Court Opinion

ID: 9554815
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-09 21:00:37.387442+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:36:35.562377
License: Public Domain

United States Court of Appeals
                      For the First Circuit

No. 22-1339

                         NUVASIVE, INC.,

                       Plaintiff, Appellee,

                                v.

                           TIMOTHY DAY,

                      Defendant, Appellant.

          APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
               FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

          [Hon. Denise J. Casper, U.S. District Judge]

                              Before

                       Barron, Chief Judge,
                Lipez and Howard, Circuit Judges.

     Bryan E. Busch, with whom Stephen D. Weatherhead was on brief,
for appellant.

     Mary Taylor Gallagher, with whom Holly M. Polglase, Michael
S. Batson, Hermes, Netburn, O'Connor & Spearing, P.C., Christopher
W. Cardwell, M. Thomas McFarland, and Gullett, Sanford, Robinson
& Martin, PLLC were on brief, for appellee.

                          August 9, 2023
           LIPEZ, Circuit Judge.         In this appeal, Timothy Day

challenges district court orders requiring him to pay his former

employer more than $1.7 million in damages and attorney's fees for

his   contractual   breaches   and    spoliation   of   evidence.   These

assessments arose from Day's business interactions with customers

of his former employer, appellee NuVasive, Inc., on behalf of his

new employer, Alphatec Spine, Inc., in violation of noncompetition

and nonsolicitation obligations in Day's contract with NuVasive.

The details of those violations are fully reported in the district

court's multiple decisions.      See NuVasive, Inc. v. Day, No. 19-

cv-10800, 2022 WL 899244 (D. Mass. Mar. 28, 2022); NuVasive, Inc.

v. Day, No. 19-cv-10800, 2021 WL 1087982 (D. Mass. Feb. 18, 2021);

NuVasive, Inc. v. Day, No. 19-cv-10800, 2019 WL 2287709 (D. Mass.

May 29, 2019); see also NuVasive, Inc. v. Day, 954 F.3d 439 (1st

Cir. 2020) (resolving a choice-of-law issue).             We thus assume

familiarity with the background facts and limit our discussion to

the damages and fees issues.         After careful review of the record

and applicable law, we affirm the district court's rulings.

                        I. The Damages Award

           Under Delaware law, which applies in this diversity

action, a plaintiff seeking to recover damages for breach of

contract must prove "with reasonable certainty" that the damages

claimed were caused by the defendant's breach.          SIGA Techs., Inc.

v. PharmAthene, Inc., 132 A.3d 1108, 1111 (Del. 2015); see also

                                 - 2 -
Tanner v. Exxon Corp., No. 79C-JA-5, 1981 WL 191389, at *1 (Del.

Super. Ct. July 23, 1981) ("It is axiomatic that a plaintiff

. . . must demonstrate with reasonable certainty that defendant's

breach caused the loss." (emphasis omitted)); Chemipal Ltd. v.

Slim-Fast Nutritional Foods Int'l, Inc., 350 F. Supp. 2d 582, 596-

97   (D.   Del.    2004)   (quoting    Tanner,    1981   WL    191389,   at   *1).

Although    that     standard    requires     a    connection      between    the

plaintiff's harm and the defendant's breach, the evidence merely

needs to be sufficient to take "the fact of damages . . . out of

the area of speculation."       Tanner, 1981 WL 191389, at *1; see also

SIGA Techs., 132 A.3d at 1111.            We review the district court's

factfinding on causation for clear error.            See Moore v. Elec. Boat

Corp., 25 F.4th 30, 34 (1st Cir. 2022); VICI Racing, LLC v. T-

Mobile USA, Inc., 763 F.3d 273, 293 (3d Cir. 2014).

            Day asserts that the district court erred in finding the

requisite causal nexus between his improper solicitations and the

decisions of Drs. Paul Glazer, Brian Kwon, and John Shin to switch

from NuVasive to Alphatec as their primary supplier of spine-

related surgical products.            Day argues that NuVasive failed to

establish    the    required    connection       between      specific   improper

conduct on his part and specific damages to the company.                 Instead,

he claims, the district court assumed a connection between his

actions and NuVasive's reduced business from the three surgeons

that the record does not support.

