UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA FORT MYERS DIVISION
SKYE ENERGY VENTURES, LLC, Plaintiff, v. Case No. 2:25-cv-274-SPC-KRH RICHARD J. HOLLANDER, et al. Defendants. /
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION At issue is Defendants Richard Hollander and Southern Logistics Financial, Inc.’s Motion for Attorney Fees. (Doc. 47). Plaintiff Skye Energy Ventures, LLC responded in opposition. (Doc. 48). The Court already determined that Defendants are entitled to recover reasonable attorney’s fees incurred in defending against Plaintiff’s Florida Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (“RICO”) claim. (Doc. 46). As explained below, the undersigned recommends awarding Defendants $16,360 in attorney’s fees. Background This action has a long history for a case that never got past the pleadings. Over roughly 10 months, Plaintiff filed three separate complaints—each asserting Florida and federal RICO claims, along with eight other counts. (Doc. 1; Doc. 19; Doc. 30). Initially, the Court dismissed the RICO claims with leave to amend. (Doc. 27). It then dismissed those same claims with prejudice. (Doc. 36). Plaintiff tried resurrecting the RICO claims based on purported newly discovered evidence, but the Court disagreed. (Doc. 45). Following that string of rulings, the Court held
Defendants were entitled to fees for defending the Florida RICO claim and directed the parties to meet on a reasonable amount. (Doc. 46 at 5). They did not agree. So Defendants filed this Motion, seeking $28,440 in fees. (Doc. 47 at 22). That figure represents 71.1 hours of attorney time at $400 per hour, which was a voluntary reduction from the 79 hours reflected in counsel’s bill. (Doc.
47-1). Plaintiff doesn’t dispute the hourly rate. It does, however, dispute the number of hours expended—arguing Defendants made no meaningful effort to allocate their billed time between the Florida RICO claim (for which fees are recoverable) and the nine other counts in the case (for which they are not). What’s more, Plaintiff says that bill entries reflect improper block billing, and the time spent litigating the amount of fees itself is not compensable. (Doc. 48 at 2-13).
Legal Standard Since entitlement is clear, the Court must now determine the amount of an award of reasonable attorney’s fees. M.D. Fla. Local R. 7.01(a)-(c). The Florida RICO statute provides: The defendant shall be entitled to recover reasonable attorney’s fees and court costs in the trial and appellate courts upon a finding that the claimant raised a claim which was without substantial fact or legal support. In awarding attorney’s fees and costs under this section, the court may not consider the ability of the opposing party to pay such fees and costs. Fla. Stat. § 772.104(3). The statute therefore provides for recovery of “reasonable” attorney’s fees. Id. State law governs this substantive question of fees. See McMahan v. Toto,
256 F.3d 1120, 1132 (11th Cir. 2001). Florida (and federal) law applies the lodestar framework for making that fee determination. Fla. Patient’s Comp. Fund v. Rowe, 472 So. 2d 1145, 1150 (Fla. 1985); Bell v. U.S.B. Acquisition Co., 734 So. 2d 403, 406 (Fla. 1999). Under that approach, courts multiply the number of hours reasonably
expended by the reasonable hourly rate. Am. Civil Liberties Union of Ga. v. Barnes, 168 F.3d 423, 427 (11th Cir. 1999). Once calculated, this lodestar figure may be adjusted up or down depending on the circumstances. See id. Discussion The analysis proceeds in three parts. First, the Court addresses counsel’s hourly rate. Second, this inquiry fleshes out the contested question of the number
of hours reasonably expended. And third, the Court calculates the lodestar. 1. Hourly Rate The Court begins with the easier question of counsel’s rate. Here, $400 per hour is reasonable. A reasonable hourly rate is the “prevailing market rate in the relevant legal
community for similar services by lawyers of reasonably comparable skills, experience, and reputation.” Id. at 436 (quoting Norman v. Hous. Auth. of Montgomery, 836 F.2d 1292, 1299 (11th Cir. 1988)). The applicant bears the burden of establishing the claimed market rate. See Barnes, 168 F.3d at 427. The Court may also use its own experience in assessing the reasonableness of attorney’s fees. Norman, 836 F.2d at 1297.
