Opinion ID: 738304
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Florida's claims.

Text: 50 The State of Florida, to whom the district court also awarded attorney's fees from the common fund, cross-appeals certain aspects of the award. 51
52 Florida argues that the district court erred in not requiring Dunne or the common fund to pay interest on the $863,944.15 Florida paid Dunne pursuant to the $40 per hour clause in their contract. The magistrate did not abuse her discretion in denying Florida's request for interest from Dunne on this money. First he did the legal work, then Florida paid him the $40 per hour they had agreed upon. The money was not an advance for future services. Though Dunne's compensation award from the common fund was larger, the magistrate took account of the $863,944.15 when she considered the issues of a risk multiplier, and the common fund benefitted from the advance on that issue. 53 The issue is different with respect to Florida's award from the common fund. Florida contributed legal services, for which it obtained an attorneys' fees and expenses award from the common fund. One of its expenses was the $863,944.15 it had paid Dunne years before. Florida, like Dunne, was entitled to compensation for delay. He received compensation for delay by using an adjusted rate for antitrust attorneys plus a delay enhancement. That would not work on an expense item, so the alternative means of compensating attorneys for delay, adding an interest enhancement, Washington Pub. Power, 19 F.3d at 1305, is appropriate. 54 We remand for an adjustment to compensate Florida for the delay in reimbursement of the $863,944.15 expense it paid years before. Because the total of Dunne's award and Florida's award were already less than a percentage point short of the benchmark, compensation for delay may, in the exercise of discretion, require a second look by the district court at Dunne's fees and expenses, Florida's, or both. This may have the practical effect of shifting a considerable sum from Dunne to Florida, even though we have said that he does not owe interest directly on money he was paid after he earned it. But the reason would be different: that his fee was too high relative to the benefit he conferred as compared with what Florida conferred, rather than that he owes interest on his own earnings. It would not be an abuse of discretion to cut Dunne's or the Florida Attorney General's fee in order to stay within the 25% benchmark after having compensated Florida for the delay in receiving reimbursement of its $863,944.15 expense. 55
56 Florida also challenges 3,911 hours ($782,200) of Dunne's award on the ground that the hours were not worked at all, or if they were, they provided no benefit to the class. The largest part of this dispute appears to be for time Dunne claimed to have spent on motions never briefed, filed or argued, on which he either wrote nothing, or everything he wrote was rewritten by someone else. Dunne had no timesheets substantiating this time. Florida makes good arguments to justify its claim that Dunne should not have been compensated at all for this time, but the magistrate considered these arguments, and they were much of the reason why his claim for 21,068.6 hours led to an award for only 10,931.6 hours. While the magistrate judge appears to have been generous in her allowances of hours to Dunne, we cannot say that the district court abused its discretion. 57
58 Florida challenges the magistrate judge's disallowance of one fourth of the $380,379.58 Florida paid to a consultant. The magistrate judge noted that Dunne had agreed that the consultant should be hired and approved the bill, but she disallowed 25% of the total because the district court had precluded discovery on the damages issue to which the consultant spoke. While a party might well have an interest in consulting about the facts despite some sort of preclusion of direct use, we do not conclude that the magistrate judge abused her discretion in ruling otherwise in the facts of this case. 59 In our determinations that the magistrate judge did not abuse her discretion on the issues of Florida's cross appeal, we do not intimate that her discretion had to be exercised as it was. If on consideration of the interest on the $863,944.15, the magistrate determines that a second look at these matters is appropriate in order to keep awards within the benchmark 25%, on the record before us the district court would be free to exercise its discretion the other way. 60