Venture Group Enterprises, Inc. v. Vonage Business Inc.
- Ronnie Abrams
- 1:20-cv-04095
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Venture Group Enterprises v. Vonage Business, Judge Wang awarded Vonage $24,643.63 for fees and costs tied to Venture’s sealing motions.
Vonage Business Inc. received an award of $24,643.63 for fees and costs, while Venture Group Enterprises, Inc. was the party whose sealing motions generated the award. Vonage may seek additional fees in a later proceeding, but no additional fees on fees were awarded here.
What happened
In Venture Group Enterprises, Inc. v. Vonage Business Inc., the parties disputed fees arising from Venture’s motions to keep court filings sealed. The court had previously denied those motions and found that they lacked justification.
Vonage sought fees for responding to two of the sealing motions. The court awarded Vonage $24,643.63 for reasonable fees and costs, but did not award additional fees for preparing the fee request at that time.
Judge Ona T. Wang ruled that Vonage could pursue fees for certain later sealing motions and related work in a separate motion concerning its offer to liquidate damages. The Clerk was directed to close the fee motion.
The detailed version
- Venture Group Enterprises, Inc. v. Vonage Business Inc. · No. 1:20-cv-04095
- Ronnie Abrams
- Dec. 19, 2023
Background
The parties had engaged in years of discovery disputes over sales recordings involving Venture’s subagents. In an earlier order, the court denied Vonage’s request for case-ending sanctions under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(e)(2), but also denied Venture’s motions to seal. The court had found those sealing motions meritless and directed expedited briefing on whether Vonage could recover fees under Rule 37(a)(5), which generally allows a court to award expenses incurred in connection with certain discovery-related motions.
Fees for Earlier Sealing Motions
Vonage moved for fees incurred in responding to Venture’s motions to seal filed at ECF Nos. 118 and 125. Venture argued, among other things, that Vonage’s sanctions motion had been meritless because the court had not imposed case-ending sanctions. The court rejected that characterization and stated that the sanctions motion was not meritless.
The court found that Vonage was entitled to $24,643.63 for fees and costs connected with Venture’s two sealing motions. It found that the time spent was reasonable and that Vonage’s hourly rates, although high, were supportable in the circumstances and represented fees actually paid by Vonage.
Later Sealing Motions and Fees on Fees
The court stated that Vonage was likely entitled to fees for responding to two later sealing motions, ECF Nos. 200 and 211. Those motions were filed shortly after the court’s warning that additional sealing motions lacking substantial justification could lead to additional fee awards. The court noted that the later motions were denied in their entirety and were not substantially justified.
The court declined to award fees incurred in pursuing the fee request itself, sometimes called “fees on fees,” at that time. That decision was without prejudice to Vonage’s ability to seek those fees in connection with its 2020 Offer to Liquidate Damages, which remained to be briefed.
Disposition
The court awarded Vonage $24,643.63 for fees and costs related to Venture’s motions to seal, declined to award fees on fees at that time, and directed the Clerk to close ECF 208. The opinion was signed by Ona T. Wang, United States Magistrate Judge.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.