Uttarwar v. Lazard Asset Management LLC

Background

Manmohan Uttarwar sued his former employers, Lazard Asset Management LLC and Keri Tusa, for employment discrimination. In an earlier ruling, the court granted Defendants’ motion for summary judgment on all of Uttarwar’s claims, and the Second Circuit affirmed that ruling in March 2025.

Before Defendants filed their summary-judgment motion, they sought sanctions under Rule 37 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure based on discovery-related conduct. The court had granted that sanctions motion in part and denied it in part as moot, then directed the parties to address the amount of fees and costs to be awarded. Defendants ultimately requested $81,566.72 for fees and costs connected with discovery and sanctions proceedings.

Legal standard

The court used the lodestar method for calculating attorney’s fees. Under that method, a court multiplies a reasonable hourly rate by the number of hours reasonably spent on the matter. The court may exclude hours that are excessive, repetitive, unnecessary, or not adequately connected to compensable work. Requested costs must also be supported by sufficient documentation.

Analysis

Uttarwar argued that defense counsel’s hourly rates were inconsistent with market rates in the Southern District of New York. The court disagreed, finding that the rates were consistent with prevailing rates and noting that Lazard Asset Management LLC had actually paid those rates. The court also rejected arguments that some work by Mr. Tharp should have been billed at a paralegal rate or that Ms. Beaumonte and Mr. Tharp’s rates should be reduced because they did not show a primary focus on employment law. The court found the work appropriate for attorneys and concluded that employment-law specialization was not necessary for the sanctions motion.

Uttarwar also argued that the time entries were too vague. The court found that, viewed in context, the entries sufficiently described work on the sanctions motion. It rejected the argument that the hours were excessive because the sanctions motion had been only partially granted, explaining that partial success did not prevent an award for all reasonable work on the motion. The court also found that the partner’s work was not unreasonable because approximately 90 percent of the sanctions-motion work had been performed by an associate.

The court recognized that some block-billed entries covered both summary-judgment and sanctions work. Because summary-judgment work could not be compensated through this award, Defendants had voluntarily reduced those entries by 50 percent. The court found that reduction reasonably accounted for the noncompensable work.

Finally, Uttarwar challenged the requested costs. The court found that Defendants had submitted an itemized receipt supporting the deposition-related costs and concluded that the costs were adequately documented.

Disposition

Judge Dale E. Ho granted Defendants’ motion for $81,566.72 in attorney’s fees and costs. The award consisted of $7,556.00 for the motion to compel; $7,694.50 in fees and $845.47 in costs connected with Uttarwar’s deposition; $42,056.25 for the sanctions motion; and $23,414.50 for preparing the fee application.

Classification

This is a procedural order because it resolved an ancillary fee-and-cost request arising from discovery sanctions rather than deciding the underlying employment-discrimination claims.