G & G Closed Circuit Events, LLC v. Miranda
- Charles Breyer
- 3:20-cv-07684
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 5
G & G Closed Circuit Events v. Miranda: Judge Breyer granted in part and denied in part the plaintiff’s application for attorneys’ fees and costs.
G & G Closed Circuit Events, LLC received the reduced fee and cost award; the order determined the amounts recoverable from the defendants in the default-judgment case.
What happened
In G & G Closed Circuit Events, LLC v. Miranda, the court considered the plaintiff’s request for attorneys’ fees and costs after previously entering default judgment in this commercial piracy case.
The plaintiff requested $9,145.20 in attorneys’ fees and $1,351.32 in costs. The court found that some billing entries were administrative, duplicative, vague, excessive, or based on reconstructed time records, and that some requested costs were unnecessary or incurred before the lawsuit.
Judge Breyer granted in part and denied in part the application, awarding $2,765.25 in attorneys’ fees and $587.50 in costs, for a total award of $3,352.75.
The detailed version
- G & G Closed Circuit Events, LLC v. Miranda · No. 3:20-cv-07684
- Charles Breyer
- Jan. 4, 2022
Background
The court had previously adopted a magistrate judge’s report and recommendation and granted G & G Closed Circuit Events, LLC’s motion for default judgment in the commercial piracy case. It awarded the plaintiff $1,400 in statutory damages under 47 U.S.C. § 553 and $1,400 for conversion. The plaintiff then sought $9,145.20 in attorneys’ fees and $1,351.32 in costs.
Attorneys’ Fees
Under Section 553, the court may award reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs to a prevailing party. The court used the lodestar method, which calculates fees by multiplying the reasonable hours worked by a reasonable hourly rate. It found Attorney Riley’s $550 hourly rate and the unidentified research attorney’s $300 hourly rate reasonable.
The court nevertheless reduced the requested fees substantially. It denied fees for the administrative assistant’s work because that type of work is generally treated as firm overhead. It also rejected billing for numerous reviews of short docket entries, reduced compensation for 18 hours of vague and undifferentiated work on boilerplate filings to one-third of the hours claimed, and applied a further 10 percent reduction for other clerical and insufficiently supported entries. The court awarded $2,765.25 in attorneys’ fees.
Costs
The plaintiff sought costs for investigation, courier charges, the complaint filing fee, and service of process. The court found that pre-filing investigative expenses were not costs incurred in prosecuting the lawsuit and were also excessive on the facts described. It found the courier charges unnecessary. The court awarded $587.50 in costs, representing the complaint filing fee and service-of-process charges identified in the request.
Disposition
The court granted in part and denied in part the plaintiff’s application for attorneys’ fees and costs. The total award was $3,352.75. Because this order concerned an ancillary fee request after the earlier judgment, it did not decide the underlying piracy claims.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.