                                      - 3 -
               In asserting the inadequacy of the district court's

factfinding,         Day   disregards      the     substantial       circumstantial

evidence in the record.            See, e.g., Elenza, Inc. v. Alcon Lab'ys

Holding Corp., 183 A.3d 717, 725-26 (Del. 2018) (recognizing that

facts    may    be    proven   with     circumstantial       evidence);      see   also

Mirabella v. Town of Lexington, 64 F.4th 55, 59 (1st Cir. 2023)

(Lipez, J., dissenting) ("[D]irect evidence is no more valuable

than circumstantial evidence.").            Contrary to Day's suggestion, in

finding a causal connection between Day's breaches and the harm to

NuVasive, the district court did not rely solely on the dramatic

surge    in    Glazer,     Kwon,   and    Shin's    use     of    Alphatec   products

following Day's move to that company.                     Rather, in its summary

judgment       and   damages   opinions,     the     court       found   particularly

telling the multiple instances in which Day improperly interacted

with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center ("BIDMC") -- and, most

significantly, with Glazer -- in the months immediately after Day's

departure      from    NuVasive    in    April     2019.1        Those   interactions

     1 Before Day moved to Alphatec, Glazer was the largest user
of NuVasive products at BIDMC, which in turn was the largest
NuVasive account in the Boston market. See NuVasive, 2022 WL
899244, at *4. The district court described the change in Glazer's
usage as follows:

                    In 2018, Dr. Glazer used $5.4 million in
               NuVasive hardware and biologics at BIDMC; in
               2019, that figure was $2,559,137; in 2020,
               that total was approximately $95,000; in 2021
               (as of . . . October 2021), that number was
               zero.

                                         - 4 -
included: (1) Day's assistance in negotiating the pricing of

Alphatec products for use at BIDMC, see NuVasive, 2022 WL 899244,

at *62; NuVasive, 2021 WL 1087982, at *3, *8; (2) Day's involvement

in obtaining approval for use of Alphatec's "ALIF" system for

spinal fusion surgeries at BIDMC, NuVasive, 2021 WL 1087982, at

*3; (3) Day's organizing the itinerary when Alphatec's CEO traveled

to Boston to meet with surgeons including Glazer, see NuVasive,

2022 WL 899244, at *5, and (4) Day's presence "in the operating

room with Dr. Glazer when he used an Alphatec ALIF system for the

first time in May 2019," id. at *6.

          Indeed, Day's interactions in April and May 2019 with

surgeons who had been on his sales roster at NuVasive prompted the

district court to issue an injunction, on May 29, 2019, requiring

Day to comply with the nonsolicitation clause in the NuVasive

Proprietary Information, Inventions Assignment, Arbitration, and

Restrictive Covenants Agreement ("PIIA").   See NuVasive, 2019 WL

2287709, at *8.   In January 2020, the court specified that the

injunction would remain in effect through March 3, 2020, noting in

its ruling that the "incidents of solicitation in violation of the

PIIA in April and May 2019 were not isolated incidents."    In its

Id. (footnote omitted).
     2 Day admitted helping to negotiate the pricing "with some
emails and such."

                              - 5 -
summary judgment decision the following year, the district court

cited evidence that Day had served as Alphatec's "primary contact

for   BIDMC"   through     June   9,    2019,   in   violation    of   his

nonsolicitation agreement, and also had taken actions in violation

of his noncompetition agreement.          NuVasive, 2021 WL 1087982, at

*8.

            Day highlights Glazer's testimony that Day had nothing

to do with his decision to switch from nearly exclusive use of

NuVasive products to primary use of Alphatec products and also

points to evidence that Glazer's move to Alphatec had been in the

works before Day's own move to the company.          The district court

considered this evidence, however, see NuVasive, 2022 WL 899244,

at *5, *11, and it was free to reject Glazer's disclaimer of Day's

influence    given   the   undisputed     evidence   that   Day   engaged

repeatedly with Glazer on behalf of Alphatec during the period in

which Day's agreement with NuVasive prohibited him from doing so.3

      3We note as well that NuVasive's damages expert, Misty
Decker, was questioned in a deposition in July 2020 about Dr.
Glazer's statement in his declaration that Day had not "solicited,
encouraged, or participated in any solicitation of [him] to use
Alpha[t]ec products." When asked if she had "any reason to believe
. . . that Dr. Glazer was not telling the truth when he signed
this declaration," she responded: "I have to look at the totality
of the evidence, not just one piece of oral testimony, and I've
given you all the reasons that would not tie directly to Dr.
Glazer's declaration." Earlier in her deposition, Decker stated,
"I do understand Dr. Glazer has made this statement, but I do
understand there is documentary evidence of things that would
contradict this statement." The district court credited the expert
opinion offered by NuVasive. See NuVasive, 2022 WL 899244, at *11

                                  - 6 -
            Moreover,      even   though      Glazer    may    have    shown    some

interest in Alphatec before Day joined the company, the record

indicates that, until Day became involved, Glazer did not have the

necessary    custom   surgical      instruments    to    make    the    switch    to

Alphatec's     products.      See    NuVasive,    2022    WL    899244,    at    *6;

NuVasive, 2021 WL 1087982, at *4.             The district court also heard

testimony on the influential role sales representatives play in

retaining the business of surgeon users of medical products.

