1 WO 2 3 4 5 6 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 7 FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA
9 V.I.P. Mortgage Incorporated, No. CV-24-02865-PHX-DWL
10 Plaintiff, ORDER
11 v.
12 Jennifer Gates,
13 Defendant. 14 15 Jennifer Gates (“Gates”) filed an arbitration demand against her former employer, 16 V.I.P. Mortgage, Inc. (“VIP”), for unpaid overtime compensation under the Fair Labor 17 Standards Act (“FLSA”). In July 2024, following a four-day hearing, the arbitrator issued 18 a detailed 25-page decision concluding that although Gates had overstated her hours- 19 worked claims in various respects, Gates was still entitled to overtime compensation, 20 liquidated damages, and attorneys’ fees and costs, resulting in a total award of $650,805.41. 21 (Doc. 1-2.) 22 In October 2024, VIP initiated this action by filing a petition under the Federal 23 Arbitration Act (“FAA”) to vacate or modify the award. (Doc. 1.) Gates, in turn, moved 24 to confirm the award. (Doc. 6.) In a November 14, 2024 order, the Court denied VIP’s 25 petition, granted Gates’s motion, and confirmed the $650,805.41 award. (Doc. 12.) 26 Now pending before the Court is Gates’s motion for attorneys’ fees. (Doc. 14.) For 27 the reasons that follow, the motion is granted. 28 … 1 DISCUSSION 2 I. The Parties’ Arguments 3 In her motion, Gates seeks $10,539.15 in attorneys’ fees. (Doc. 14.) Gates argues 4 that “[c]ourts in this Circuit and others have widely held that the provision in the FLSA 5 and other statutory fee-shifting statutes include attorneys’ fee awards for successfully 6 obtaining confirmation of an arbitrator’s decision” (id. at 4-5) and contends that the 7 requested $10,539.15 fee is reasonable when considering the time and labor required of 8 counsel and support staff; the novelty and difficulty of the questions presented; the requisite 9 skill required to perform legal services; the customary fee charged; the reasonableness of 10 the fee agreement; the amount of money and the results obtained; the experience, 11 reputation, and ability of counsel; the undesirability of the case; the nature and length of 12 counsel’s attorney-client relationship; and the size of fee awards in similar actions (id. at 13 5-13). Gates also provides, as attachments to her motion, a declaration from her counsel 14 that, among other things, identifies counsel’s hourly rate as $413.30 (Doc. 14-1); a 15 spreadsheet with detailed billing entries showing that Gates’s counsel spent 19.6 hours on 16 the confirmation-related litigation and 5.9 hours drafting the motion for attorneys’ fees 17 (Doc. 14-2); an expert report from a recent case in the District of Arizona in which the 18 expert opined that an hourly rate of $400 in FLSA litigation is reasonable (Doc. 14-3); an 19 avowal that Gates’s counsel consulted in good faith with VIP’s counsel before filing the 20 fee request (Doc. 14-4); a copy of the engagement letter between Gates and her counsel 21 (Doc. 14-5); and a copy of the correspondence that Gates’s counsel sent to VIP’s counsel 22 before filing the fee request (Doc. 14-6). 23 VIP opposes Gates’s motion. (Doc. 15.) First, although VIP does not dispute that 24 attorneys’ fees may be awarded under the FLSA in connection with litigation over the 25 enforceability of an FLSA-based arbitration award, VIP contends that such an award is not 26 mandatory and that the Court should exercise its discretion to deny fees here because 27 (a) Gates made an overbroad request for attorneys’ fees during the underlying arbitration 28 proceeding and thus “has already received an award of attorneys’ fees in this matter beyond 1 what she was entitled to under the FLSA”; and (b) Gates unreasonably expanded the scope 2 of the enforcement-related litigation by filing a parallel enforcement action in Arizona state 3 court, even though the arbitration provision in her contract required her to file any such 4 action in federal court. (Id. at 3-4.) Second, in a footnote, VIP questions whether Gates 5 complied with LRCiv 54.2’s consultation requirement before filing the motion. (Id. at 3 6 n.4.) Third, VIP argues that the amount of time Gates’s counsel spent preparing the fee 7 motion (5.9 hours) is excessive. (Id. at 4.) Fourth, VIP argues that the amount of time 8 Gates’s counsel spent preparing the confirmation motion (8 hours) is excessive because, 9 by that time, Gates’s counsel had already prepared and filed a different confirmation 10 motion in state court. (Id. at 4-5.) VIP also notes that the confirmation motion erroneously 11 asked the Court to add $214,690 to the size of the award being confirmed. (Id.) Fifth, VIP 12 seeks to distinguish the purportedly comparable award identified by Gates. (Id. at 5.) 