FBC Mortgage, LLC v. Broker Solutions, Inc
- Charles Breyer
- 3:23-cv-00143
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 8
In FBC Mortgage v. Brian Skarg, Judge Illman granted one fee motion for $54,930 and denied a second fee motion and a discovery motion.
FBC Mortgage, LLC and the defendants identified in the caption as Brian Skarg, et al.; the order awarded FBC Mortgage $54,930 and denied its second discovery and related fee motions.
What happened
In FBC Mortgage, LLC v. Brian Skarg, et al., FBC Mortgage sought attorney fees after the court had ordered the defendants to provide discovery. FBC Mortgage also asked the court to compel additional email correspondence and sought fees related to that request.
The defendants argued that FBC Mortgage had not met and conferred enough, that their discovery responses were justified, and that the requested fees were excessive. The court rejected those arguments for the first fee request. For the later discovery request, the defendants certified that the requested emails did not exist.
Judge Robert M. Illman granted FBC Mortgage’s first motion for attorney fees and ordered the defendants to pay $54,930 within 14 days. He denied FBC Mortgage’s second motion to compel and denied the related second motion for attorney fees.
The detailed version
- FBC Mortgage, LLC v. Broker Solutions, Inc · No. 3:23-cv-00143
- Charles Breyer
- Oct. 9, 2024
Background
The court addressed three motions filed by FBC Mortgage: two motions for attorney fees and a second motion to compel discovery. Earlier, the court had ordered the defendants to produce documents, communications, and other information responsive to several discovery requests. After the defendants failed to provide the ordered discovery, FBC Mortgage filed a motion to compel that the court granted. The court denied sanctions at that time, although it warned that further discovery delays or obstruction could result in sanctions.
First Motion for Attorney Fees
Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37, a party that successfully obtains an order compelling discovery generally must receive reasonable expenses, including attorney fees, unless an exception applies. The court found that none of the relevant exceptions applied. It also found that FBC Mortgage had adequately documented its lawyers’ hours, tasks, and hourly rates.
FBC Mortgage claimed that its attorneys spent 102.7 hours addressing the defendants’ discovery failures. The court found the claimed hourly rates and time reasonable. It rejected the defendants’ arguments that FBC Mortgage had not sufficiently met and conferred, that the defendants’ discovery conduct was substantially justified, and that the fee request covered unrelated discovery work. The court found that the defendants had engaged in obstruction that caused FBC Mortgage to spend the claimed time pursuing the discovery.
The court granted FBC Mortgage’s First Motion for Attorneys’ Fees and ordered the defendants to pay $54,930 within 14 days of the order.
Second Motion to Compel and Related Fee Motion
The remaining issue on FBC Mortgage’s Second Motion to Compel was a request for certain emails. The defendants had certified that the emails did not exist. The court held that FBC Mortgage was bound by that certification unless it could present a concrete, non-speculative basis to show that the information existed and was wrongfully withheld or had existed and been destroyed. The court noted that FBC Mortgage could later seek appropriate relief, such as a motion concerning the destruction of evidence or sanctions, if it developed such a basis.
The court denied FBC Mortgage’s Second Motion to Compel. Because that motion was denied, the court also denied FBC Mortgage’s Second Motion for Attorneys’ Fees, filed in connection with it.
Read the full 8-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.