Specifically,     John     English,    who      performed      both    legal     and

distributor roles at NuVasive, testified that companies require

noncompete agreements because "when a sales rep leaves, the company

has a chance of keeping the business as long as that sales rep is

not still in the room helping the surgeon."4

            Finally, when viewed alongside the evidence described

above,   the    magnitude    of     Glazer's    near-simultaneous         move    to

Alphatec after Day's transition provides additional circumstantial

("Here, NuVasive has shown, by a reasonable degree of certainty
through witness testimony, exhibits and expert opinion that the
Court credits, that it suffered lost profits as to Dr. Glazer, Dr.
Shin and Dr. Kwon as a result of Day's violation of the NuVasive
PIIA during the Injunction Period." (emphasis added)).

     4 English answered affirmatively when asked if the sales
representative plays the "great[est] role in convincing a surgeon
to utilize NuVasive's products." English also testified that he
verified while conversing with Glazer that -- as Day previously
had assured him -- "Dr. Glazer was going to use whatever product
that Mr. Day recommended for him."

                                      - 7 -
evidence of a cause-and-effect relationship.   See, e.g., NuVasive,

2022 WL 899244, at *5 (finding that, as of summer 2018, "BIDMC was

only giving Alphatec 'a very, very small platform to be able [to]

have some trial cases'" of an Alphatec system (alteration in

original) (quoting Alphatec's then-senior sales director for the

Northeast)); id. (finding that, as of the first quarter of 2019,

"Dr. Glazer was still only using a minimal amount of Alphatec

products"); id. at *4 (finding that "Dr. Glazer's use of NuVasive

products changed in April 2019, the same time that Day left the

company for Alphatec" (citations omitted)).5   We thus see no clear

error in the district court's finding that the shift of the bulk

of Glazer's business from NuVasive to Alphatec between April 2019

     5 In its Findings of Fact in its damages opinion, the district
court reported that "Dr. Glazer's revenue generated with Alphatec
jumped from $34,265 in Q1 2019 to $242,852[] in Q2 2019 and
increased to over $400,000 in and after Q4 2019." NuVasive, 2022
WL 899244, at *6.       The court stated the following in its
Conclusions of Law:

          [A]lthough [Dr. Glazer] had some limited
          business with Alphatec before Day arrived
          there from NuVasive on April 1, 2019, Day's
          own 2019 Sales Projections for NuVasive before
          his departure, the subsequent decrease in
          NuVasive sales by more than fifty percent,
          ten-fold increase of Alphatec sales for Dr.
          Glazer from Q1 to Q4 2019, all in the wake and
          midst of Day's breach of the NuVasive PIIA,
          show that NuVasive suffered lost profits from
          Dr. Glazer's business as a result of Day's
          breach.

Id. at *11.

                              - 8 -
and March 2020 -- the operative timeframe for Day's nonsolicitation

obligation under the PIIA -- was not a coincidence and that Day

was indeed the catalyst.

            The evidence relating to Kwon and Shin was less abundant

than that for Glazer, but it was nonetheless adequate to support

the district court's finding that Day was responsible for their

switch to Alphatec products.          Before Day's move to Alphatec,

neither Kwon nor Shin was doing any business with that company.

See id. at *11. Both started using some Alphatec products in early

2020, see id., and the record contains references to a "Q1 2020"

Alphatec document -- i.e., a first-quarter report -- stating that,

in addition to Glazer, Day considered Kwon and Shin among his

successes.      See, e.g., id. at *6 (citing testimony of NuVasive's

damages expert).

            More specifically, Day acknowledged that his email to

Kwon in May 2019 asking Kwon to meet with Alphatec's CEO was "[t]o

some extent" a solicitation, and Day specifically asked in that

communication if he could show Kwon an Alphatec "screw system."

Day also joined Alphatec CEO Pat Miles for a breakfast meeting

with Kwon in May 2019.      As for Shin, NuVasive introduced testimony

that the surgeon's projected sales for 2021 would have been higher

if   he   had   continued   using   NuVasive's   products,   as   he   had

historically done, rather than switching to Alphatec.         Alphatec's

senior sales director for the Northeast, Chad Spear, likewise

                                    - 9 -
testified that the Q1 2020 summary referenced above included an

observation that Shin had been "super engaged" with Day.

