Opinion ID: 763784
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Reasonable and Necessary Hours Billed to the Litigation

Text: 36
37 The Plaintiffs also contend that the district court erred in assessing the number of hours reasonably expended on the litigation. In assessing such a claim, the district court's decision is given great deference. Ustrak v. Fairman, 851 F.2d 983, 987 (7th Cir.1988). By virtue of its familiarity with the litigation, the district court certainly is in a much better position than we to determine the number of hours reasonably expended. McNabola, 10 F.3d at 519. When reducing the requested number of hours, the district court should provide a concise but clear explanation of its reasons. Tomazzoli v. Sheedy, 804 F.2d 93, 97 (7th Cir.1986) (citations and quotations omitted). Here, the district court has provided a limited but sufficient explanation and we cannot say that it abused its discretion in reducing the hours requested by the Plaintiffs. 38 First, the district court reduced the amount of time that the Plaintiffs' counsel billed to their summary judgment motion from 32 hours to 10.66 hours, finding that time spent on the motion was unreasonable considering the simplicity of the subject matter and the quality of the motion. The Plaintiffs attack the trial court's determination, arguing that the district court misunderstands how time consuming it is to file a summary judgment motion, and that the district court failed to take all the record papers into account. We find these contentions wholly unpersuasive. Contrary to the Plaintiffs' argument, we believe that virtually all the district courts within this Circuit firmly understand the time requirements involved in filing a motion for summary judgment. Furthermore, we find no evidence that the district court failed to take the record papers into account. We cannot say that the district court abused its discretion in reducing the hours. 39 The Plaintiffs next contend that the district court erred by eliminating 4.2 hours of attorney time spent on two Rule 59(e) motions to amend the district court's May 23, 1997 judgment. Specifically, the Plaintiffs' motions requested the district court to alter or amend its judgment to include: 1) prejudgment interest on the Plaintiffs' back pay awards; and 2) a 2% punitive penalty on the back pay awards allegedly due to the Plaintiffs under the Illinois Minimum Wage Law, 820 ILCS 105/1 et seq. In denying the Plaintiffs' motions, the district court held: 40 This [c]ourt has reexamined Plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment and has found no mention of, or request for prejudgment interest or a 2% punitive penalty. The relief sought by Plaintiff[s] was limited to overtime wages ... liquidated damages ... costs of the action and reasonable attorneys fees.... If Plaintiffs wanted to argue for prejudgment interest or argue their case under the Illinois Minimum Wage Law, they had ample opportunity to do so in their motion for summary judgment. 41 Dist. Ct. Order of Jan. 22, 1998. Thus, the district court denied these motions and subsequently reduced the billable hours corresponding to the time billed for these motions to amend. In reducing the billable hours, the district court held: 42 [The Plaintiffs' post trial] motions seek to alter the judgment in ways that either could have or should have been presented to the [c]ourt in Plaintiffs' initial summary judgment motion.... The [c]ourt can find no legitimate reason why Defendants should be forced to bear the expense of these after-thought motions when the judgment has already been entered in Plaintiffs' favor. To allow costs for these types of motions would only encourage prevailing parties to file frivolous motions to alter or amend the judgment ad nauseam with the knowledge that Defendants will foot the bill. 43 Uphoff v. Elegant Bath, Ltd., No. 96 C 4645, 1998 WL 42312 at  3 (N.D.Ill. Jan.23, 1998). 44 We agree with the district court. We do not believe that a prevailing plaintiff in a FLSA case should be able to stick a defendant with attorney's fees that were incurred by the Plaintiffs' filing of untimely and improper motions--which is precisely what happened in this case. Rule 59(e) may not be used to raise novel legal theories that a party had the ability to address in the first instance. Russell v. Delco Remy Div. of Gen. Motors Corp., 51 F.3d 746, 749 (7th Cir.1995) (citing Federal Deposit Ins. Corp. v. Meyer, 781 F.2d 1260, 1268 (7th Cir.1986)). As the district court points out, the Plaintiffs did not move for prejudgment interest and the 2% punitive penalty until after the district court entered summary judgment. The Plaintiffs do not dispute this finding. Both motions are untimely under Rule 59(e). 45 The Plaintiffs counter the district court's determination on prejudgment interest by citing Gorenstein Enter., Inc. v. Quality Care-USA, Inc., 874 F.2d 431 (7th Cir.1989), for the proposition that prejudgment interest should be presumptively available to victims of federal law violations. Id. at 436. We do not disagree with this proposition but we note that it is still subject to the requirements of Rule 59(e). [P]rejudgment interest, unlike post-judgment interest, normally is considered an element of the judgment itself, that is, of the relief on the merits, and hence governed by Rule 59(e). Healy Co. v. Milwaukee Metro. Sewerage, 60 F.3d 305, 308 (7th Cir.1995) (citing Osterneck v. Ernst & Whinney, 489 U.S. 169, 176, 109 S.Ct. 987, 103 L.Ed.2d 146 (1989)). Thus, prejudgment interest is presumptively available to victims of federal law violations so long as the requirements of Rule 59(e) have been complied with. Here, the Plaintiffs should have requested the prejudgment interest prior to judgment, but they did not. 46 Because both motions were untimely, the attorneys' time spent pursuing these claims were properly disallowed. Accordingly, we find that the district court did not abuse its discretion in reducing 4.2 hours of time billed by the Plaintiffs' attorneys in preparing the motions to alter or amend the district court's May 15, 1997 order. 47
48 The Plaintiffs also challenge the district court's determination of the number of hours reasonably expended in connection with the preparation of the fee request in this case. Here, the Plaintiffs sought compensation for 9.9 hours of attorney time in connection with the preparation of the attorney's fee motions. The district court determined that the Plaintiffs' attorneys' fee request was unreasonable and, therefore, reduced the billable hours to 1.6. In making this reduction, the district court cited this Court's decision in Ustrak, in which we noted that 1.6 hours expended on an attorney's fee request preparation was reasonable. Ustrak, 851 F.2d at 988. Our holding in Ustrak, however, was actually based on our holding in Kurowski v. Krajewski, 848 F.2d 767 (7th Cir.1988), and, therefore, we must look to Kurowski to capture the essence of this Court's position. In Kurowski, we noted that 1.6 hours billed to the preparation for an award of attorney's fees was reasonable in light of the approximately 140 hours of time that the attorneys spent litigating the merits of the case. Id. at 776. 49 Here, the Plaintiffs' attorneys allegedly spent just under 100 hours litigating the merits of the case. In keeping with this Court's decisions in both Ustrak and Kurowski, the district court reduced the hours for the preparation of the request for an award of attorney's fees to 1.6. We think that this reduction is reasonably related to the number of hours spent litigating the merits of the case. Therefore, the district court's reduction did not constitute an abuse of discretion.