Court Opinion

ID: 9781578
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 16:52:40.786912+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:28.255649
License: Public Domain

Blackwell, Judge,
concurring fully and specially.
I join the opinion of the Court in full, including Division 3 (a), in which we conclude that the court below did not abuse its discretion when it excluded certain evidence relating to the amount involved in the underlying litigation between Westrex and the City. I do not understand Division 3 (a) to endorse the idea that the amount involved in a case never is relevant in assessing the reasonableness of a fee for the work done by a lawyer in the case, and I would be reluctant to join it if it did. I write separately to explain my views of the relevance of the amount involved and to explain more fully why I think the trial court here did not abuse its discretion when it excluded evidence of the amount involved.
Imagine two lawsuits, in both of which the same theory of liability is asserted and the same method of calculating damages applies, but the amount of damages varies substantially from one to the other. The lawyer and client in one case genuinely and reasonably believe that the client ought to recover $500 in damages, and the lawyer and client in the second genuinely and reasonably believe that the client ought to recover $500 million in damages. A fee of $50,000 for preparing and filing the initial pleadings, preparing and serving written discovery *201requests, preparing and serving written responses to discovery requests, identifying and consulting with a potential expert witness, and conducting a deposition almost certainly would be, it seems to me, unreasonable in the $500 case, but it might be a real bargain for the client in the $500 million lawsuit. This is so because one reasonably might expect, I think, that the lawyer in the $500 million case would work longer and think harder about his case, even if he ultimately performs the same kinds of tasks and produces the same kinds of work product as the lawyer in the $500 case. And this is the very reason why, I think, the Rules of Professional Conduct provide that the “amount involved,” among many other considerations, may be relevant to the reasonableness of the fee. See Rule 1.5 (a) (4) of the Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct, found in Bar Rule 4-102 (d). I do not mean to suggest that a more significant fee always is warranted in a case with more at stake. My point is a small one: the stakes in a case are a factor that sometimes properly may be considered in assessing the reasonableness of the fee.
Nevertheless, I agree with the majority that the exclusion in this case of evidence concerning the amount involved is no reason to reverse the judgment below. In my view, the amount involved in a case is relevant to the reasonableness of a fee for work done in the case when there is some reason to think that the lawyer treated the case differently — that he worked longer on it, that he thought harder about it, or that he did something else different than in other similar cases — because the lawyer and client thought it was worth more. But here, the firm presented no evidence that it treated this case any differently because it thought the case was worth more. To the contrary, it appears that the firm lawyer primarily responsible for the Westrex case had devoted nearly all his time in the past six years to sewer and flood cases. By handling these cases over a long period of time, the firm developed expertise and forms that allowed it to handle similar cases, like this one, in a more efficient manner. For instance, the firm was able to file a complaint in this case the day after Westrex retained the firm, and other documents prepared by the firm on behalf of Westrex, such as discovery requests and responses, were substantially similar to the documents the firm had used in other cases it had litigated against the City. Nothing about the firm’s representation of Westrex suggests that the amount involved in this case caused the firm to do anything more in this case than it did in the other sewer and flood cases that it handled.
While I do not doubt that the firm was required to invest years to develop forms that it could use, as it admitted, “over and over[,]” and I do not doubt that the firm ought to be able to profit from its investment, the court below did not prohibit the jury from rewarding the firm for the time that it took to develop these forms. The jury *202heard evidence, for instance, of the firm’s experience and success in handling other sewer and flooding cases and was able to consider the extent to which such matters affected the reasonableness of its fee. But because the firm failed to show that its perception of the value of this case had any effect on the work it performed for Westrex, I agree that the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it excluded evidence of the amount involved.3 See Johnson v. Leibel, 307 Ga. App. 32, 43 (6) (703 SE2d 702) (2010).
Decided June 21, 2011.
Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge & Rice, Adam S. Katz, Jennifer S. Collins, George W. Long III, for appellant.
L. Matt Wilson, Clinton W. Sitton, Richard Kopelman, for appellee.

 There were other reasons to exclude some of the evidence that the firm sought to introduce at trial. Some are identified in the majority opinion. In addition, with respect to the amount of the final settlement between Westrex and the City, I note that the firm was discharged long before the settlement was negotiated, and the amount of the final settlement is not probative, therefore, of the amount that the firm and Westrex genuinely and reasonably believed the case to be worth at the time the firm was representing Westrex. And with respect to the amount of the demand set forth in the ante litem notice that the firm prepared and served for Westrex, if the notice were offered as proof of the amount that the firm genuinely believed to be at stake, the notice would be hearsay offered for the truth of the matter asserted therein and would not, therefore, be competent evidence. Aon Risk Svcs., Inc. of Ga. v. Commercial &c. Inc., 270 Ga. App. 510, 511-512 (1) (607 SE2d 157) (2004).