            In short, the district court identified a pattern of

improper activity seemingly aimed at switching the affiliation of

multiple    surgeons     from    NuVasive   to     Alphatec    --   including   a

particularly       valuable     customer,   Glazer     --     and   reached   the

reasonable conclusion that the campaign worked.                     Moreover, as

explained infra, NuVasive's damages claim was boosted by an adverse

inference imposed on Day because he had spoliated evidence --

namely, an inference that text messages he failed to preserve were

"unfavorable to him" with respect to "what damages NuVasive was

able to prove."      Id. at *3, *12-13.6

            Nor do we find any clear error in the amount of damages

awarded.    The court held a three-day hearing devoted in large part

to   the   issue    of   damages,   with    both    parties    offering   expert

testimony and written reports.         In calculating "low end" and "high

      6In an apparent effort to discount the strength of the
circumstantial evidence on damages, Day contrasts the record here
with the facts of Tanner v. Exxon Corp., where the plaintiff's
former customers specifically testified that they stopped
patronizing the plaintiff's service station because of the
station's deteriorating condition resulting from the defendant's
contractual breach.   See 1981 WL 191389, at *2.     As explained
above, however, the plaintiff's burden of proof for breach-of-
contract damages is "[r]easonable certainty," a showing that "is
not equivalent to absolute certainty."    Id. at *1.   The record
here contained an abundance of circumstantial evidence from which
the district court supportably inferred the causal link between
Day's breaches and NuVasive's harm.

                                     - 10 -
end" damages amounts for the conversion of Glazer's sales to

Alphatec,    NuVasive's       expert     relied,   in    part,    on   2019   sales

projections that Day himself had prepared while still working for

NuVasive -- finetuning the figures to Day's advantage in various

ways.     NuVasive, 2022 WL 899244, at *7.              For hardware sales, for

example, the expert subtracted NuVasive's "'mitigating sales,'

i.e., the sales that it actually made[;] the costs of goods sold

(that were avoided)[;] and distributor commissions that would have

been made."      Id.   For biologics, which are "bought in bulk for the

hospital    as    a    whole,"    the     expert     made   a    "conservative[]"

calculation covering a limited period because of the possibility,

inter alia, that BIDMC would have had "inventory on hand from prior

years."    Id. at *8.     The district court conservatively adopted the

low-end     estimate    for      Glazer's    sales      (including     prejudgment

interest) calculated by NuVasive's expert ($1,552,581), see id. at

*9, *11, and it limited the damages to the period covered by its

preliminary      injunction      order,     id.    at    *11.7     The   expert's

calculations, adopted by the district court, were significantly

lower for the damages related to Kwon and Shin's lost sales:

$20,060 for Kwon and $29,482 for Shin.               See id. at *9.

     7 NuVasive had sought lost profits for periods after the end
of the injunction period, but the district court "decline[d] to
award any additional damages given the impact of the pandemic after
that time on sales projections, the decrease in surgical needs and
impact on sales revenues." NuVasive, 2022 WL 899244, at *11.

                                        - 11 -
          Day attempts to discredit the testimony of NuVasive's

expert by asserting that she "assumed liability and proximate cause

in her report." It was the court, however, that made the liability

determination based on the evidence of Day's improper actions and

the three doctors' subsequent transitions to Alphatec.   See id. at

*10-11; NuVasive, 2021 WL 1087982, at *8-9.    As described above,

the court supportably found that Day's violations of the PIIA

caused harm to NuVasive.    The expert then converted the court's

cause-and-effect finding into specific damages amounts based on

her examination of multiple factors, including historical sales

data, actual sales in the relevant period, and, as noted above,

Day's own projection of sales to Glazer anticipated for 2019.   See

2022 WL 899244, at *6-9.8   The district court permissibly relied

on that analysis in determining the damages award.9

     8 Moreover, the expert, Decker, explained that she drew her
understanding of causation from multiple factors, including the
details of Day's violations of the PIIA and Day's own claims of
success with the three doctors -- in addition to "the drop in
NuVasive's sales to these surgeons in Q2 2019 [and] the uptick in
Alphatec's sales in the same period." NuVasive, 2022 WL 899244,
at *6. Decker also stated that she had reviewed the entirety of
eleven depositions taken in the case, "as well as the entire
exhibit packages for those depositions."

