Orman v. Central Loan Administration & Reporting

District Court, D. Arizona·Decided February 26, 2020·No. 2:19-cv-04756·Unknown

Opinion

1 WO 2 3 4 5 6 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 7 FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA 8 9 Leslie E Orman, No. CV-19-04756-PHX-DWL 10 Petitioner, ORDER 11 v. 12 Central Loan Administration & Reporting, et al., 13 Respondents.

14 15 On December 16, 2019, the Court entered an order vacating Petitioner Leslie 16 Orman’s $10.3 million arbitration award and awarding sanctions against Orman and her

17 former counsel, Jeremy Claridge, to Respondents Central Loan Administration and 18 Reporting (“Cenlar”) and CitiMortgage Inc. (“Citi”) (collectively, “Respondents”). (Doc.

19 39.) In that order, the Court directed Respondents to submit an itemized listing of the legal

20 fees they incurred in this matter and further directed Orman and Claridge to submit 21 objections to those fees. (Id. at 13.) All parties have now submitted their documentation, 22 and the Court is prepared to determine the appropriate amount of fees to be assessed against

23 Orman and Claridge.

24 BACKGROUND

25 The factual and procedural history of this case is set out in the Court’s December

26 16 order. In a nutshell, Orman attempted to use this Court to confirm a sham arbitration 27 award. (Id. at 13.) Relying on 9 U.S.C. § 10 and basic tenets of contract law, the Court 28 vacated the award. (Id. at 5-9.) The Court also determined that Orman and Claridge had

1 acted with bad faith—Claridge recklessly filed an application to confirm an obviously 2 fraudulent arbitration award, and Orman was trying to use this Court to harass her former 3 mortgage lender. (Id. at 8-13.) Recognizing that “bad faith comes in various forms” and 4 that Claridge’s failures were those of “judgment and prudence,” the Court allocated 10% 5 of the award to Claridge and held Orman responsible for the other 90%. (Id.) 6 On January 6, 2020, Claridge moved for reconsideration of the fee award, or, 7 alternatively, an extension of time. (Doc. 44.) The Court denied the request for 8 reconsideration but extended the time for Claridge and Orman to object. (Doc. 45.) 9 All parties have now submitted their documentation. Before the Court are 10 Respondents’ itemized fee statements and supporting documentation (Doc. 42), Orman’s 11 objections and supporting documentation (Doc. 46), Claridge’s objections and supporting 12 documentation (Doc. 48), and Respondents’ responses to both objections (Docs. 47, 50). 13 ANALYSIS 14 The Court has already determined that Respondents are entitled to sanctions. (Doc. 15 39.) Thus, the only issue at this stage is the reasonableness of Respondents’ requested fees. 16 The Court sanctioned Orman and Claridge pursuant to its inherent authority “to 17 award sanctions in the form of attorneys’ fees against a party or counsel who acts in ‘bad 18 faith, vexatiously, wantonly, or for oppressive reasons.’” Leon v. IDX Sys. Corp., 464 F.3d. 19 951, 961 (9th Cir. 2006) (quoting Primus Auto. Fin. Servs., Inc. v. Batarse, 115 F.3d 644, 20 648 (9th Cir. 1997)). Under that power, any fees imposed “must be compensatory rather 21 than punitive in nature” and “go no further than to redress the wronged party for losses 22 sustained; it may not impose an additional amount as punishment for the sanctioned party’s 23 misbehavior.” Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. v. Haeger, 137 S. Ct. 1178, 1186 (2017). 24 Thus, “the court can shift only those attorney’s fees incurred because of the misconduct at 25 issue” and must “establish a causal link—between the litigant’s misbehavior and legal fees 26 paid by the opposing party.” Id. 27 Here, the causal link is easy to establish. The bad-faith conduct at issue is the 28 reckless, frivolous filing of the petition to confirm a sham arbitration award. (Doc. 1.) As

1 the Court stated in its previous order, “Orman concocted a rambling document that she then 2 had rubber-stamped by an arbitrator who merely restated the near-gibberish contained in 3 Orman’s ‘counter offer,’” and Claridge saw fit to file this legal nullity.1 (Doc. 39 at 10- 4 11.) In other words, this litigation was pursued in bad faith from its inception. 5 Accordingly, the Court concludes that all attorneys’ fees incurred by Respondents in this 6 matter were incurred because of the misconduct. Respondents would not have incurred 7 these fees but for the filing of a completely baseless petition to confirm. Haeger, 137 S. 8 Ct. at 1187 (causal connection in attorneys’ fees cases is “appropriately framed as a but- 9 for test”). See also Chambers v. NASCO, Inc., 501 U.S. 32, 56-57 (1991) (stating that 10 award of entire amount of fees incurred was appropriate when offending party’s actions 11 “were part of a sordid scheme of deliberate misuse of the judicial process”); Lu v. United 12 States, 921 F.3d 850, 861 (9th Cir. 2019) (“In an exceptional case such as Chambers, where 13 fees associated with the entirety of an action . . . would not have been incurred but for the 14 bad faith conduct of a litigant, the district court may shift all of a party’s fees . . . in one 15 fell swoop.”) (internal quotations omitted). 16 With that in mind, the Court will consider all fees requested after this action was 17 initiated on July 18, 2019. (Doc. 1.) All told, Cenlar seeks $17,056.50 and Citi seeks 18 $20,998.71, for a total of $38,055.21. (Doc. 42-2 at 4; Doc. 42-2 at 10.) These fees 19 encompass the research and writing of Respondents’ papers. 20 I. Reasonableness Of Fees 21 To determine whether Respondents’ fees are reasonable, the Court looks to whether 22 the hourly rates are reasonable, and then whether the time spent on the matter is reasonable. 23 Kaufman v. Warner Bros. Entm’t Inc., 2019 WL 2084460, *13 (D. Ariz. 2019). 24 Reasonableness is typically determined through the “lodestar method.” The lodestar is 25 calculated by “multiplying the number of hours the prevailing party reasonably expended 26 1 As previously noted, other awards issued by the “arbitrator” involved in this case have been vacated by district courts around the country. (Doc. 39 at 12 n.5.) A district 27 judge in the Northern District of Texas recently ordered the arbitrator to appear “to present evidence demonstrating the validity and legitimacy of the purported arbitration award”

28 filed in that matter, and invited input from other entities that have been forced to defend against similar sham arbitration awards. (Doc. 47-1 at 2-5.)

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