Nelson v. Dudek

• Court: District Court, D. Nevada
• Decided: July 1, 2025
• Docket: 2:24-cv-02389
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

1 2 3 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 4 DISTRICT OF NEVADA 5 6 MATTHEW N., Case No. 2:24-cv-02389-NJK

7 Plaintiff(s), ORDER 8 v. [Docket No. 22] 9 FRANK BISIGNANO, 10 Defendant(s). 11 Pending before the Court is a stipulation to award Plaintiff $5,800 in attorneys’ fees 12 pursuant to the Equal Access to Justice Act (“EAJA”), as well as $405 in costs pursuant to 28 13 U.S.C. § 1920. Docket No. 22. 14 Plaintiff’s counsel appears frequently in this forum. As the Court has explained elsewhere 15 to Plaintiff’s counsel, his requests to recover for paralegal time spent on clerical work has not been 16 adequately supported. On March 25, 2025, the Court again ordered that “[t]ime spent by a 17 paralegal on clerical matters is part of a law firm’s overhead and is not recoverable under the 18 EAJA. Nadarajah v. Holder, 569 F.3d 906, 921 (9th Cir. 2009).” Hallie M. B. v. Dudek, Case 19 No. 2:24-cv-02010-NJK, Docket No. 25 (D. Nev. Mar. 25, 2025). The Court also advised counsel 20 of the need to change course on this issue, rather than simply continuing to seek the same fees over 21 and over again: 22 Attorneys “play with fire if they raise the same arguments over and over and fail to acknowledge prior adverse rulings.” Atlantis 23 Enterps., Inc. v. Avon Prods., Inc., 2010 WL 11519593, at *3 (C.D. Cal. Jan. 14, 2010) (quoting U.S. Commodity Futures Trading 24 Com’n v. Lake Shore Asset Mgmt. Ltd., 540 F. Supp. 2d 994, 1015 (N.D. Ill. 2008)). Counsel would be well advised to either cease 25 submitting these clerical tasks for compensation to the undersigned or to provide well-developed argument as to how they are 26 compensable despite the binding authority to the contrary. Nadarajah, 569 F.3d at 921. 27 28 Hallie M.B., Docket No. 25 at 2 n.1. 1 The instant motion seeks to recover $165.575 for clerical work. Docket No. 22-2 at 1.! 2|| The instant motion provides no meaningful explanation as to why awarding that time would not amount to legal error in light of binding Ninth Circuit authority: “When clerical tasks are billed 4! at hourly rates, the court should reduce the hours requested to account for the billing errors.” Nadarajah, 569 F.3d at 921. As best the Court can discern, this aspect of the fee request is meant 6] to be supported by the two short sentences that “[n]Jon-legal work is billable at a lesser rate. 7|| Missouri v. Jenkins, 491 U.S. 274, 288 n. 10 (1989). I bill non-legal work at $89.50 per hour.” 8|| Docket No. 22 at 6. This is certainly not “well-developed argument.” Moreover and significantly, 9} the Ninth Circuit cited the same footnote in Jenkins in holding that hours spent on clerical tasks 10] must be removed from the lodestar. Nadarajah, 569 F.3d at 921. Hence, the Ninth Circuit 11] apparently disagrees with counsel’s interpretation of the Jenkins footnote. 12 In short, Plaintiff's counsel continues to seek recovery for clerical hours in direct contradiction of Ninth Circuit authority without any meaningful argument as to how that is legally 14] permissible. Plaintiff continues to do so despite a direct admonition from the Court. The instant 15] stipulation is DENIED without prejudice. A renewed request for fees must either exclude clerical 16] work or must provide robust argument as to why the clerical work should be awarded. 17 IT IS SO ORDERED 18 Dated: July 1, 2025

Nancy J »Koppe 20 United Statés-Magistrate Judge 21 22 23 ' Although Plaintiff’s fee request is not opposed, the Court has an independent obligation to review the reasonableness of the fee award. See, e.g., Bradley V. v. Kijakazi, 2021 WL 4554108, 24]| at *1-3 (S.D. Cal. Oct. 4, 2021); Atunez v. Comm’r of Soc. Sec. Admin., 2017 WL 4075830, at *2 (D. Ariz. Sept. 13, 2017); Keyser v. Astrue, 2012 WL 78461, at *3 (D. Ore. Jan. 10, 2012); Lucas 25| v. White, 63 F. Supp. 2d 1046, 1060 (N.D. Cal. 1999). 26 ? The Court also notes separately that the case law cited in support of the paralegal rates is not from this District and is, therefore, of limited value. See Docket No. 22 at 6. It is unclear why counsel is unable or unwilling to locate decisions from within this District regarding hourly rates awarded to paralegals. Cf United Steelworkers of Am. v. Phelps Dodge Corp., 896 F.2d 403, 407 28] (9th Cir. 1990).