Opinion ID: 2711586
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: A Reasonable Base Lodestar Fee

Text: Strawn’s main petition for attorney fees requests fees for work done in seeking review by this court, in resisting Farmers’s petition for review, and in briefing the merits on both petitions. In that petition, Strawn presents billings listing the number of hours worked on those stages of the case, multiplies those hours by the billing rates for the attorneys and other staff who worked them, and calculates a base lodestar accordingly. Strawn then argues for adjustment of that lodestar through a multiplier, principally to compensate his attorneys for the contingent nature of any fee they would receive, which in turn entailed the risk of nonpayment and delay in receiving any fee from either the common fund or Farmers. Farmers challenges some of the discrete billings by Strawn’s attorneys, arguing that they are for work that the attorneys either should not have performed or for which they should not have billed. With one exception, we reject those challenges without further discussion. The exception is a $575 charge for 2.5 hours that an attorney spent driving to and from Salem to deliver replacement pages for Strawn’s response brief, which Strawn now concedes are not allowable. We agree with Strawn’s concession and, accordingly, we have deducted the amount of that billing from all figures in this opinion. Farmers’s more significant challenge is to the reasonableness of the overall time spent by Strawn’s attorneys on the briefing and other work involved in litigating the case at this court’s level. In total, for work done after the Court of Appeals decision and until this court issued its opinion, Strawn’s attorneys spent a total of 1,252.55 hours. For those hours of work, Strawn seeks a base fee award of $412,807.00. In addition, Strawn asks this court to apply multipliers to the base amounts, resulting in a total requested fee of $760,063.12 for work done on review to this court.10 10 Strawn applies different multipliers for the fee-shifting and common-fund awards that he seeks (1.6 times amounts attributed to the fee-shifting award, and 2.0 times amounts attributed to the common-fund award). We later discuss how the hours are apportioned between the two fee categories. We omit that information here, however, because including it would unnecessarily complicate the process of determining whether the total number of hours incurred was reasonable. 224 Strawn v. Farmers Ins. Co. In response, Farmers does not challenge the hourly rates claimed by Strawn’s counsel, but it does challenge the reasonableness of the number of hours. See ORS 20.075(2)(a) (requiring court to consider the amount of time required by the case, given the difficulty of the questions involved and the skill necessary). In support of that challenge, Farmers offers the testimony of an expert that 614.3 hours would have been reasonable for the work done before this court, for a total fee award of $202,719. Farmers also opposes the use of any multipliers to the base fee award. We have evaluated the factors prescribed by ORS 20.075,11 and we agree with Farmers that those factors do not support the amount of fees that Strawn requests. In particular, we have considered the novelty, difficulty, and skill needed to perform the legal services required of the case on review by this court. In that regard, we have taken into account the fact that the issues had been previously and extensively briefed at the Court of Appeals level, that Strawn’s attorneys were already intimately familiar with the record, and that many of the issues turned on fairly narrow procedural points that were neither novel or unusually 11 ORS 20.075(2) directs the court to consider the following factors in determining the amount of fees to be awarded: “(a) The time and labor required in the proceeding, the novelty and difficulty of the questions involved in the proceeding and the skill needed to properly perform the legal services. “(b) The likelihood, if apparent to the client, that the acceptance of the particular employment by the attorney would preclude the attorney from taking other cases. “(c) The fee customarily charged in the locality for similar legal services. “(d) The amount involved in the controversy and the results obtained. “(e) The time limitations imposed by the client or the circumstances of the case. “(f) The nature and length of the attorney’s professional relationship with the client. “(g) The experience, reputation and ability of the attorney performing the services. “(h) Whether the fee of the attorney is fixed or contingent.” Subsection (2) of ORS 20.075 requires the court to consider, in addition, “the factors specified in subsection (1).” Subsection (1) lists factors that ordinarily are considered in deciding whether to make a discretionary award of fees. We do not list those factors here, because we conclude that they do not inform the proper disposition of this particular fee petition. Cite as 353 Or 210 (2013) 225 difficult (such as preservation).12 The case was complex, but not unusually so for a civil case involving such a large damages award, and not as complex as many cases that come before this court. In our view, the approach that both parties took to the case complicated it more than necessary and the court was less aided by the parties’ advocacy as a result. See generally Chalmers v. Oregon Auto. Ins. Co., 263 Or 449, 455-56, 502 P2d 1378 (1972) (in determining reasonable attorney fee, court considers assistance provided by party seeking fee, including efficiency of briefing and helpfulness of advocacy). Strawn, as the party seeking an award of fees, has the burden of establishing the reasonableness of the fee amount that he requests. Hillsboro v. Maint. & Const. Serv., 269 Or 169, 172, 523 P2d 1036 (1974) (where opposing party objects to attorney fee request, burden of proving reasonableness of fees rests on party seeking them). We have considered Strawn’s arguments in favor of the number of hours his attorneys expended (1,252.22) as against the estimate by Farmers’s expert of a reasonable number of hours for the work done at this court’s level (614.3 hours). We are persuaded by Farmers’s expert.13 Multiplied by the average rate of $330 per hour charged by Strawn’s attorneys,14 we conclude that a reasonable lodestar fee for the work done on review to this court is $202,719. 12 As the Court of Appeals aptly observed in its opinion awarding attorney fees in this case for the work done on appeal: “Appellate work is not identical to trial work. As the prevailing party at trial and the respondent on appeal, plaintiffs were entitled to certain favorable standards of review. The prosecution of the case at trial was more risky than the defense of the judgments on appeal. In addition, plaintiffs’ efforts in arguing from a closed record on appeal cannot be equated with their efforts in creating that record at trial.” Strawn, 233 Or App at 417. 13 We have reviewed the attorney fee orders that this court has awarded from the year 2000 forward. Strawn’s requested amount of fees appears unprecedented. Equally unprecedented would be an award at the reduced amount that Farmers’s expert identified as reasonable. Although that fact is not determinative, it does have legitimate bearing, especially given that this case is not the high water mark of complex cases coming to this court. 14 Farmers’s expert relied on that average rate to calculate a reasonable fee based on the total hours that he concluded would have been reasonable to devote to the work involved. Although Strawn, in response, took issue with the expert’s opinion on the reasonableness of the hours devoted to the case, Strawn did not take issue with the average hourly rate that the expert used. 226 Strawn v. Farmers Ins. Co.