LCS Group LLC v. Shire LLC
- Analisa Torres
- 1:18-cv-02688
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In LCS Group v. Shire, Judge Torres denied LCS Group’s motion to reconsider an earlier order about attorney’s fees.
LCS Group, LLC’s motion for reconsideration was denied; the order concerned the earlier attorney’s-fee and sanctions proceedings involving LCS Group and its counsel, and the defendants who sought those fees.
What happened
LCS Group, LLC sued Shire LLC, Shire Development LLC, Shire PLC, and Haug Partners LLP over claims arising from a patent dispute. The court had previously dismissed the case and imposed attorney’s fees and expenses as a sanction against LCS Group and its counsel.
LCS Group asked the court to reconsider its June 22, 2020 order, which had partly granted and partly denied the defendants’ reconsideration motion and adopted a recommendation about attorney’s fees. LCS Group argued that an earlier filing should have been treated as timely objections to the fee recommendation, but the court found that the filing was labeled and presented as a reconsideration motion and that LCS Group had missed the deadline for objections.
Judge Analisa Torres denied LCS Group’s motion for reconsideration. She concluded that LCS Group had not identified controlling authority or overlooked matters that would change the earlier decision and had instead repeated arguments already rejected.
The detailed version
- LCS Group LLC v. Shire LLC · No. 1:18-cv-02688
- Analisa Torres
- Aug. 27, 2020
Background
LCS Group, LLC brought claims for fraud and other alleged wrongdoing against Shire LLC, Shire Development LLC, Shire PLC, and Haug Partners LLP arising from a patent dispute. On March 8, 2019, the court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss and motion for sanctions. As a sanction, the court required LCS Group, its counsel Stephen Lobbin, and Lobbin’s former law firm, Foundation Law Group LLP, to jointly and separately pay the defendants’ attorney’s fees and expenses associated with the dismissal and sanctions motions.
The attorney’s-fee motion was referred to Magistrate Judge Stewart D. Aaron. On June 22, 2020, the court granted in part and denied in part the defendants’ motion for reconsideration and adopted the report and recommendation concerning attorney’s fees. LCS Group then moved for reconsideration of that June 22 order.
Arguments and analysis
Motions for reconsideration under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59 and Local Civil Rule 6.3 are granted only in limited circumstances, such as to correct a clear legal error or prevent a manifest injustice. The moving party generally must identify controlling decisions or information that the court overlooked and that could reasonably change the result.
LCS Group argued that the court should have treated a motion it had filed after Judge Aaron’s ruling as objections to that ruling. The court rejected that argument. It noted that LCS Group’s filing was presented as a motion for reconsideration, invoked the rules and standards governing reconsideration motions, and was filed after LCS Group missed the deadline for objections without showing excusable neglect. The court also noted that LCS Group, represented by experienced counsel, waited more than a year after Judge Aaron’s report and recommendation to ask that the filing be reclassified as objections.
The court further concluded that the rest of LCS Group’s motion identified no overlooked matters and repeated arguments that had already been rejected. It explained that a reconsideration motion cannot be used to relitigate old issues, present new theories, or obtain another hearing on the merits.
Disposition
Judge Analisa Torres denied LCS Group’s motion for reconsideration and directed the Clerk of Court to terminate the motion at ECF No. 120. The opinion does not state that the motion was denied with or without prejudice.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.