This record supports Defendants’ requested, undisputed rate. Nearby judges approved similar rates in comparable RICO litigation on more than one occasion. In Omnipol, A.S. v. Worrell, for example, the court approved a $350 hourly rate for RICO defense counsel with seven years of experience. No. 8:19-cv-794-VMC- TGW, 2022 WL 18157514, at *3 (M.D. Fla. Dec. 19, 2022), R&R adopted, 2023 WL
130730 (Jan. 9, 2023). Likewise, in Oke v. Prontowash, LLC, the court approved the same $350 rate in another federal RICO matter. No. 8:23-cv-2558-WFJ-TGW, 2024 WL 4894230, at *4 (M.D. Fla. Nov. 26, 2024). And more to the point, Judge Steele recently approved the very rate that Defendants seek here—$400 per hour— for this same attorney in a discrimination case. Jones v. Hogan Servs., Inc., No. 2:25-cv-211-JES-NPM, 2025 WL 3462532 (M.D. Fla. Dec. 2, 2025). Counsel’s
credentials bear out the reasonableness of that figure as well; he has practiced for sixteen years and holds board certification in Employment Law. (Doc. 47 at 14-16). Drawing from my familiarity with federal litigation in Southwest Florida, expertise about the market value of services litigators provide, and considering the unopposed rate, I recommend that $400 per hour be adopted as a reasonable rate.
2. Hours Reasonably Expended The more contested question is how many of the hours Defendants billed were reasonably expended in defense of the Florida RICO claim specifically. Defendants ask the Court to award fees for 71.1 hours. (Doc. 47 at 19). Plaintiff, by contrast, contends that no more than 21.89 hours can be attributed to RICO- related work. (Doc. 48 at 11).
The answer lies somewhere in between. Having reviewed the billing records, heavy dispositive motions practice, and competing submissions here, I find that neither party claims a reasonable award. Instead, my recommendation is a middle course grounded in the actual record—not either party’s characterization of it. A. Full Intertwining Fails
Defendants’ primary position is that the Florida RICO claim was so intertwined with the remaining nine counts that no meaningful allocation between them is possible, so the Court should treat the entire 71.1-hour request (accounting for a voluntary ten percent reduction) as compensable. (Doc. 47 at 17-19). The undersigned cannot agree. Where, as here, a party is entitled to fees for only some of the claims litigated
in a case, the Court must examine the relationship between those claims to determine the appropriate scope of any fee award. Durden v. Citicorp Tr. Bank, FSB, 763 F. Supp. 2d 1299, 1306 (M.D. Fla. 2011). If the claims involve a common core of facts and related legal theories, a full fee may be awarded unless the movant spent a separate and distinct amount of time on claims for which fees are not
authorized. Id; Yellow Pages Photos, Inc. v. Ziplocal, LP, 846 F.3d 1159, 1167 n.3 (11th Cir. 2017). Courts find true intertwining of claims when the operative pleadings are so tangled and poorly organized that it is functionally impossible to divide into discrete, separately defensible claims. Filippova v. Mogilevsky, No. 18-80044- CIV, 2019 WL 1216150, at *6-7 (S.D. Fla. Feb. 14, 2019), R&R adopted, 2019 WL
1216205 (Mar. 7, 2019). But a movant’s own characterization of the scope of intertwined work does not control that inquiry where the record itself allows the Court to calculate a more precise allocation. Durden, 763 F. Supp. 2d at 1310-11 (rejecting the movant’s proposed 50% self-reduction as insufficient and imposing a larger, independently calculated reduction); see also Runion v. Bernard, No.
2:20-cv-718-JLB-KCD, 2022 WL 18492497, at *5 (M.D. Fla. Dec. 5, 2022) (rejecting the characterization because each motion to dismiss followed a consistent structure where discrete sections were devoted to separate claims). The same conclusion follows here, for two reasons. First, Plaintiff’s pleadings weren’t of a shotgun character that produced full intertwining like Filippova. The complaint in Filippova ran 277 pages and 1,565
paragraphs, which was described as “mind numbing” and “at best incoherent and riddled with redundancy,” among “the worst examples of civil complaints this Court has ever seen.” 2019 WL 1216150, at *6. The issues here were more segregable and distinct. Second, and independently, Defendants’ own motions to dismiss undercut
their intertwining argument just as the motions in Runion defeated the same argument. Both motions organize their RICO arguments into identifiable, separately captioned sections that are visibly—and logically—distinct from the sections addressing the other counts. (Doc. 23 at 11-17; Doc. 34 at 7-18). Simply put, the Court can excise unrecoverable (or unsupported) figures rather than swinging a hatchet at the bills to account for partially recoverable fees.