13 In reply, Gates argues that her mistaken request in the confirmation motion for an 14 additional $214,690 was “an honest mistake” that had no bearing on the outcome and “has 15 nothing to do with eligibility, entitlement, and [the] reasonableness of the requested fee 16 award” (Doc. 18 at 1-2); that the state-court enforcement action is a red herring because 17 her motion only “seek[s] fees from this Federal action that was commenced by VIP” and 18 does not “seek[] fees for any collection or state court claims” (id. at 2); that VIP’s 19 arguments regarding the purportedly excessive size of the fee award during the arbitration 20 proceeding amount to an “attempt[] to relitigate for the fourth time issues that have already 21 been decided by the Arbitrator” and have no bearing on the fee analysis here (id. at 3); that 22 VIP’s arguments regarding LRCiv 54.2 “are an outright falsity” because she made multiple 23 efforts over a multi-day period to engage in good-faith settlement efforts with VIP’s 24 counsel, only for VIP’s counsel to fail to timely respond (id. at 3-5); and that VIP’s failure 25 to provide its own billing records undermines any challenge to the reasonableness of 26 Gates’s counsel’s time expenditures (id. at 5). Gates also contends she is entitled to 27 attorneys’ fees for the 2.6 hours it took her counsel to prepare the reply, which would 28 increase the total award to $11,613.73. (Id. at 5-6.) 1 II. Analysis 2 As an initial matter, although the Court previously raised questions about the issue 3 (Doc. 12 at 10 n.3), both sides agree that, under the FLSA, Gates may recover her 4 reasonable attorneys’ fees based on her success in obtaining an order confirming the 5 underlying arbitration award. This agreement appears to be “consistent with the 6 overwhelming consensus of courts . . . that have awarded attorneys’ fees to FLSA plaintiffs 7 who have successfully confirmed or defended an arbitration award,” Johnson v. Parts 8 Authority, LLC, 2021 WL 4221775, *3 (E.D.N.Y. 2021), and the Court will, in any event, 9 follow the parties’ agreement on this issue in light of “the principle of party presentation,” 10 under which “courts normally decide only questions presented by the parties.” United 11 States v. Sineneng-Smith, 590 U.S. 371, 375-76 (2020) (cleaned up). 12 Turning to the merits, an award of attorneys’ fees to a successful plaintiff in an 13 FLSA action “is mandatory, even though the amount of the award is within the discretion 14 of the court.” Gary v. Carbon Cycle Ariz. LLC, 398 F. Supp. 3d 468, 485 (D. Ariz. 2019) 15 (quoting Houser v. Matson, 447 F.2d 860, 863 (9th Cir. 1971)). See also Ashton v. PJ 16 Louisiana, Inc., 2020 WL 1068161, *2 (W.D. La. 2020) (noting the mandatory nature of 17 “[a]ttorney’s fees incurred in confirming and defending arbitration in an FLSA suit”). “To 18 determine a reasonable attorneys’ fee under FLSA, the Court uses the lodestar method.
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1 WO 2 3 4 5 6 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 7 FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA
9 V.I.P. Mortgage Incorporated, No. CV-24-02865-PHX-DWL
10 Plaintiff, ORDER
11 v.
12 Jennifer Gates,
13 Defendant. 14 15 Jennifer Gates (“Gates”) filed an arbitration demand against her former employer, 16 V.I.P. Mortgage, Inc. (“VIP”), for unpaid overtime compensation under the Fair Labor 17 Standards Act (“FLSA”). In July 2024, following a four-day hearing, the arbitrator issued 18 a detailed 25-page decision concluding that although Gates had overstated her hours- 19 worked claims in various respects, Gates was still entitled to overtime compensation, 20 liquidated damages, and attorneys’ fees and costs, resulting in a total award of $650,805.41. 21 (Doc. 1-2.) 22 In October 2024, VIP initiated this action by filing a petition under the Federal 23 Arbitration Act (“FAA”) to vacate or modify the award. (Doc. 1.) Gates, in turn, moved 24 to confirm the award. (Doc. 6.) In a November 14, 2024 order, the Court denied VIP’s 25 petition, granted Gates’s motion, and confirmed the $650,805.41 award. (Doc. 12.) 26 Now pending before the Court is Gates’s motion for attorneys’ fees. (Doc. 14.) For 27 the reasons that follow, the motion is granted. 