G & G Closed Circuit Events, LLC v. Brews & Brats, Inc
- Susan Illston
- 3:22-cv-02714
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 5
In G & G Closed Circuit Events v. Brews & Brats, Judge Illston granted in part and denied in part fees, awarding $2,967.50 and $664.50 in costs.
G & G Closed Circuit Events, LLC received $2,967.50 in attorneys’ fees and $664.50 in costs; Brews & Brats, Inc. and the other defendants were affected by the award entered against them.
What happened
G & G Closed Circuit Events, LLC sued Brews & Brats, Inc. and others after alleging they intercepted and displayed a boxing program unlawfully. The court had entered default judgment against the defendants and awarded the plaintiff $2,200 in damages. The plaintiff then requested $8,611.90 in attorneys’ fees and $1,451.13 in costs.
The court reduced the requested fees because the billing records were reconstructed, included duplicative or nonspecific entries, and sought payment for administrative and clerical work. It also found that the research attorney’s work was largely based on templates and that the requested investigative and courier costs were not recoverable.
Judge Illston granted in part and denied in part the motion. She awarded the plaintiff $2,967.50 in attorneys’ fees and $664.50 in costs.
The detailed version
- G & G Closed Circuit Events, LLC v. Brews & Brats, Inc · No. 3:22-cv-02714
- Susan Illston
- June 27, 2023
Background
The plaintiff alleged that the defendants intercepted and displayed a boxing program in violation of 47 U.S.C. §§ 553 and 605. The court had previously entered default judgment and found the defendants liable under section 605. Although the plaintiff sought $3,600 in statutory damages, $18,000 in enhanced statutory damages, and $1,200 for conversion, the court awarded $2,200 in total damages.
The plaintiff then moved for attorneys’ fees and costs, requesting $8,611.90 in fees and $1,451.13 in costs. Section 605(e)(3)(B)(iii) permits recovery of reasonable attorneys’ fees. The court applied the lodestar method, which generally calculates fees by multiplying reasonable hours by a reasonable hourly rate, while considering the adequacy of the billing records and the degree of success obtained.
Attorneys’ Fees
The fee request included 5.40 hours at $600 per hour for Attorney Riley, 11.50 hours at $325 per hour for an unnamed research attorney, and 13.62 hours at $120 per hour for an administrative assistant. The court found the $600 and $325 hourly rates reasonable.
The plaintiff’s attorneys had reconstructed their hours after reviewing the case file rather than keeping contemporaneous records. The court found the reconstructed records less reliable and noted that many of nearly 70 entries were nonspecific or duplicative. The court also found the overall request disproportionately high compared with recent, similar cases involving the plaintiff and attorney.
The court made these reductions:
- It awarded no fees for the administrative assistant’s work, reducing the request by $1,634.40, because that work was administrative and should have been treated as firm overhead. - It reduced the request by $600 for excessive billing entries concerning brief reviews of docket entries. - It reduced the request by $420 for clerical tasks, including reviewing summonses, signing a declination to proceed before a magistrate judge, executing certificates of service, and reviewing and executing a bill of costs. - It reduced the research attorney’s claimed hours to one-fifth of the amount requested, reducing the award by an additional $2,990. The court found that the research attorney’s work produced largely boilerplate filings and that the filings were nearly word-for-word identical to filings in a prior related proceeding involving the same plaintiff and attorneys.
Costs
The plaintiff requested $700 in investigative costs, $86.63 in courier charges, $402 in complaint filing fees, and $262.50 in service-of-process fees. The court allowed only the filing fee and service-of-process fee. It found that the investigative fees were not costs incurred in prosecuting the lawsuit and were excessive in light of the investigation described. It also found that the courier fees, which were incurred before the lawsuit was filed, were not recoverable.
Disposition
The court granted in part and denied in part the plaintiff’s motion for attorneys’ fees and costs. It awarded $2,967.50 in attorneys’ fees and $664.50 in costs.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.