Zero Carbon Holdings, LLC v. Aspiration Partners, Inc.
- Lewis Liman
- 1:23-cv-05262
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Zero Carbon Holdings v. Aspiration Partners, Judge Liman allowed Aspiration to supplement its fee request without deciding the motion.
Aspiration Partners, Inc. and the plaintiffs, Zero Carbon Holdings, LLC et al.; the order concerns Aspiration’s request for attorneys’ fees and costs.
What happened
In Zero Carbon Holdings, LLC v. Aspiration Partners, Inc., Aspiration asked the court to award it attorneys’ fees and costs. The request was governed by New York law.
The court said Aspiration had not provided enough information to show that its requested fees were reasonable. Its time records were redacted so they did not identify the work performed by the people who recorded the time.
Judge Lewis J. Liman gave Aspiration permission to provide more specific information from its timekeeping records. Aspiration’s reply was due June 5, 2024, and the plaintiffs could file a limited response by June 14, 2024. The court did not decide the merits of the fee request.
The detailed version
- Zero Carbon Holdings, LLC v. Aspiration Partners, Inc. · No. 1:23-cv-05262
- Lewis Liman
- May 31, 2024
Background
The court was considering Defendant Aspiration Partners, Inc.’s motion for attorneys’ fees and costs. The opinion states that New York law applied to the fee request.
Reasoning
Under New York law, a party seeking attorneys’ fees must show that the fees are reasonable by providing definite information about how the time was spent. The party must also support the request with a proper and sufficient affidavit of services.
The court found that Aspiration had not provided definite information about the work performed. Its time records were redacted in a way that removed information about the tasks performed by the timekeepers for whom Aspiration sought fees. The court said it needed that information to evaluate whether the time spent was proper and reasonable.
Order
Without deciding the merits of Aspiration’s motion, the court gave Aspiration leave to provide definite information about how the time was spent, including information from its timekeeping records. Aspiration’s reply brief was due June 5, 2024. The plaintiffs could file a sur-reply brief, limited to the reasonableness of the fee request, by June 14, 2024. The opinion does not state a final disposition of the attorneys’ fee motion.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.