See DJ Lincoln Enters., Inc. v. Google, LLC, No. 20-CV-14159- Rosenberg/Reinhart, 2022 WL 4287640, at *12 (S.D. Fla. July 28, 2022), R&R adopted, 2022 WL 3754182 (Aug. 30, 2022) (awarding fees under § 772.104(3) with a 60% across-the-board cut). The undersigned therefore declines to award the full 71.1 hours on an intertwining theory and instead evaluates the billing records
category by category, as set out below. B. Federal RICO Time is Recoverable Although Defendants’ entitlement to fees rests on the Florida RICO statute specifically, the Court finds time spent defending against the related federal RICO claim is properly included in the award as well. Again, a full fee is appropriate where the claims at issue share a common
core of facts and related legal theories such that no separate and distinct time was spent on one over the other. Durden, 763 F. Supp. 2d at 1306. That describes the relationship between the federal and Florida RICO counts at issue. Both counts turned on the identical defect—Plaintiff’s repeated failure to plead a viable RICO enterprise. Across both rounds of 12(b)(6) briefing, these claims were analyzed
under the same Rule 9(b) particularity standard, enterprise requirement, and pattern-and-continuity demand. Indeed, the Court stated that “in addressing the federal RICO claim, [it] inherently addresses the Florida RICO claim (Count II) as well.” (Doc. 36 at 3 n.2). The undersigned, therefore, recommends that time devoted to the RICO claims generally be treated as an undivided category.
C. Block Billing Requires Scrutiny Many of the disputed entries combine several distinct tasks into a single, undifferentiated figure. That practice is itself a documentation problem independent of the claim-allocation question. Block billing prevents the Court from determining which portion of the fees billed on a particular date is
recoverable and which is not, and “warrants a reduction of the number of hours” where fees are recoverable for only some of the work an entry describes. Kearney v. Auto-Owners Ins. Co., 713 F. Supp. 2d 1369, 1377 (M.D. Fla. 2010). The remedy is not automatic exclusion of every block-billed entry; nor is it license to abandon the inquiry as unworkable. A court may instead use its own judgment to reach a reasonable figure. The goal is “rough justice,” not “auditing
perfection,” and a court may rely on its overall sense of the litigation and reasonable estimates in allocating an attorney’s time. Fox v. Vice, 563 U.S. 826, 838 (2011). This Court took exactly that approach in Runion, evaluating each block-billed motion to dismiss, rather than attempting to parse minutes out of an undifferentiated entry.
I believe that the Court should follow the same approach here. In doing so, any ambiguity that block billing leaves unresolved is construed against the fee applicant—who bears the burden of documenting hours with sufficient particularity to permit review. Norman, 836 F.2d at 1303. D. First Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 23) For the first dispositive motion, which was 24 pages, Defendants request
$9,400, representing 23.5 hours of work: Date Description Hours Amount 5/15/2025 Review amended complaint; 2 $800 Outlining arguments for MTD; Teleconference with client. 5/16/2025 Continue outlining arguments for 3.5 $1,400 MTD, researching case law re: same, Prepare redline of CMR. 6/3/2025 Drafting MTD and legal researching 5 $2,000 re: same. 6/4/2025 Continue drafting of MTD and legal 3.9 $1,560 research; Telephone conference with client. 6/9/2025 Editing and drafting RICO sections 4.6 $1,840 of MTD, researching case law re same; Teleconference with client; Reviewing additional documents provided by client. 6/11/2025 Finalizing MTD and editing same. 1.5 $600 6/12/2025 Final revisions and filing MTD; 2 $800 Telephone conference with client. 6/20/2025 Review and analyze Plaintiff’s 1 $400 response to MTD. Total 23.5 $9,400
This briefing wasn’t like the perfunctory, case-quoting brief that warranted a fifty-percent reduction in Runion. Its RICO section applies Rule 9(b), the enterprise requirement, and the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine specifically to Plaintiff’s pleaded allegations, rather than regurgitating abstract law. (Doc. 23 at 11-17). But the motion’s primary theory rested on the Paymaster Services Agreements and their exculpatory and hold-harmless provisions. (Doc. 23 at 6-11). That was a threshold argument—unrelated to RICO—occupying a substantially larger share of the motion. Weighing the genuine quality of the RICO argument against how much of
