Opinion ID: 173965
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Award and Allocation of Fees

Text: The district court awarded Bolger over $800,000 in attorneys' fees. In light of its interpretation of the lease, and its recognition of Illinois's strict construction rule concerning contractual fee-shifting provisions, the court stated explicitly that Bolger was not entitled to any of his fees and costs directly attributable to his reentry and wrongful possession claims because they were not covered by any of the fee-shifting provisions contained in the lease. Rexam Beverage Can Co. v. Bolger, No. 06 C 2234, 2008 WL 5068824, at  (N.D.Ill. Nov. 25, 2008). Yet it also determined that it [was] not practical for [it] to attempt to determine which fees were devoted to which claims because, after Bolger tossed his breach of repair claims into the ring on October 11, 2007, the two sets of claims were intertwined. Id. The court declined Rexam's invitation to engage in a detailed, hour-by-hour review of Bolger's costs, id. (quoting Medcom, 200 F.3d at 521), observed in a footnote that Rexam had similarly declined its own invitation, and attempted to split the difference by awarding Bolger all reasonable fees incurred after October 11, 2007, when he amended his counterclaim to include a claim based on Rexam's duty to repair, id. The court reiterated that it would exclude costs that were on their face related only to Bolger's claims for double rent. Id. Rexam takes issue with the district court's failure to divide Bolger's attorneys' fees into two categories: compensable ones relating to its repair claims, and noncompensable ones relating to all the other issues in the case. It also asserts that the fees in the former category should have been further subdivided into successful and unsuccessful claims, and that only fees associated with the successful claims should have been awarded. We review the fee award for abuse of discretion. That is, we examine the award for reasonableness and reverse only if we are persuaded that it is not at least arguably correct. See United States v. Thouvenot, Wade & Moerschen, Inc., 596 F.3d 378, 386 (7th Cir.2010). In light of the indemnity provisions in Article 9(a) of the lease, we conclude that Rexam's second argument, that Bolger should only receive fees for the repair claims on which he was successful, is a nonstarter. Rexam may be correct that Bolger's unsuccessful repair claims, those for the rail spur, Bradley sink, and pipes, were in no way factually related to his successful repair claims for the dock levelers and roof. The accuracy of that assertion is irrelevant here, though, because all of Bolger's repair claims arose out of the lease. Article 9(a) provides reasonable counsel fees for any . . . claim or any action or proceeding he brings in relation to any condition of the Premises not just those claims on which he prevails. Illinois law is clear that [w]hen a contract calls for the shifting of attorney fees, a trial court should award all reasonable fees. J.B. Esker & Sons, Inc. v. Cle-Pa's P'ship, 325 Ill.App.3d 276, 259 Ill.Dec. 136, 757 N.E.2d 1271, 1277 (2001). The trial court found it reasonable to award Bolger all its fees related to its repair claims, and that decision stands, notwithstanding Rexam's observation that the fees amount to nearly double the amount Bolger successfully recovered on the claims. See id. ([A]ttorney fees may be reasonable even if the fees are disproportionate to the monetary amount of an award.). We are more troubled by the potential entanglement of attorneys' fees relating to the repair clams and those not authorized by the lease. In Illinois, it is incumbent upon the petitioner to present detailed records maintained during the course of the litigation containing facts and computations upon which the charges are predicated. Kaiser v. MEPC Am. Props., Inc., 164 Ill.App.3d 978, 115 Ill.Dec. 899, 518 N.E.2d 424, 427-28 (1987). In our view, many of the entries in Bolger's attorneys' bills leave much to be desired in this respect. Entries such as [r]eviewing case law and [r]eviewing correspondence, deposition transcripts, and pleadings, while perhaps adequate to inform Bolger of his attorneys' progress, see Mountbatten, 285 Ill.Dec. 501, 812 N.E.2d at 105, were insufficiently detailed for the district court to determine to which cause of action the efforts were directed. That said, however, we recognize Illinois courts' determination that even terse, and concise attorneys' bills can be adequate. Id. Despite their flaws, the bills clearly indicate which attorney or paralegal performed each task and how long he or she took to complete it. See Kaiser, 115 Ill. Dec. 899, 518 N.E.2d at 427 (requiring only a specification of the services performed, by whom they were performed, the time expended thereon and the hourly rate charged therefor). And moreover, Bolger paid all the bills; that is a strong indication that the charges they contained were reasonable. See Medcom, 200 F.3d at 520. The district court was not obligated to conduct a line-by-line review of the bills to assess the charges for reasonableness. This does not get us out of the entanglement quagmire, however. For what Rexam fundamentally challenges is the reasonableness of the district court's split the difference approach of dividing the bills into pre- and post-October 11, 2007 categories. While we do not go so far as to endorse the district court's fee award methodology or its application in future cases, we hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion in employing a practical solution to the fee division problem posed here. The district court carefully restricted the award to exclude items clearly attributable to the extracontractual claims, and it expressly excluded expenses associated with an expert who testified only as to the market value of the facility. It attempted to ensure that Rexam's liability for fees did not attach until there was a fair possibility that the work being billed was related to Bolger's contract claims; removing the roughly one-third of the fees accrued prior to October 11, 2007 was a reasonable step toward that end. Asking the court to do more here would place any resultant fee award much further into the realm of conjecture, see In re Estate of Bitoy, 395 Ill.App.3d 262, 334 Ill.Dec. 477, 917 N.E.2d 74, 85 (2009), and would undermine its broad discretionary authority to fashion appropriate attorneys' fees. Under the deferential abuse of discretion standard, the district court's award of attorneys' fees to Bolger should stand.