Opinion ID: 738304
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Benefit to class of particular hours.

Text: 25 Dunne argues that he was entitled to compensation for every hour that he spent, and a prudent lawyer would have spent, on the client's case, under Twin City Sportservice v. Charles O. Finley & Co., 676 F.2d 1291, 1313 (9th Cir.1982) (a fee shifting case, not a common fund case). He claims that the magistrate judge erroneously limited his recovery to those hours for which he could show a connection between his work and benefit to the class. 26 The magistrate judge disallowed 2,149 of the 3,149 hours Dunne claimed to have spent preparing summary judgment materials and preparing for oral argument. Her detailed findings establish that Dunne wrote little for the summary judgments, and what little he wrote was of low quality and was entirely rewritten by others. He did not argue the motions orally. Instead, the evidence showed that Dunne was in an advisory role. 27 The magistrate also disallowed 3241.5 of 3,741.5 hours Dunne claimed to have worked after November 1985, when the western states summary judgment motions were argued. Dunne had no time sheets to establish that he really spent time on the case; his quarterly reports to Florida did not refer to any ongoing projects; and the reports of another lawyer, to whose work Dunne claimed to have contributed, did not corroborate Dunne's claim. The magistrate judge likewise disallowed other, smaller amounts of time because she was not satisfied that Dunne had performed work on the Florida case in those amounts, his work had been minimal and of no value, or he had conceded that it had been billed to Oregon and was not properly billable to Florida. All these disallowances were within the magistrate's discretion. 28 An attorney's right to common fund fees arises from equitable principles of restitution. See Sprague v. Ticonic Nat'l Bank, 307 U.S. 161, 167, 59 S.Ct. 777, 780, 83 L.Ed. 1184 (1939); Central Railroad & Banking Co. of Georgia v. Pettus, 113 U.S. 116, 5 S.Ct. 387, 28 L.Ed. 915 (1885); Trustees v. Greenough, 105 U.S. 527, 532, 26 L.Ed. 1157 (1881); John P. Dawson, Lawyers and Involuntary Clients in Public Interest Litigation, 88 Harv.L.Rev. 849 (1975); John P. Dawson, Lawyers and Involuntary Clients: Attorney Fees from Funds, 87 Harv.L.Rev. 1597 (1974). It is well-established that an award of attorneys' fees from a common fund depends on whether the attorneys' specific services benefitted the fund--whether they tended to create, increase, protect or preserve the fund. Class Plaintiffs v. Jaffe & Schlesinger, P.A., 19 F.3d 1306, 1308 (9th Cir.1994) (internal quotations deleted). This is not to say that if a lawyer writes a well-founded motion that a prudent lawyer would have written but it is denied, or takes a deposition of a witness who turns out not to be helpful, that the beneficiaries of the common fund need not pay for the effort. Good legal representation regularly includes some work which does not bear fruit. Nevertheless, a lawyer is not entitled to be compensated from a common fund for work he did not do or hours he did not spend. Nor is he entitled to compensation for hours a reasonable lawyer would not have spent, hours unreasonably spent, or work done so badly it is of no value to the common fund beneficiaries. The disallowances by the magistrate fell within those categories. 29 In a common fund case, the judge must look out for the interests of the beneficiaries, to make sure that they obtain sufficient financial benefit after the lawyers are paid. Their interests are not represented in the fee award proceedings by the lawyers seeking fees from the common fund. See Washington Pub. Power, 19 F.3d at 1300-01. Nor did they hire those lawyers and choose to repose their trust in them and accept their hourly rates and times claimed. The district court acted properly to discharge its duty to the beneficiaries of the Florida common fund by its careful analysis of Dunne's claim and disallowances of unreasonable hours claimed. 30