the motion’s overall effort it actually represents, the Court recommends 12 hours be awarded—totaling $4,800. The undersigned does not suggest that 23.5 hours was an unreasonable amount of time to spend drafting a thorough dispositive motion addressing ten claims. The problem is not that the hours billed are excessive in theory; Defendants
can only recover fees for the RICO portion of that work, which was never the whole object that the motion tried to accomplish. Awarding the full 23.5 hours simply because the time as a whole appears reasonable would effectively require Plaintiff to underwrite Defendants’ defense of the nine other counts as well, which is precisely the outcome that § 772.104(3) was designed to prevent. See Chodorow v. Moore, 947 So. 2d 577, 579-80 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2007); Durden, 763 F. Supp. 2d
at 1306. E. Second Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 34) For work on the next motion, which was 26 pages, Defendants request $6,200, representing 15.5 hours of work: Date Description Hours Amount 7/21/2025 Review and analyze 2nd amended 5 $2,000 complaint and attached exhibits; Compare allegations to prior pleadings; Review order granting MTD; Begin outlining arguments for renewed MTD and begin drafting same 7/22/2025 Continued drafting MTD and legal 2.4 $960 research re same 7/27/2025 Continued drafting renewed MTD. 2.5 $1,000 7/28/2025 Attend Rule 16 conference; Review 2.2 $880 CMSO; Finalizing renewed MTD; Teleconference with client. 8/11/2025 Reviewing and analyzing Plaintiff’s 3.4 $1,360 responses to renewed MTD; Comparing arguments to Court’s prior order granting MTD; Outlining possible reply brief re RICO counts; Telephone conference with client. Total 15.5 $6,200
This motion presented the opposite circumstances from the recycled motions in Runion. It responded to new substantive allegations in the Second Amended Complaint—i.e., kickback, alter ego, third enterprise, and reworked pattern-and-continuity theories. (Doc. 30 ¶¶ 26-27, 34). In fact, RICO issues occupied the largest single section of that motion, spanning roughly eleven of its twenty-six pages and addressing six distinct sub-issues in detail. (Doc. 34 at 7-18). Given the genuinely new and substantial nature of this work, the undersigned recommends 12 hours—for a total of $4,800. As with the first motion to dismiss, this is not a finding that the 15.5 hours billed were unreasonable in the aggregate. That time may well reflect what drafting a twenty-six-page motion addressing ten counts actually required. The point remains the same as in Section D: only the portion of that work devoted to the RICO claim is recoverable. Together, Sections D and E yield 24 recoverable hours, in place of the 39 hours Defendants seek. F. RICO-Specific Order Review and Pre-Motion Letter Plaintiff specifically objects to each of the following entries, characterizing each as work that “is not work on the RICO claim.” (Doc. 48 at 4, 8, 10-11).
Date Description Hours Amount 5/5/2025 Drafting detailed email to OC .6 $240 regarding deficiencies in federal complaint; Responding to email from opposing counsel. 6/30/2025 Review and analyze order granting .5 $200 MTD in part. 8/20/2025 Reviewing and analyzing order .5 $200 dismissing RICO counts with prejudice; Telephone conference with client. 11/17/2025 Reviewing and analyzing order .3 $120 denying Rule 59 motion. 1/14/2026 Reviewing and analyzing order .5 $200 granting entitlement to attorney’s fees; Telephone conference with client. Total 2.4 $960
Neither party’s position on these entries is satisfying, though for different reasons. A bare assertion that an entry “is not work on the RICO claim,” repeated across various unrelated entries without engaging what each entry describes, falls short of the specific and reasonably precise objection Barnes requires. 168 F.3d at 428. Still, it would be impractical to demand that counsel specify (in every entry across a ten-count case) exactly which claims a given task or claim touches. Defendants’ own billing nonetheless undercuts their position as to these five entries specifically. Where bills affirmatively describe an entry as reviewing the order “dismissing RICO counts with prejudice” or “granting entitlement to attorney’s fees” under RICO, counsel himself supplied the specificity that Plaintiff’s more generalized objections otherwise lack, so he cannot then argue that allocation is impractical. Instead of Plaintiff’s generic objections or the absence of context, it
