Court Opinion

ID: 9364830
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-01-20 14:01:01.72514+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:15:40.550229
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 21-13778     Document: 62-1       Date Filed: 01/20/2023    Page: 1 of 8

                                                     [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                    In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                 No. 21-13778
                           Non-Argument Calendar
                           ____________________

       EDWARD WILLIS, JR., et al.,
                                                                  Plaintiffs,
       JOHN E.D. GRUNOW, JR.,
       HARBOR COURSE PROPERTIES, LLC,
       As successor in interest by merger to
       O.R. GOLF PARTNERS, LTD, as assignees of
       EDWARD WILLIS, JR. and EDUARDO WILLIS, III,
       d/b/a WORMMYS,
                                                      Plaintiffs-Appellants,
       versus
       NOVA CASUALTY COMPANY,
USCA11 Case: 21-13778     Document: 62-1     Date Filed: 01/20/2023    Page: 2 of 8

       2                      Opinion of the Court               21-13778

                                                               Defendant,

       LATHAM, LUNA, EDEN & BEAUDINE, LLP,

                                                       Claimant-Appellee.

                           ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court

                      for the Southern District of Florida
                     D.C. Docket No. 4:10-cv-10041-KMM
                           ____________________

       Before JILL PRYOR, BRASHER, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
              John E.D. Grunow, Jr., and Harbor Course Properties, LLC,
       contest the amount of attorney’s fees owed to their former counsel,
       Latham, Luna, Eden & Beaudine, LLP. After the law firm obtained
       two settlements for the clients, the clients refused to pay deferred
       fees and a premium required by their fee agreement. The law firm
       sought a charging lien for the total amount owed under the agree-
       ment, and a magistrate judge recommended enforcing the law
       firm’s charging lien. The district court adopted the magistrate
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       21-13778               Opinion of the Court                        3

       judge’s recommendation and report, determining the law firm was
       entitled to $1,012,469.99 based on the parties’ fee agreement.
               On appeal, the clients argue that the district court erred in
       adopting the magistrate judge’s report because it (1) improperly
       considered the reasonableness of the firm’s fees and (2) overlooked
       whether the firm’s hours billed violated their ethical duties to the
       client. We disagree and affirm.
                                      I.

               The law firm Latham, Luna, Eden & Beaudine, LLP, repre-
       sented its clients John E.D. Grunow, Jr., and Harbor Course Prop-
       erties, LLC, in an environmental dispute against the clients’ con-
       tractor and cutters retained by the contractor for illegally cutting
       down mangrove on the clients’ property. From 2002 to 2013, the
       clients paid the firm monthly. But after the clients developed con-
       cerns about the cost of the ongoing litigation, the firm and clients
       devised a mixed contingency fee agreement. That fee agreement
       allowed the clients to pay the law firm substantially discounted
       hourly rates each month, but it authorized the firm to impose ret-
       rospectively higher hourly rates based on the amount of money it
       recovered. For the first $1 million the firm recovered, clients were
       to pay one-half of the difference between the discounted and regu-
       lar rates. For any recovery over $1 million, the clients would pay
       the remaining deferred fees and a premium. If the clients wished to
       dispute any amount in a periodic invoice, the fee agreement re-
       quired they notify the law firm within thirty days. In line with the
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       4                       Opinion of the Court                  21-13778

       fee agreement, the law firm sent the clients eighty-two invoices,
       and the clients paid each within thirty days at the reduced hourly
       rate.
              After years of litigation, the firm recovered for the clients
       two settlements: first, against the clients’ contractor and the con-
       tractor’s cutters for the damaged mangrove and, second, against
       the cutter’s insurance company for bad faith failure to indemnify.
       The law firm calculated the amount the clients owed under the
       contingency fee portion of the agreement as totaling over $1 mil-
       lion based on time billed, deferred fees, and a premium. The clients
       repudiated the bill, and the law firm moved to enforce a charging
       lien in the district court. The matter was assigned to a magistrate
       judge, who recommended enforcing the law firm’s charging lien
       pursuant to the fee agreement in the amount of $1,012,469.99.
              Central to this appeal, the magistrate judge rejected two ar-
       guments from the clients. First, she refused to entertain the clients’
       argument that the firm’s fees were unreasonable, finding the par-
       ties bound by the amounts agreed to in the fee agreement. The
       magistrate judge continued, “even if the Court were charged with
       reviewing the reasonableness of the fees, the Client would have
       waived its objections” by failing to timely object to the firm’s
       monthly invoices. Second, the magistrate judge rejected the cli-
       ents’ argument that the law firm wasted its money by failing to
       identify “a crucial insurance law issue” before obtaining the second
       settlement. The magistrate judge reasoned that the argument that
       the firm “took ill-advised legal positions is not, even if true, a valid
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       21-13778                Opinion of the Court                         5

       basis for challenging” the law firm’s entitlement to payment under
       the fee agreement. The district court adopted the magistrate
       judge’s recommendation and report in full. This appeal followed.
                                      II.

