Li v. Ichiro Sushi, Inc.

Background

After a four-day bench trial, defendants Ichiro Asian Fusion and Jian Ping Chen moved for sanctions and attorneys’ fees against the plaintiffs’ counsel. On April 30, 2020, the court sanctioned the plaintiffs’ counsel under 28 U.S.C. § 1927 for continuing to pursue meritless claims against the defendants after the close of evidence. Section 1927 allows a court to require counsel who unreasonably and improperly prolongs litigation to pay resulting costs and attorneys’ fees. The court reserved its decision on the amount and received briefing from both sides.

Hourly Rates

The court used the lodestar method, which calculates a presumptively reasonable fee by multiplying a reasonable hourly rate by a reasonable number of hours. It reduced the requested rates for first- and second-year associates from $260–$275 per hour to $200 per hour. It set partner Benjamin Xue’s rate at $350 per hour rather than using the requested $350 rate before August 2017 and $395 rate afterward. It reduced the paralegal rate from $185 to $125 per hour. For Robert L. Isabella, Puja Sharma, and Garett Metcalf, whom the defendants had identified in reply after their invoices used initials, the court set a rate of $225 per hour as third-year associates. The court rejected the argument that Michael S. Romero could not recover fees because he was not admitted to practice in the district, noting that he had been admitted to the New York State bar in 2015.

Hours and Costs

The court excluded one 5.30-hour block-billed entry because combining tasks for that amount of time created an unacceptable risk that the total exceeded the reasonable time spent on compensable work. It did not reduce 1.70 hours challenged as vague, time spent conferring with co-counsel, time attributed to multiple associates, or 30.10 hours spent preparing for a deposition that the defendants did not attend. The court found that the deposition was later rescheduled and that the preparation time was not excessive, unnecessary, or redundant. It also removed 9.10 hours that the defendants did not explain and that the court found unrelated to their representation of the client; those hours included the 5.30 hours already excluded for block billing. The court added 8.80 hours for preparing the reply brief on the fee request, concluding that such additional fee-request work is recoverable in FLSA cases. For costs, the defendants agreed that a $465 cancelled-deposition charge had been included by mistake, so the court reduced the requested award by that amount. The court allowed reimbursement for the transcripts.

Ruling

The court awarded the defendants $48,058.00 in attorneys’ fees and costs. Judge Alison J. Nathan, a United States Circuit Judge sitting by designation, entered the order on April 16, 2022.