Court Opinion

ID: 9730576
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:16:11.899018+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:07.530493
License: Public Domain

MESCHKE, Justice,
concurring specially.
I concur. I write separately only to emphasize effects of this decision as I understand them.
This Court has said before, although in a different context, that “[I]t is the reasonableness of the fee, and not the arrangement the attorney and his client may have agreed upon which is controlling whenever the fee is to be assessed..."; City of Bismarck v. Thom, 261 N.W.2d 640 (N.D.1977). In effect, today’s decision reiterates that point because there was no other “evidence upon which to base any additional attorney fees.”
There may be circumstances where contemporaneous time records should not be controlling in determining reasonableness of attorney fees, Cf. City of Bismarck v. Thom, supra, 261 N.W.2d at 647 (Justice Vogel dissenting) and United Power Association v. Moxness, 267 N.W.2d 814, 819 (N.D.1978) (Justice Vogel dissenting), but it surely should be understood by now that “the number of hours expended” is an essential and relevant factor. Thom, supra, 261 N.W.2d at 646. The effect of absence of contemporaneous time records, or even reasonable reconstructions or estimates of time amounts, ought to be obvious here, even if that may not be the only factor in today’s decision.