is Defendants’ own billing descriptions that settle which entries are compensable. Combined with the pre-motion letter, which focuses on RICO’s Rule 9(b) predicate act and intracorporate conspiracy defects, the undersigned recommends that all 2.4 hours be recoverable in full—totaling $960. G. Fees for Rule 59(e) Opposition
The following entries do not appear among Plaintiff’s itemized objections, (Doc. 48 at 10-11): Date Description Hours Amount 9/16/2025 Reviewing and analyzing 2.2 $880 Plaintiff’s rule 59 motion; Outlining response and legal research re same. 9/17/2025 Reviewing Rule 59 motion and all 6 $2,400 its attachments; Drafting response to Rule 59 motion and finalizing/filing same. Total 8.2 $3,280
Where a fee opponent has not lodged a specific objection to a particular entry, the Court will not, on its own initiative, search the record for reasons to cut it. Fox, 563 U.S. at 838 (Federal “courts need not, and indeed should not, become green-eyeshade accountants.”). These entries also reflect substantive work defeating Plaintiff’s attempt to resurrect the dismissed RICO claims. (Doc. 45). The undersigned recommends all 8.2 hours are recoverable—totaling $3,280. H. Motion for Entitlement to Fees Defendants request $2,280 for litigating entitlement to fees and the amount, representing 5.7 hours of work:
Date Description Hours Amount 8/28/2025 Begin drafting motion for 3.9 $1,560 entitlement to attorney’s fees, legal research re same. 8/29/2025 Finalizing and editing motion for 1.4 $560 entitlement to attorney fees, filing same. 9/26/2025 Reviewing and analyzing Plaintiff’s .4 $160 response to motion for entitlement to attorney fees. Total 5.7 $2,280
Defendants filed a motion for entitlement to fees. (Doc. 38). The Court granted that request. (Doc. 46). “It is settled that in litigating over attorney’s fees, a litigant may claim fees where entitlement is the issue, but may not claim attorney’s fees incurred in litigating the amount of attorney’s fees.” N. Dade Church of God, Inc. v. JM Statewide, Inc., 851 So. 2d 194, 196 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2003). The undersigned recommends that this number is reasonable, and that Defendants should be awarded $2,280. I. Case Development, Discovery, and Client Communication Plaintiff specifically objects to each of the following entries (Doc. 48 at 5-7, 9-10): Date Description Hours Amount 4/16/2025 Reviewing federal complaint; Meeting with 2 $800 client to discuss case, obtain factual background and plan strategy. 4/17/2025 Reviewing documents related to 1.5 $600 transaction provided by client, comparing same against documents attached as exhibits to federal complaint. 4/29/2025 Reviewing financial documents related to 1.1 $440 transaction provided by client. 6/11/2025 Drafting affidavit of client; Telephone 1.7 $680 conference with client. 7/30/2025 Reviewing Plaintiff’s discovery requests; 3.1 $1,240 Begin outlining objections; Telephone conference with client. 7/31/2025 Drafting objections and responses to 2.7 $1,080 discovery requests. 7/31/2025 Reviewing file; Drafting Initial Disclosures .7 $280 8/14/2025 Drafting and revising responses to 1.4 $560 discovery requests. Total 14.2 $5,680
Fees for work attributable equally to a RICO claim and to other claims are not recoverable, because they would have been incurred regardless of whether Plaintiff had asserted a RICO theory. Fernau v. Enchante Beauty Prods., Inc., No. 18-cv-20866, 2021 WL 1520755, at *9 (S.D. Fla. Mar. 11, 2021), R&R adopted, 2021 WL 1152835 (Mar. 26, 2021). None of these entries mentions RICO, and each would have been required to defend the other counts regardless. While there may have been RICO issues in the early discovery, the Court has no way to know. So Defendants dropped their burden in this area. And the undersigned recommends that all 14.2 hours be excluded. J. Administrative and Clerical Tasks Plaintiff also objects to each of the following entries (Doc. 48 at 5-6, 8-9): Date Description Hours Amount 5/4/2025 Drafting notice of appearance, notice 2.3 $920 of related cases, interested persons disclosure and notice of lead counsel (and filing same); Outlining arguments for MTD. 5/6/2025 Email correspondence to OC. .1 $40 5/7/2025 Reviewing email from OC; Preparing .2 $80 and filing notice to court re: plaintiff to file an amended complaint. 5/21/2025 Email to OC. .1 $40 5/22/2025 Review email from OC; Prepare and .2 $80 file motion for enlargement of time. 6/13/2025 Drafting and filing updated 3.01(g) .1 $40 certificate. 7/10/2025 Reviewing Plaintiff’s unopposed .1 $40 motion for enlargement of time and order granting same. 9/10/2025 Reviewing plaintiff’s motion for .1 $40 enlargement, order granting same. Total 3.2 $1,280
