Opinion ID: 167974
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Denial of discovery concerning Fairfield's billing records

Text: 55 Before the district court, McInnis sought to discover Fairfield's billing records, including attorneys' billing rates, costs, and hours expended, as relevant to the reasonableness of her own counsels' fees because, as she contends, it demonstrates Fairfield's maneuvering and provides comparative information about reasonable rates, fees, and hours expended in this case. While we have long accepted the proposition that one of the factors useful in evaluating the reasonableness of the number of attorney hours in a fee request is the responses necessitated by the maneuvering of the other side, Robinson v. City of Edmond, 160 F.3d 1275, 1284 (10th Cir.1998) (quotations omitted), McInnis's motion for attorneys' fees details the degree to which Fairfield's alleged maneuvering affected her attorneys' fees. Thus, although McInnis contends that evidence of Fairfield's attorneys' fees and expenses are relevant to the reasonableness of her counsels' fees, there is no evidence that the district court was not intimately aware of Fairfield's maneuvering and the tenacity with which Fairfield litigated this case. See City of Riverside v. Rivera, 477 U.S. 561, 580 n. 11, 106 S.Ct. 2686, 91 L.Ed.2d 466 (1986) (The government cannot litigate tenaciously and then be heard to complain about the time necessarily spent by the plaintiff in response.) (quotations omitted). 56 Furthermore, McInnis has not justified discovery of Fairfield's attorneys' billing records beyond her allegations of maneuvering. We therefore cannot say that the district court abused its discretion by denying McInnis's motion to compel discovery of this evidence. In any event, for the reasons described below, McInnis will have an opportunity on remand to reply to Fairfield's challenge to the reasonableness of her attorneys' hourly rates and time expended in this case with, for example, an expert report supporting her attorneys' fee petition and/or affidavits from local attorneys reflecting their customary fee for work in similar cases.