               Under Florida law, a “charging lien is an equitable right to
       have costs and fees due an attorney for services in the suit secured
       to him in the judgment or recovery in that particular suit.” Sinclair,
       Louis, Siegel, Heath, Nussbaum & Zavertnik, P.A. v. Baucom, 428
       So. 2d 1383, 1384 (Fla. 1983). A charging lien enforces a contract
       between the attorney and client. See id. at 1385. We “review[] a
       trial court’s award of attorneys’ fees for abuse of discretion. How-
       ever, a trial court’s interpretation of a contract is a matter of law
       subject to a de novo standard of review.” US Acquisition, LLC v.
       Tabas, Freedman, Soloff, Miller & Brown, P.A., 87 So. 3d 1229,
       1234 (Fla. 4th DCA 2012) (cleaned up).
              A charging lien requires four elements: first, a valid contract,
       express or implied, between the attorney and client; second, an un-
       derstanding between the parties that payment is dependent upon
       recovery; third, the client’s attempt to avoid payment of the fees or
       a dispute over the amount involved; and fourth, timely notice of
       the lien. Id. Unless the terms of the fee agreement are “illegal, pro-
       hibited, or excessive, under a periodic fee agreement for services
       already performed, the lawyer is entitled to a money judgment for
       the amount of fees due under the contract.” Franklin & Marbin,
       P.A. v. Mascola, 711 So. 2d 46, 52 (Fla. 4th DCA 1998); see also R.
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       6                       Opinion of the Court                 21-13778

       Regulating Fla. Bar 4-1.5(d). The charging lien “is to be based on
       the amount agreed with the client, not an amount to be deter-
       mined by the trial court.” Gossett & Gossett, P.A. v. Mervolion,
       941 So. 2d 1207, 1209 (Fla. 4th DCA 2006).
              On appeal, the clients do not dispute that the four require-
       ments for a valid charging lien are satisfied. Instead, they challenge
       the district court’s evaluation of the fees’ reasonableness.
               First, the clients contend the district court erred in adopting
       the magistrate judge’s report because it was based on an incorrect
       evaluation of the reasonableness of the firm’s fees. We disagree.
       When attorney’s fees are governed by a contractual fee agreement,
       and the client does not "dispute or otherwise question" the amount
       billed, a court may not rewrite the agreement based on what it con-
       siders to be a reasonable fee. See Rodriguez v. Altomare, 261 So.
       3d 590, 592 (Fla. 4th DCA 2018).
              Here, the district court, in adopting the magistrate judge’s
       recommendation and report, did not evaluate the reasonableness
       of the firm’s work or its fee. The magistrate judge explicitly de-
       clined to consider the reasonableness of the fees, determining that
       the fee agreement controlled. She reasoned, “even if the Court
       were charged with reviewing the reasonableness of the fees, the
       Client would have waived its objections” by never disputing the
       firm’s monthly invoices. Id.
             The clients mistakenly point to the magistrate judge’s dis-
       cussion of the firm’s alleged failure to identify “a crucial insurance
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       21-13778                Opinion of the Court                           7

       law issue” as addressing the reasonableness of its work or fees. As
       the magistrate judge explained, this is a contract action rather than
       a legal malpractice suit, and her review of “certain legal positions
       taken” was irrelevant to “whether the Fee Agreement was
       breached and whether the resulting lien is enforceable.” She ex-
       plained that the client’s “argument that the Law Firm took ill-ad-
       vised legal positions is not, even if true, a valid basis for challenging
       the Law Firm’s entitlement to the fees owed under the Fee Agree-
       ment.”
              Second, the clients contend that the district court should
       have considered the reasonableness of fees—and failed to do so
       here—because the firm’s number of hours charged violates its eth-
       ical obligations. The clients point to the Rules Regulating the Flor-
       ida Bar 4-1.5, which imposes on attorneys an ethical obligation to
       “charge fair and reasonable fees regardless of how an attorney
       words a fee agreement.” See Elser v. Law Offices of James M. Russ,
       P.A., 679 S. 2d 309, 312 (Fla. 5th DCA 1996). “Specifically, an attor-
       ney owes his or her client a duty to only charge the client for those
       hours that are reasonably necessary to perform legal services under
       the contract.” Id.
             The clients do not consider excessive the rates determined
       in the 2013 fee agreement, but the number of hours charged.
       Among other things, they allege that the firm billed for multiple
       attorneys to attend depositions and meetings, that partners per-
       formed tasks that could have been performed by paralegals, and
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       8                       Opinion of the Court                 21-13778

       the firm charged too much time for simple matters that should
       have taken less time.
               We agree with the district court that, as a matter of contract
       law, the clients cannot object to the number of hours billed at this
       time. The fee agreement required that, if the clients wished to ob-
       ject to the hours billed, they notify the law firm within thirty days
       of any invoice. Where a fee agreement specifies that the client must
       object to hours billed, the client may not later assert “after-the-fact
       objections to the expenditure of time that might have been avoided
       if seasonably raised.” Franklin & Marbin, P.A., 711 So. 2d at 52. Had
       the clients not wanted to pay for multiple attorneys to attend a dep-
       osition or for work that took too long, the clients should have
       raised that objection when they received the invoice, and the firm
       could have responded appropriately. Instead, the clients carefully
       reviewed every invoice before paying them but objected to none.
       Failing to have done so, the clients may not now attack the number
       of hours billed as excessive. Id.
                                      III.

              The district court is AFFIRMED.