Wehr v. Burroughs Corp.

477 F. Supp. 1012, 22 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 982, 1979 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10090
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedAugust 31, 1979
DocketCiv. A. 76-581
StatusPublished
Cited by26 cases

This text of 477 F. Supp. 1012 (Wehr v. Burroughs Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wehr v. Burroughs Corp., 477 F. Supp. 1012, 22 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 982, 1979 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10090 (E.D. Pa. 1979).

Opinion

*1015 MEMORANDUM

HUYETT, District Judge.

Following a verdict 1 for plaintiff in this action brought pursuant to the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq. (ADEA), counsel for plaintiff filed a petition for an award of attorneys’ fees and costs. Petitioners seek a total award in the amount of $161,879.00 in attorneys’ fees for the firm of Cohen, Shapiro, Polisher, Sheikman & Cohen (hereinafter referred to as “the Cohen firm”), $5,098.30 for the firm of Dilworth, Paxson, Kalish & Levy (original counsel for plaintiff) (hereinafter referred to as “the Dilworth firm”), $9,438.69 in costs for the Cohen firm, and $281.19 in costs for the Dilworth firm. In addition, the Cohen firm requests $11,816.25 in fees for the time spent preparing the petition for attorneys’ fees. A detailed breakdown of the petitioners’ request, including the number of hours spent by each attorney or paralegal and the hourly rates charged by each, is included as an Appendix A to this memorandum.

It is not disputed that attorneys’ fees and costs may be awarded under the ADEA. Section 7(b) of the Act, 29 U.S.C. § 626(b), incorporates by reference section 16(b) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. § 216(b), which provides in part that “The court in such action shall, in addition to any judgment awarded to the plaintiff or plaintiffs, allow a reasonable attorney’s fee to be. paid by the defendant, and costs of the action.” Furthermore, the parties agree that the standards enunciated by the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Lindy Brothers Builders, Inc. of Philadelphia v. American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp., 487 F.2d 161 (3d Cir. 1973) (Lindy I) and Lindy Brothers Builders Inc. of Philadelphia v. American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp., 540 F.2d 102 (3d Cir. 1976) (Lindy II) and their progeny govern the award of attorneys’ fees. With these standards in mind, we proceed to evaluate the reasonableness of the fees requested.

I.

1. Calculation of the “Lodestar”

The first step in determining a reasonable fee is to calculate the “lodestar” amount — that is, the reasonable number of hours devoted to pursuing the claim multiplied by the reasonable hourly rate. Lindy I, supra at 167. In calculating the first part of the “lodestar”, the Third Circuit has made it clear that the district court is required to determine “not only the number of hours actually devoted to the successful claims, but also whether it was reasonably necessary to spend that number of hours in order to perform the legal services for which compensation is sought.” Hughes v. Repko, 578 F.2d 483, 487 (3d Cir. 1978). The petitioners bear the burden of showing that the number of hours attributable to the pursuit of the successful claim was “reasonably necessary.” Id.

The petitioners have submitted to us records demonstrating the number of hours actually spent by the Dilworth firm and the Cohen firm in pursuit of this claim. These figures were maintained contemporaneously, and there is no reason to doubt their accuracy. However, it is much more difficult for us to determine whether or not petitioners have met their burden of demonstrating that these hours were reasonably necessary in the pursuit of this claim. In view of the submissions made by the petitioners, it is abundantly clear that the standards set out in Lindy I, Lindy II, and cases following are more easily stated than applied.

For example, in the case at hand, petitioners submitted an Affidavit in Support of Application for Allowance of Attorney’s Fees and Costs. This affidavit contained a breakdown of the number of hours billed by attorneys, law clerks, and paralegals at the Cohen firm, and the billing rates for each. In addition, attached to the affidavit were computer printouts which contained billing *1016 information for each lawyer, law clerk, and paralegal. These computer printouts provided us with a notation of the date that each party worked on the Burroughs case, the number of hours spent on the case on that date, and a brief description of the nature of the activity engaged in (e. g., “Discovery; Correspondence”, “Discovery: Telephone”, “Trial”). These printouts do not provide any detailed information concerning the exact nature of the project worked on; however, by coordinating the dates on the printouts with the dates on which documents were filed, etc., it is sometimes, but not always, possible to estimate how many hours were spent on different matters.

Subsequent to the Third Circuit’s decisions in Hughes v. Repko, supra; Baughman v. Wilson Freight Forwarding Co., 583 F.2d 1208 (3d Cir. 1978); and Prandini v. National Tea Company, 585 F.2d 47 (3d Cir. 1978) (Prandini II), and in an attempt to comply with the mandates of those cases, we ordered the parties to provide us with additional information. By Order dated August 31, 1978, we requested:

In anticipation of the hearing and in consideration of the court’s duty to closely scrutinize plaintiff counsel’s petition to determine the nature of the activities of counsel in a meaningful manner, see Baughman, plaintiff’s counsel shall submit:
a. A supplemental affidavit providing specific detailed evidence of the precise services rendered by counsel for plaintiff and reasonably necessary hours expended particularly with respect to each identifiable event or activity in the case, e. g., each document filed, each deposition involving participation by counsel for plaintiff, each conference attended, each court hearing, in order to provide sufficient and adequate information for the court to evaluate claimed hours and the nature of the services performed. .

In response to this Order, counsel for plaintiff submitted to us a Supplementary Affidavit, filed September 21, 1978. This affidavit stated that, due to the method used by the Cohen firm to keep its time sheets, the information the Court requested was, for the most part, not available. Only the general nature of the activities were recorded on the time sheets, and this information could be obtained from the computer printout.

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Bluebook (online)
477 F. Supp. 1012, 22 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 982, 1979 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10090, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wehr-v-burroughs-corp-paed-1979.