Ramos v. AMF Bowling Centers

Background

Eliza Ramos sued AMF Bowling Centers, Inc., alleging injuries caused by the defendant’s negligence in owning, leasing, operating, maintaining, controlling, and managing premises known as 47 Tarrytown Road. The defendant removed the case to federal court.

The motion at issue concerned fees for depositions of two of Ramos’s witnesses. Dr. Meghan Bishop was identified as Ramos’s treating physician and medical expert. Bishop’s fee schedule requested a $7,500 flat fee, plus $2,000 per hour for a deposition lasting more than one hour. Ramos’s counsel paid the $7,500 in advance because Bishop required prepayment and the defendant would not agree to pay in advance. Bishop’s deposition lasted one and a half hours, and she also had a thirty-minute preparation meeting with Ramos’s counsel.

Dr. Brandon Erickson was Ramos’s treating orthopedic surgeon and testified as a fact witness rather than as a retained litigation expert. His deposition lasted approximately one and a half hours. His invoice requested $4,000 for two hours of record review and two hours of deposition time. Ramos’s counsel did not question either physician during the depositions.

The defendant asked the court to award each physician $1,000, including preparation time. Ramos proposed compensation of $1,000 per hour for deposition testimony and $750 per hour for preparation.

Legal standard

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26 generally requires the party seeking discovery from an expert to pay a reasonable fee for the expert’s time responding to discovery. The court explained that reasonableness depends on factors such as the witness’s expertise, education and training, prevailing rates for comparable experts, the nature and complexity of the testimony, the local cost of living, and the fee charged to the party who retained the expert.

The court also explained that flat fees for expert deposition testimony are generally disfavored because compensation should have a reasonable relationship to the time and services provided. The court stated that parties ordinarily do not need to agree on or pay the fee before the deposition; the court can determine a reasonable fee afterward.

Court’s analysis

The court agreed that the defendant was responsible for reimbursing reasonable expert fees. It ruled, however, that Ramos’s advance payment of Bishop’s $7,500 fee did not determine whether that fee was reasonable.

The court recognized that both physicians had strong qualifications. Bishop was a board-certified orthopedic surgeon with fellowship training in sports medicine, and Erickson was a board-certified orthopedic surgeon and fellowship-trained sports medicine specialist. Nevertheless, the court found that the requested $7,500 and $4,000 flat fees were unreasonable because they bore no relationship to the time spent preparing for and attending the depositions and exceeded rates awarded to comparable medical experts.

Based on decisions involving orthopedic surgeons, the court found that $400 to $500 per hour was supported by existing authority. It rejected Ramos’s proposed rates because she cited no supporting authority for $1,000 per hour for deposition testimony and $750 per hour for preparation. The court also found that the defendant’s proposed $1,000 award for each physician did not fully reflect the reasonable $500 hourly rate for the time credited to each witness.

Disposition

The court granted the defendant’s motion. It determined that $500 per hour was reasonable for each physician’s deposition preparation and testimony. The court awarded Dr. Bishop $1,000 for two hours and Dr. Erickson $2,000 for four hours, and stated that AMF Bowling Centers, Inc. must pay those amounts. The clerk was asked to terminate the pending motion.