     9 In so concluding, we briefly note Day's inapt emphasis on
an unpublished decision of the Superior Court of Delaware in which
the court found that the plaintiff had not established "a causal
connection between [a former employee's] alleged actions and [the
company]'s purported loss in sales." OmniMax Int'l, Inc. v. Dowd,
No. N16C-04-168, 2019 WL 3545848, at *3 (Del. Sup. Ct. Jul. 17,
2019). The circumstances in OmniMax differ markedly from those
here. There, the court found that the plaintiff company had failed

                              - 12 -
                    II. Attorney's Fees and Costs

           NuVasive successfully sought sanctions against Day based

on spoliation of evidence -- specifically, as noted above, Day's

failure   to   preserve   certain   text   messages   relevant   to   his

interactions with NuVasive customers after he left the company.

Adopting the report and recommendation of the magistrate judge,

the district court concluded that NuVasive was entitled to the

adverse inference that the lost evidence was unfavorable to Day,

plus reasonable attorney's fees and costs to compensate the company

for expenses incurred as a result of the spoliation.         The court

determined that NuVasive was entitled to fees covering a roughly

two-year period that began with the company's discovery in August

2019 that evidence had been spoliated.      The court awarded NuVasive

$127,214.50 in attorney's fees and $2,103.85 in costs related to

to prove that its former employee breached the provision of their
agreement barring customer solicitation, see id. at *3-4, and the
company also offered "no expert who could perhaps correlate its
losses to the conduct of" its former employee, id. at *4. Neither
shortcoming identified in OmniMax applies here.

     We note, in addition, that the Delaware Supreme Court has
endorsed "the wrongdoer rule" for assessing expectation damages
resulting from a breach of contract, holding that "[t]he breaching
party cannot avoid responsibility for making the other party whole
simply by arguing that expectation damages based on lost profits
are speculative because they come from an uncertain world created
by the wrongdoer." SIGA Techs., 132 A.3d at 1111; see also id. at
1131 n.132. Accordingly, when a party has breached a contract,
"the fact" of expectation damages must be proven "with reasonable
certainty," but "[t]he amount of damages can be an estimate." Id.
at 1111.

                                - 13 -
the spoliation, including recompense for the company's efforts to

recover the lost messages from other sources.

                 On appeal, Day argues that the district court improperly

awarded attorney's fees for work "unrelated and unnecessary to

NuVasive's motion for sanctions."                    He further asserts that the

court failed to "fully engag[e] in the nuanced evaluation required

under      the     lodestar    method"       used    in    the     First   Circuit     for

calculating a reasonable attorney's fee.                   Day objects particularly

to the court's inclusion of fees for work that pre-dated NuVasive's

filing of its motions for sanctions,10 which he characterizes as

"general discovery expenses."

                 We review a district court's award of attorney's fees

for      abuse       of     discretion,         see,       e.g.,     Díaz-Rivera        v.

Rivera-Rodríguez, 377 F.3d 119, 124 (1st Cir. 2004), and we find

none here. The court explained in its fees order that, immediately

after learning of the spoliation in August 2019, NuVasive "took

steps to recover [the missing text messages] from other sources

(e.g.,     his     phone    service    providers,         Alphatec),"      resulting    in

"attorneys' fees and costs that predate[d] the formal filing of

the   spoliation          motions"    but    were    nonetheless      related   to     the

spoliation and covered by the court's order adopting the magistrate

      10The district court denied NuVasive's initial motion for
sanctions but granted its renewed motion.

                                            - 14 -
judge's recommendation.          The district court thus concluded that

the appropriate timeframe for the fee award began with NuVasive's

discovery that evidence had been spoliated and extended through

NuVasive's filing of the fee petition now at issue.                   The court

further explained that it had reviewed the attorneys' billing

records and stated that, "[g]iven the contested nature of the

spoliation     motions    and    litigation       regarding   same,   the   Court

concludes that 217.7 hours for same was reasonable and the time

spent attempting to retrieve evidence (258.9 hours) and much less

time (33.4 hours through November 30, 2021) spent on the fee

petition also was reasonable."