28 … 1 DISCUSSION 2 I. The Parties’ Arguments 3 In her motion, Gates seeks $10,539.15 in attorneys’ fees. (Doc. 14.) Gates argues 4 that “[c]ourts in this Circuit and others have widely held that the provision in the FLSA 5 and other statutory fee-shifting statutes include attorneys’ fee awards for successfully 6 obtaining confirmation of an arbitrator’s decision” (id. at 4-5) and contends that the 7 requested $10,539.15 fee is reasonable when considering the time and labor required of 8 counsel and support staff; the novelty and difficulty of the questions presented; the requisite 9 skill required to perform legal services; the customary fee charged; the reasonableness of 10 the fee agreement; the amount of money and the results obtained; the experience, 11 reputation, and ability of counsel; the undesirability of the case; the nature and length of 12 counsel’s attorney-client relationship; and the size of fee awards in similar actions (id. at 13 5-13). Gates also provides, as attachments to her motion, a declaration from her counsel 14 that, among other things, identifies counsel’s hourly rate as $413.30 (Doc. 14-1); a 15 spreadsheet with detailed billing entries showing that Gates’s counsel spent 19.6 hours on 16 the confirmation-related litigation and 5.9 hours drafting the motion for attorneys’ fees 17 (Doc. 14-2); an expert report from a recent case in the District of Arizona in which the 18 expert opined that an hourly rate of $400 in FLSA litigation is reasonable (Doc. 14-3); an 19 avowal that Gates’s counsel consulted in good faith with VIP’s counsel before filing the 20 fee request (Doc. 14-4); a copy of the engagement letter between Gates and her counsel 21 (Doc. 14-5); and a copy of the correspondence that Gates’s counsel sent to VIP’s counsel 22 before filing the fee request (Doc. 14-6). 23 VIP opposes Gates’s motion. (Doc. 15.) First, although VIP does not dispute that 24 attorneys’ fees may be awarded under the FLSA in connection with litigation over the 25 enforceability of an FLSA-based arbitration award, VIP contends that such an award is not 26 mandatory and that the Court should exercise its discretion to deny fees here because 27 (a) Gates made an overbroad request for attorneys’ fees during the underlying arbitration 28 proceeding and thus “has already received an award of attorneys’ fees in this matter beyond 1 what she was entitled to under the FLSA”; and (b) Gates unreasonably expanded the scope 2 of the enforcement-related litigation by filing a parallel enforcement action in Arizona state 3 court, even though the arbitration provision in her contract required her to file any such 4 action in federal court. (Id. at 3-4.) Second, in a footnote, VIP questions whether Gates 5 complied with LRCiv 54.2’s consultation requirement before filing the motion. (Id. at 3 6 n.4.) Third, VIP argues that the amount of time Gates’s counsel spent preparing the fee 7 motion (5.9 hours) is excessive. (Id. at 4.) Fourth, VIP argues that the amount of time 8 Gates’s counsel spent preparing the confirmation motion (8 hours) is excessive because, 9 by that time, Gates’s counsel had already prepared and filed a different confirmation 10 motion in state court. (Id. at 4-5.) VIP also notes that the confirmation motion erroneously 11 asked the Court to add $214,690 to the size of the award being confirmed. (Id.) Fifth, VIP 12 seeks to distinguish the purportedly comparable award identified by Gates. (Id. at 5.) 13 In reply, Gates argues that her mistaken request in the confirmation motion for an 14 additional $214,690 was “an honest mistake” that had no bearing on the outcome and “has 15 nothing to do with eligibility, entitlement, and [the] reasonableness of the requested fee 16 award” (Doc. 18 at 1-2); that the state-court enforcement action is a red herring because 17 her motion only “seek[s] fees from this Federal action that was commenced by VIP” and 18 does not “seek[] fees for any collection or state court claims” (id. at 2); that VIP’s 19 arguments regarding the purportedly excessive size of the fee award during the arbitration 20 proceeding amount to an “attempt[] to relitigate for the fourth time issues that have already 21 been decided by the Arbitrator” and have no bearing on the fee analysis here (id. at 3); that 22 VIP’s arguments regarding LRCiv 54.2 “are an outright falsity” because she made multiple 23 efforts over a multi-day period to engage in good-faith settlement efforts with VIP’s 24 counsel, only for VIP’s counsel to fail to timely respond (id. at 3-5); and that VIP’s failure 25 to provide its own billing records undermines any challenge to the reasonableness of 26 Gates’s counsel’s time expenditures (id. at 5). Gates also contends she is entitled to 27 attorneys’ fees for the 2.6 hours it took her counsel to prepare the reply, which would 28 increase the total award to $11,613.73. (Id. at 5-6.) 1 II. Analysis 2 As an initial matter, although the Court previously raised questions about the issue 3 (Doc. 12 at 10 n.3), both sides agree that, under the FLSA, Gates may recover her 4 reasonable attorneys’ fees based on her success in obtaining an order confirming the 5 underlying arbitration award. This agreement appears to be “consistent with the 6 overwhelming consensus of courts . . . that have awarded attorneys’ fees to FLSA plaintiffs 7 who have successfully confirmed or defended an arbitration award,” Johnson v. Parts 8 Authority, LLC, 2021 WL 4221775, *3 (E.D.N.Y. 2021), and the Court will, in any event, 9 follow the parties’ agreement on this issue in light of “the principle of party presentation,” 10 under which “courts normally decide only questions presented by the parties.” United 11 States v. Sineneng-Smith, 590 U.S. 371, 375-76 (2020) (cleaned up). 