City of Fairbanks v. Amoco Chemical Co.

836 F. Supp. 690, 1993 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19218, 1993 WL 467711
CourtDistrict Court, D. Alaska
DecidedOctober 20, 1993
DocketCiv. A. No. F87-54
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 836 F. Supp. 690 (City of Fairbanks v. Amoco Chemical Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Alaska primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
City of Fairbanks v. Amoco Chemical Co., 836 F. Supp. 690, 1993 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19218, 1993 WL 467711 (D. Alaska 1993).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM

NEWCOMER, District Judge.

Before the court is AMOCO Reinforced Plastics Company’s (ARPCO) and AMOCO Chemical Company’s (AMOCO) Joint Motion For Award of Attorneys’ Fees. For reasons that follow, defendants’ motion will be granted in part and denied in part.

I.Factual Background:

On September 14, 1987, the City of Fairbanks filed suit against ARPCO seeking $65,-000.000.in damages, alleging negligence, strict liability, breach of warranty, unfair trade practices, and fraud arising from the City’s purchase of Techtite pipe1 from defendant ARPCO. On June 27, 1989, the City amended its complaint to include ARPCO’s parent company, AMOCO, as a defendant. On April 3, 1992, all of the City’s claims except actionable fraud were dismissed. April 3, 1992 Tr. at 50 (No. 902).

The case went to trial on October 5, 1992. On October 8, after plaintiff presented its case, the Court granted ARPCO’s Motion For Judgment As A Matter of Law and dismissed the City’s lawsuit.

II. Standard of Revieiv:

A federal court exercising diversity jurisdiction must apply state law when ruling on a motion for an award of attorneys’ fees. Klopfenstein v. Pargeter, 597 F.2d 150, 152 (9th Cir.1979). Thus, the allowance of attorneys’ fees in this case is controlled by Alaska law. See also Alaska Stat. § 9.60.010 (1993); Alaska R.Civ.P. 82.2 Under Rule 82, the Court may award attorneys’ fees to the prevailing party. Alaska R.Civ.P. 82.

Presently before the court is the ARPCO’s and AMOCO’s motion for award of full attorneys’ fees because the City’s case was frivolous, devoid of good faith, and vexatious.

III. Discussion:

Under the last sentence of Rule 82(a), attorneys’ fees may be awarded “by the court, in its discretion, in a reasonable amount” in a case not involving a monetary judgment. Alaska R.Civ.P. 82(a)(1); Atlantic Richfield Co. v. State, 723 P.2d 1249, 1251 (Alaska 1986). As noted by the court in Klopfenstein, although reasonable attorneys’ fees are authorized by State rule of court but not mandated by State statute, attorneys’ fees are nonetheless recoverable in federal court in a diversity case applying Alaska law. Klopfenstein, 597 F.2d at 152. A claim for attorney’s fees under Rule 82 places a significant amount of discretion in the trial judge. See Alaska R.Civ.P. 82(a)(1); Thorstenson v. ARCO Alaska, Inc., 780 P.2d 371, 376 (Alaska 1989) (award of attorneys’ fees rests in discretion of trial court).

The purpose of Rule 82 is to compensate a prevailing party partially, not fully, for attorneys’ fees. Demoski v. New, 737 P.2d 780, 788 (Alaska 1987). However, “[fjull or substantially full attorneys’ fees may be awarded if the trial court finds that the losing party acted in bad faith in asserting a [692]*692claim or defense.” Alaska N. Dev. v. Alyeska Pipeline Servs., 666 P.2d 33, 42 n. 9 (Alaska 1983), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 1041, 104 S.Ct. 706, 79 L.Ed.2d 170 (1984). Attorneys’ fees should not be used to penalize a party. Atlantic Richfield, 723 P.2d at 1252 (citations omitted). The reasonable amount of attorneys’ fees includes an evaluation of the following factors: the nature and value of services rendered; the duration and complexity of the litigation; the novelty of the issues presented for trial; and the amount in controversy. Id. 1252 (citations omitted). Absent bad faith or vexatious conduct, an award of full attorneys’ fees is manifestly unreasonable and constitutes an abuse of discretion. Id.; see also Van Dort v. Culliton, 797 P.2d 642, 644 (Alaska 1990). Partial attorneys’ fees, however, may be awarded against a plaintiff who litigated good faith claims. Stepanov v. Gavrilovich, 594 P.2d 30, 37 (Alaska 1979).

Some examples of attorneys’ fees awards by Alaska courts help guide this Court’s decision. The Alaska Supreme Court recently recognized the acceptability of relatively high percentage awards of attorneys’ fees in LeDoux v. Kodiak Island Borough, 827 P.2d 1121, 1124 (Alaska 1992) (recognizing award of 74% of total fees as consistent with previous trial court awards of 61%, 70%, and 86%). The cases relied on by the LeDoux court, however, involved awards of less than $10,-000. In cases involving larger amounts of attorneys’ fees, Alaska courts have been more restrained in the award of fees, typically awarding 30%-50% of actual attorneys fees. For example, in Bozarth v. Atlantic Richfield Oil Co., 833 P.2d 2 (Alaska 1992), the court upheld an award of $76,000, equivalent to 50% of actual attorneys’ fees, finding that the claimed fees seemed appropriate and reasonable. Id. at 4. In Van Huff v. Sohio, 835 P.2d 1181 (Alaska 1992), the court held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in awarding $117,251, or 30% of actual attorneys’ fees, where the case was actively pending for over five years by the time trial was concluded and extensive pretrial discovery was required. Id. at 1188-89. This Court also notes that proposed amendments to Rule 82 call for a presumptive range of 30%-35% of actual attorneys’ fees necessarily incurred to be awarded to a prevailing defendant. The Court realizes that the proposed amendments are neither authoritative nor binding, but nonetheless finds them instructive in defining the landscapé of attorneys’ fees awards.

Evaluating this case in light of the Atlantic Richfield factors, the Court notes that over $2.8 million in attorneys’ fees have been incurred by defendants. This Court has reviewed the documentation of the fees submitted by the defendants and finds the fees to be appropriate and reasonable. Moreover, plaintiff does not contest the reasonableness of any particular fees claimed. The Court does note, however, that defendants offset the amount claimed for attorneys’ fees with the amounts previously awarded as attorneys’ fees, but not the larger amounts claimed but not awarded in full. See Defendant’s Joint Reply To City’s Opposition To Attorneys’ Fees, at 13-14. The amounts originally claimed should be offset as the defendants áre not entitled to a second opportunity to recover those fees already adjudicated. Defendants have previously been awarded attorneys’ fees which total $21,050.00. The fee awards, as noted above, were somewhat less than the actual amount of fees claimed, which equaled $39,984.22.3 [693]

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836 F. Supp. 690, 1993 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19218, 1993 WL 467711, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/city-of-fairbanks-v-amoco-chemical-co-akd-1993.