              We reject out-of-hand Day's assertion that the court

should have awarded only fees "directly related to [NuVasive's]

motion for spoliation of evidence."               The court's chosen scope for

the fee award, covering NuVasive's costs in attempting to find the

spoliated text messages or locate other evidence to compensate for

their loss was eminently reasonable and certainly not an abuse of

discretion.      Those efforts by NuVasive were a predictable result

of the spoliation.       As to the amount of fees for that time period,

Day makes only broad-brush arguments in attempting to show that

the award was improper. Although he asserts that NuVasive included

more   than    $53,000   in     fees   by   its   lead   counsel   "for   general

discovery that is entirely unrelated to NuVasive's Motions for

Sanctions," he does not identify the entries in NuVasive's listed

                                       - 15 -
hours that he claims would be improper even if we accepted -- as

we have -- the district court's determination that the relevant

period began in August 2019 and includes discovery made necessary

by Day's spoliation of evidence.11

           In his briefing, Day relies heavily on yet another

unpublished decision to challenge the fees amount, highlighting

the decision of a federal district court in Massachusetts to award

fees related to a spoliation motion in an amount substantially

less than had been requested.           See Hefter Impact Techs., LLC v.

Sport Maska, Inc., No. 15-13290, 2017 WL 5798642, at *3-4 (D. Mass.

Nov. 28, 2017).     Hefter, however, is readily distinguishable from

this case in at least two important respects.               First, the Hefter

court "ultimately found that the [defendant's] conduct was not

sanctionable."     Id. at *3.    It nonetheless decided to award "fees

and costs associated with the extra work plaintiff did to bring

the   sanctions    motion     itself"     because   the     motion,   although

unsuccessful,     "was   a   reasonable    response"   to    the   defendant's

      11Day does not even provide examples of such expenditures.
Rather, he supports his contention that "[t]he attorneys' fees
awarded were unreasonable and excessive" by citing to the full
list of hours submitted by NuVasive's primary and local law firms,
with a parenthetical explaining that these lists "reflect[]
entries for written discovery to Day; subpoenas to Day's new
employer, subpoenas to hospitals, doctors, and credentialing
companies necessary to establish any alleged breaches of the
restrictive covenants, etc." However, any of those tasks could
have been part of NuVasive's efforts to obtain the lost evidence
or find alternative proof of Day's breach of the PIIA.

                                   - 16 -
conduct.    Id. (emphases omitted).         Here, by contrast, the district

court found that sanctions were warranted, and the magistrate judge

recommended an award to cover NuVasive's costs both in prosecuting

the   sanctions    motions   and     "attempt[ing]    to   recover    the   lost

evidence."     Second, the fee analysis in Hefter was performed by

the trial judge.     As the reviewing court, we play a different role,

"customarily      defer[ring]   to    the    trial   judge,   whose   intimate

knowledge of the nuances of the underlying case uniquely positions

him to construct a condign award."            Díaz-Rivera, 377 F.3d at 124

(quoting Gay Officers Action League v. Puerto Rico, 247 F.3d 288,

292 (1st Cir. 2001)); see also Pérez-Sosa v. Garland, 22 F.4th

312, 320 (1st Cir. 2022) ("The Supreme Court has cautioned against

'appellate micromanagement' of fee awards." (quoting Fox v. Vice,

563 U.S. 826, 838 (2011))).

             The district court must be guided, of course, by the

lodestar method ordinarily used by our court to evaluate the

reasonableness of attorney's fees. See, e.g., Pérez-Sosa, 22 F.4th

at 321.12    Here, the trial judge expressly recognized the lodestar

      12"The 'lodestar' . . . is calculated by multiplying the
number of hours reasonably expended on the litigation by a
reasonable hourly rate."    Diaz v. Jiten Hotel Mgmt., Inc., 741
F.3d 170, 172 n.1 (1st Cir. 2013). Day challenges only the number
of hours used for the lodestar, not the hourly rates.      A court
making a fee award also has the discretion to adjust the lodestar
up or down based on various factors, see id. at 173 n.2, including
"the amount involved and the results obtained," id. at 177 n.7
(listing the adjustment factors enumerated in Hensley v.
Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 430 n.3 (1983)).

                                     - 17 -
inquiry and adhered to its steps.        Although the court accepted

all hours proposed by NuVasive, it stated that it had "reviewed

the billing records produced" and found the time spent on both the

spoliation-related work and the fee petition to be reasonable,

noting the litigation over the "contested" spoliation motions.

The court also "considered the factors for adjusting the lodestar

. . . upward   or   downward,   but   [found]   no   basis   to   do   so."

(Citation omitted.)     We thus detect no legal error in the court's

fees analysis and, as noted above, no abuse of discretion in the

amounts awarded.

          Accordingly, we affirm both the award of damages in favor

of NuVasive and the sanctions-based award of attorney's fees and

costs.

          So ordered.

                                - 18 -