12 Turning to the merits, an award of attorneys’ fees to a successful plaintiff in an 13 FLSA action “is mandatory, even though the amount of the award is within the discretion 14 of the court.” Gary v. Carbon Cycle Ariz. LLC, 398 F. Supp. 3d 468, 485 (D. Ariz. 2019) 15 (quoting Houser v. Matson, 447 F.2d 860, 863 (9th Cir. 1971)). See also Ashton v. PJ 16 Louisiana, Inc., 2020 WL 1068161, *2 (W.D. La. 2020) (noting the mandatory nature of 17 “[a]ttorney’s fees incurred in confirming and defending arbitration in an FLSA suit”). “To 18 determine a reasonable attorneys’ fee under FLSA, the Court uses the lodestar method. 19 The lodestar is calculated by multiplying the number of hours the prevailing party 20 reasonably expended on the litigation by a reasonable hourly rate . . . [but] courts may 21 adjust that figure to account for factors that are not already subsumed in the initial lodestar 22 calculation.” Gary, 398 F. Supp. 3d at 485 (cleaned up). 23 The Court is satisfied that Gates’s counsel’s hourly rate of $413.30 is reasonable, 24 see, e.g., Salgado v. Synergy Payment Solutions Inc., 2024 WL 4751587, *1 (D. Ariz. 25 2024) (finding $445 hourly rate reasonable in wage-related litigation), and VIP does not, 26 at any rate, dispute the reasonableness of that figure. The Court is also satisfied by the 27 reasonableness of the hours expended and rejects VIP’s arguments to the contrary. Gates’s 28 counsel spent a total of only 25.5 hours litigating the merits of the enforcement action from 1 start to finish (which included responding to VIP’s petition to vacate, drafting a cross- 2 motion to enforce, and drafting a reply) and drafting the motion for attorneys’ fees. (Doc. 3 14-2.) These are not unreasonable expenditures of time even considering the potential 4 overlap with the state-court enforcement litigation, particularly given the results achieved, 5 and their reasonableness is underscored by the fact that Gates’s counsel chose not to bill 6 for certain time entries and support services. (Doc. 14-1 ¶¶ 15-17.) Gates is also entitled 7 to recover the fees associated with drafting the reply in support of her fee request. 8 Camacho v. Bridgeport Fin., Inc., 523 F.3d 973, 981 (9th Cir. 2008) (“In statutory fee 9 cases, federal courts, including our own, have uniformly held that time spent in establishing 10 the entitlement to and amount of the fee is compensable.”). 11 Turning to VIP’s remaining objections, although it is unfortunate that Gates’s 12 counsel double-counted the underlying fee award from the arbitration proceeding when 13 calculating the size of the overall award that Gates wished to have enforced, this seeming 14 scrivener’s error had no bearing on the outcome and does not detract from the overall 15 reasonableness of the hours expended. In a related vein, VIP’s complaints about the size 16 of the underlying fee award from the arbitration proceeding do not provide a basis for 17 rejecting or reducing Gates’s current fee request. The bottom line is that Gates prevailed 18 in her attempt to enforce the underlying award and should be compensated for the 19 reasonable fees she incurred in the course of securing the enforcement order. The Court 20 also declines to reject or reduce Gates’s current fee request due to her actions in the parallel 21 state-court enforcement litigation. To the extent VIP believes that litigation was frivolous 22 or otherwise unwarranted, it is free to seek a fee award from the state court. 23 Finally, the Court is satisfied that Gates complied with LRCiv 54.2(d)(1), which 24 provides that “[n]o motion for award of attorneys’ fees will be considered unless a separate 25 statement of the moving counsel is attached to the supporting memorandum certifying that, 26 after personal consultation and good faith efforts to do so, the parties have been unable to 27 satisfactorily resolve all disputed issues relating to attorneys’ fees or that the moving 28 counsel has made a good faith effort, but has been unable, to arrange such conference.” || The materials attached to Gates’s motion establish that Gates’s counsel made multiple || good-faith efforts to consult with VIP’s counsel in an effort to resolve the issue of fees. 3 Accordingly, 4 IT IS ORDERED that Gates’s motion for attorneys’ fees (Doc. 14) is granted. || Gates is awarded $11,613.73 in attorneys’ fees against V.I.P. Mortgage Incorporated. 6 Dated this 30th day of December, 2024. 7 ° (7 "Dominic W. Lanza 10 United States District Judge 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
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