Court Opinion

ID: 9571909
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:36:10.633281+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:31:09.900995
License: Public Domain

Taylor, P.J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part). I concur with the majority opinion except for that portion of part iv that holds that independent expenses attributable to the use of paralegals are not recoverable as mediation sanctions. Thus I would affirm the trial court’s award of mediation sanctions that included costs attributable to paralegals.
The majority remands this case to the trial court with instructions that it reduce the award of attorney fees by the amount attributable to the independent *184paralegal billings because “attorney fees” must take into account the work not only of attorneys, but also of secretaries, messengers, paralegals, and others whose labor contributes to the work product for which an attorney bills a client. The majority “reluctantly” rules that the reasonable attorney fee allowed as mediation sanctions should already include the work of paralegals. The majority indicates that its ruling is reluctant because it finds the increasing practice of allowing an independent recovery of paralegal time in attorney fee awards has merit. The majority nevertheless concludes that an amendment of the court rule or a statute would be necessary before such an award could be allowed.
The flaw in the majority opinion is that its holding is dependent on how a law firm prepares its bills for the court. As I understand the holding, if the firm billed its client separately for paralegals or any other cost, such as secretaries or messengers, but, pursuant to prior agreed-to arrangements with the client, when submitting the billings to the trial court for mediation sanctions, folded those into “attorney fees,” they would not run afoul of the majority’s holding. Presumably, all sophisticated firms who anticipate possible mediation sanctions will now adopt that procedure. We have, then, another puzzling fiction in a field where there are far too many now. (For example, if we really want to be textualists with the court rule, why are any costs other than the stark fees for the attorney allowed?) I would affirm the circuit court order and allow the paralegal costs as analogous to other support costs, such as secretaries, messengers, and so forth that have not customarily been broken out, but are no different except for that, than parale*185gal costs. I simply see nothing in the court rules or statutes that would prevent us from holding that paralegal expenses may be recovered as part of a reasonable attorney fee for purposes of mediation sanctions. Nevertheless, because I hold a minority position in this regard, I join the majority in its urging of an amendment of the court rules or statutes to allow the recovery of paralegal expenses as a part of mediation sanctions.