner contends that both her state unemployment compensation claim and her federal case involved whether her termination was voluntary, and an adverse decision in the state administrative proceeding could have resulted in issue preclusion in her federal lawsuit. Unreviewed state administrative proceedings, however, do not have preclusive effect on federal Title VII claims. University of Tenn. v. Elliott, 478 U.S. 788, 794-96, 106 S. Ct. 3220, 3224-25 (1986); Crapp v. City of Miami Beach, 242 F.3d 1017, 1021-22 (11th Cir. 2001). Thus, for purposes of her federal discrimination claims, it was not 4 Case: 14-13107 Date Filed: 03/03/2015 Page: 5 of 11 necessary to obtain a favorable decision from the state agency or to appeal the state agency’s initial unfavorable decision. Similarly, the district court did not err in excluding as unnecessary the hours billed for her attorneys’ travel to and from the Anniston, Alabama, courthouse during her three-day trial. Plaintiff’s attorneys lived in Birmingham, but travelled back and forth to Anniston, Alabama. Although this Court has no precise rules for compensating travel time, we have indicated that 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.” Barnes, 168 F.3d at 437 (involving issue of reasonable hourly rates for non-local counsel). Plaintiff Maner made no attempt to make such a showing with respect to Anniston, Alabama. As the district court explained, although it allowed mileage for travel, it excluded the attorneys’ time (approximately $4,000) because they elected to return to Birmingham each night rather than stay in a hotel in Anniston. With a distance of approximately 60 miles between Anniston and Birmingham, the attorneys’ trip took about an hour each way. Thus, billing for the attorneys’ travel time was akin to billing for travel to work. We agree that, under the particular factual circumstances, we cannot say the district court erred in determining that it was not required to pass the Plaintiff attorneys’ travel time onto the Defendant. 5 Case: 14-13107 Date Filed: 03/03/2015 Page: 6 of 11 For the first time in her appeal brief, Plaintiff Maner contends that her attorneys: (1) “used the driving time to confer together to discuss the trial’s development and plan for subsequent trial activities,” which they also would have done at a hotel; and (2) needed to return to their Birmingham law office each night because “the district court requested that Maner’s counsel email by 9:00 p.m. each night during the trial various materials including pinpoint citations and other information relevant to arguments made at trial.” The problem for Plaintiff Maner is that she has the burden to establish that the travel time was expended on the litigation, but she does not point to any evidence in the record to support her claim. See Barnes, 168 F.3d at 434-36. Time entries submitted by Plaintiff Maner’s counsel do not indicate that the attorneys performed any legal work while traveling. Rather, the time entries for each trial day consist of lists of all the work performed and include notations such as, “Travel to Anniston,” and “Return travel.” See id. at 427 (requiring “sufficient particularity” from attorney’s time records to show the hours are compensable). Nor does counsel’s affidavit in support of the fee request provide the information asserted in Plaintiff Maner’s appeal brief. With respect to whether an attorney’s time is compensable, “unsupported assertions in a brief cannot substitute for 6 Case: 14-13107 Date Filed: 03/03/2015 Page: 7 of 11 evidence in the record.” Id. at 436. In short, Plaintiff Maner has not shown clear error in the district court’s finding as to the number of hours reasonably expended.2