Time spent on simple ministerial tasks such as filing a notice of appearance is not compensable. N. Dade Church of God, 851 So.2d at 196. So the notice of appearance, notice of related cases, interested-persons disclosure, notice of lead counsel, and the 3.01(g) certificate are not compensable. The May 4 entry also combines some purely clerical filings with “outlining arguments for MTD,” a substantive task; this constitutes improper block billing. Kearney, 713 F. Supp. 2d at 1377. The undersigned declines to shift this drafting time into Section D because five other entries already account for outlining and drafting the first motion to dismiss. The May 6 and May 21 entries are deficient too because neither identifies the subject of the correspondence. Inadequately documented entries do not permit the Court to assess whether the work was reasonable or related to the RICO claims. Rowe, 472 So.2d at 1150. The entries for May 4, May 6, May 21, and June 13 are excluded in full. The remaining four entries stand on different footing. The May 7 and May 22 entries each reflect the preparation and filing of a substantive notice or motion, not ministerial work. The July 10 and September 10 entries reflect review of both
a short unopposed motion and the resulting endorsed order. At .1 hours (six minutes) apiece for reviewing two related, brief filings, those entries do not raise an unreasonableness concern. The Court recommends .6 hours for these four entries, totaling $240. K. Litigating the Amount of Fees
Plaintiff objects to the following entries: Date Description Hours Amount 1/30/2026 Attend scheduled 3.01(g) conference .5 $200 with Plaintiff’s counsel, who did not attend. 2/3/2026 Attend scheduled 3.01(g) conference. .2 $80 2/17/2026 Begin drafting motion for attorney’s 2.5 $1,000 fees, researching same. 2/19/2026 Drafting motion for attorney’s fees. 3.1 $1,240 Total 6.3 $2,520
As stated above, fees incurred litigating the amount of a fee award, as distinct from entitlement to one, are not recoverable. N. Dade Church of God, 851 So. 2d at 196. In general, Florida courts don’t allow “attorney’s fees incurred in litigating the amount of attorney’s fees.” Id.; but see Mallas v. Mallas, 326 So. 3d 704, 706-07 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2021). Applying the standard to the relevant statute, the Court recommends excluding the fees incurred due to briefing the amount of fees (i.e., no fees for fees). Mallas, 326 So. 3d at 707. The undersigned therefore recommends all 6.3 hours be excluded. 3. Lodestar Analysis Having sorted the billing records into these categories, the Court arrives at the final calculation. “When a district court finds the number of hours claimed is
unreasonably high, the court has two choices; it may conduct an hour-by-hour analysis or it may reduce the requested hours with an across-the-board cut.” Bivins v. Wrap It Up, Inc., 548 F.3d 1348, 1350 (11th Cir. 2008) (citing Loranger, 10 F.3d at 783). What a court may not do is combine the two approaches to the same hours, since doing so risks discounting the same time more than once. Id. at 1351-52. The
undersigned avoids that pitfall here by treating each category of billed time only once. No hours have been discounted under more than one theory. Of the 79 hours reflected in the original bill, I recommend the following as recoverable: 12 hours for the first motion to dismiss, 12 hours for the second motion to dismiss, 2.4 hours for RICO-specific order and pre-motion letter, 8.2 hours for the Rule 59(e) opposition, 5.7 hours for the motion for entitlement to
fees, and .6 hours for the four entries related to reviewing and drafting substantive motions. As for the other entries, the Motion should be denied. Accordingly, these determinations yield 40.9 recoverable hours. Multiplying that figure by the $400 reasonable hourly rate produces a lodestar of $16,360. RECOMMENDED:
1. Defendants’ Motion for Attorney’s Fees (Doc. 47) be GRANTED and DENIED in part. 2. The Court should arrive at a lodestar amount of $16,360 in attorney’s fees payable to Defendants. In Fort Myers, Florida, on August 3, 2026.
Kevin R: Huguele United Sta agistrate Judge Notice to All Parties A party has fourteen days from this date to file written objections to the Report and Recommendation’s factual findings and legal conclusions. A party’s failure to file written objections “waives the right to challenge on appeal the district court’s order based on unobjected-to factual and legal conclusions.” 11th Cir. R. 3- 1. To expedite resolution, parties may file a joint notice waiving the fourteen-day objection period.