Michael Malone, et al., on behalf of themselves and others similarly situated v. United Parcel Service, Inc.

District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania·Decided September 15, 2026·No. 2:21-cv-03643·Unknown

Opinion

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA

MICHAEL MALONE, et al., on behalf of

themselves and others similarly

situated,

Case No. 2:21-cv-03643-JDW ,

v.

UNITED PARCEL SERVICE, INC.,

.

MEMORANDUM In this case, I awarded Plaintiffs their reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs as a against UPS for its troubling discovery conduct. Yet to read UPS’s Opposition to Plaintiffs’ fee petition, one would think that Plaintiffs’ fees were the result almost entirely of their own overzealousness, not failures in the original discovery period. While some of the fees that Plaintiffs seek are excessive, the majority are appropriate and necessary to deter UPS and others from engaging in similar hide-the-ball conduct in discovery in the future. I. RELEVANT BACKGROUND On August 16, 2021, Michael Malone filed this lawsuit on behalf of himself and similarly situated UPS employees. He asserts that UPS violates the Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Act (“PMWA”) by failing to pay overtime wages associated with the time employees spend going through mandatory security screenings and walking to and from their reporting areas before and after their shifts.

Mr. Malone first moved to certify a class on January 19, 2024. In its response, UPS made clear for the first time that intended to assert an affirmative defense based on an overtime exemption under the PMWA that mirrors a Fair Labor Standards Act exemption

for employees who the Motor Carrier Act of 1935 (“MCA”) exempts. In September 2024, I held a hearing on the impact of the MCA defense on class certification that September. I determined that UPS avoided its discovery obligations and delayed this matter by “waiting until its class certification opposition to surface the MCA defense with specificity.” (ECF

No. 76 at ¶ 17.) However, rather than prevent UPS from asserting the defense at all, I reopened discovery on October 15, 2024, to permit Mr. Malone to explore the MCA defense. As a sanction, I required UPS to pay “the reasonable expenses, including attorneys’ fees, that Mr. Malone’s Counsel generate from having to test this theory anew

in a reopened discovery period.” ( ) During that time, I had multiple status conferences with the Parties regarding their discovery efforts and resolved various discovery disputes, including Plaintiffs’ Motion To

Compel. In addition, the Parties stipulated to Mr. Malone filing a First Amended Complaint that included Randy Shepler, Keri Green, Devin Whitman, and Logan Green as plaintiffs. According to Plaintiffs, they “sought to amend their complaint to add additional class representatives who did not load,” to avoid an MCA defense. (ECF No. 121-1 at 9.) However, UPS had records showing that Mr. Green and Mr. Whitman signed arbitration agreements with UPS. Thus, Plaintiffs did not oppose UPS’ motion to compel these two

Plaintiffs to arbitrate their claims. The renewed discovery period closed on May 30, 2025. After completing the briefing on class certification, Plaintiffs filed their motion for attorneys’ fees and costs incurred during reopened discovery. UPS opposes the motion,

arguing that Plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees are unreasonable for a variety of reasons. Since then, the Parties engaged in a series of settlement efforts. While they have not been successful (yet), hope springs eternal. In the meantime, however, the time has come to resolve Plaintiffs’ motion for fees, which is ripe for disposition.

II. LEGAL STANDARD “The party seeking attorney's fees has the burden to prove that its request for attorney's fees is reasonable.” , 892 F.2d 1177, 1183 (3d Cir. 1990). “The most useful starting point for determining the amount of a reasonable fee is the

number of hours reasonably expended on the litigation multiplied by a reasonable hourly rate.” (quotation omitted). A judge “should exclude hours that are not reasonably expended” including billed time that is “excessive, redundant, or otherwise unnecessary.”

(citations omitted). “[T]he party opposing the fee award then has the burden to challenge … the reasonableness of the requested fee.” (same). The judge “has a great deal of discretion to adjust the fee award in light of those objections.” (same). In cases like this one, where a judge awards attorneys’ fees as a sanction, the policy considerations are different than a statutory fee-shifting provision.

, 857 F.2d 191, 196 (3d Cir. 1988). In the sanctions context, the judge should approve no more than “the that will serve to deter the undesirable behavior.” at 194 (quotation omitted) (original emphasis). Thus, “the

deterrent effect of an award of attorney's fees depends on the extent of the sanctioned party's resources.” at 195-96. III. ANALYSIS Because UPS does not challenge the reasonableness of Plaintiffs’ Counsel’s hourly

rates, I confine my analysis to whether their hours were “reasonably expended.” Most, but not all, were. The approved and unapproved fees are set forth in Exhibit 1 to this Memorandum, reflecting any reductions that I deem appropriate, as set forth below. A. Attorneys’ Fees

1. Settlement communications and arbitration As an initial matter, because I awarded Plaintiffs their reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs associated with having to reopen discovery for purposes of exploring the MCA

defense, there is no dispute that Plaintiffs cannot recover amounts associated with unrelated activities, such as settlement communications and arbitration issues. This includes the fees and costs associated with depositions of Mr. Green and Mr. Whitman and 33% of the fees and costs associated with the deposition of Jean Ditmars. I will also exclude 30 minutes of billable time for the portion of a meet-and-confer on November 21, 2024, at which the Parties had settlement discussions. I will not offset Plaintiffs’ total

recovery based on the time UPS’s Counsel spent on settlement or arbitration-related work, which is a natural consequence of UPS’s assertion of the MCA defense. 2. Block billing and redacted time entries

The mere fact that Plaintiffs’ Counsel utilized block billing for some portion of their time entries is not a sufficient reason to reject Plaintiffs’ request to recover those fees altogether. “Block billing is a common practice which itself saves time in that the attorney summarizes activities rather than detailing every task.”

, 54 F. Supp.2d 410, 415 (M.D. Pa. 1999). I do not need “to know the number of minutes spent nor the activity to which each hour was devoted” to assess Plaintiffs’ motion. , 892 F.2d at 1190 (quotation omitted) (emphasis added). Instead, the fee petition just needs to be “specific enough to allow [me]

‘to determine if the hours claimed are unreasonable for the work performed.’” (same). That remains true even though private clients like UPS might demand more precision from their counsel for their own bills. However, block billing “is not [an] ideal time keeping

method and lawyers who use it do so at their ‘own peril.’ If a block entry is confusing or makes it difficult to allocate reasonable time to a specific task, ‘the blame lies on the party seeking fees because they were in the best position to mitigate any confusion.’” , No. 09-cv-646, 2010 WL 3734547, at *5 (E.D. Pa. Sept. 23, 2010) (quotations omitted).

In their reply—and subject to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(b)—Plaintiffs’ Counsel represented that the various activities contained in a single time entry are “interrelated and involved the same general workstreams.” (ECF No. 123 at 7.) I am willing

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Michael Malone, et al., on behalf of themselves and others similarly situated v. United Parcel Service, Inc., (E.D. Pa. 2026).

Michael Malone, et al., on behalf of themselves and others similarly situated v. United Parcel Service, Inc. (Michael Malone, et al., on behalf of themselves and others similarly situated v. United Parcel Service, Inc.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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