Youakim v. McDonald

171 F.R.D. 224, 1997 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1649, 1997 WL 72018
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Illinois
DecidedFebruary 18, 1997
DocketNo. 73 C 635
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 171 F.R.D. 224 (Youakim v. McDonald) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Youakim v. McDonald, 171 F.R.D. 224, 1997 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1649, 1997 WL 72018 (N.D. Ill. 1997).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

NORDBERG, District Judge.

Presently before the Court is Plaintiffs’ Motion for an Order Directing Defendant to Provide Information General Rule 47(C)(5) (N.D.Ill.) Requires Him to Disclose and, Pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 37, to Compel Discovery. The Motion arises from the pending Motion for Attorneys’ Fees filed by: the law firm of Lehrer & Redleaf.1 More specifically, the Motion arises from Defendant’s objection to the hourly rates sought by Plaintiffs’ lead counsel and contention that the rate paid by Defendant represents the appropriate hourly rate. (Rule 47(G) Joint Statement of Agreed and Disputed Matters f 3(a), Ex. C).

I. Local General Rule 47(C)(5)(b)

Local General Rule 47 governs motions seeking any award of attorneys’ fees and provides for an exchange of information. [226]*226The movant is required to provide the respondent with the information specified in 47(C)(l)-(3). Respondent must then provide information as follows:

(5) If no agreement is reached after the above information has been furnished, the respondent shall, within 21 days of receipt of that information, disclose the total amount of attorney’s fees paid by respondent (and all fees billed but unpaid at the time of the disclosure and all time as yet unbilled and expected to be billed thereafter) for the litigation and shall furnish the following additional information as to any matters (rates, hours, or related nontaxable expenses) that remain in dispute:
(a) the time and work records (if such records have been kept) of respondent’s counsel pertaining to the litigation, which records may be redacted to prevent disclosure of material protected by the attorney-client privilege or work product doctrine;
(b) evidence of the hourly rates for all billers paid by respondent during the litigation;
(c) evidence of the specific expenses incurred or billed in connection with the litigation, and the total amount of such expenses; and
(d) any evidence the respondent will use to oppose the requested hours, rates, or related nontaxable expenses.

Defendant’s billers for purposes of this Motion are those with the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom (“Skadden”).2 Finally, Rule 47(1) provides that the parties may file a motion seeking instructions from the court where they are unable “to resolve a dispute over what materials are to be turned over or the meaning of a provision of the Rule, or because of the failure of one or more of the parties to provide information required by the Rule.”

The parties in the instant case dispute the meaning of provision (C)(5)(b): “evidence of the hourly rates for all billers paid by respondent during the litigation.” Plaintiffs argue that it requires disclosure of the hourly rates paid to the billers in all cases during the time period encompassing the litigation, via representative records. Defendant contends that it is limited to the rates paid in the case in question.

Plaintiffs reason as follows:

When the drafters of Rule 47(C)(5) wished to confine a respondent’s disclosure obligation to information about the fee claim itself, they knew how to do so. Rule 47(C)(5)(a) limits a respondent’s obligation to disclose “time and work records” to ones “pertaining to the litigation.” Similarly, Rule 47(C)(5)(c) limits a respondent’s obligation to disclose “expenses” to those “incurred in connection with the litigation.” By contrast, Rule 47(C)(5)(b) refers to rates “during the litigation,” and thus refers expressly to a time frame and not to the litigation itself.

Plaintiffs then rely upon Russello v. U.S., 464 U.S. 16, 23, 104 S.Ct. 296, 300-01, 78 L.Ed.2d 17 (1983), where the Supreme Court explained that when a statute “includes particular language in one section ... but omits it in another section ... it is generally presumed that [the drafter] acts intentionally or purposely in the disparate inclusion or exclusion.” However, as Skadden points out, when Rule 47’s drafters wished a party to turn over billing rates charged in other cases, they knew how to do so, as provision (C)(2) demonstrates:3

If the movant’s counsel or other billers have performed any legal work on an hourly basis during the period covered by the motion, the movant shall provide representative business records sufficient to show the types of litigation in which such hourly rates were paid and the rates that were paid in each type.- If the movant’s counsel have been paid on an hourly basis in the case in question or in litigation of the same type as the ease in question, records showing the rates paid for those services must be provided----

[227]*227Specifically, the provision explicitly applies to “any legal work [performed] on an hourly basis during the period covered by the motion.” In contrast, although provision (5)(b) also temporally qualifies the disclosure, it omits the word “any.” Thus, although the Court agrees that the temporal qualification does not inform the present inquiry, it finds that provision (5)(b)’s failure to specify whether it applies to all cases or only the case in question amounts to just that: a failure to specify. In sum, Rule 47 is ambiguous. Accordingly, the Court turns to the Commentary to the Proposal to Adopt Rule 47, whose following excerpt is instructive:

If the movant’s counsel have been paid on an hourly non-contingent basis during the period covered by the fee motion, the rates paid may be relevant to the determination of an appropriate “market” rate for counsel. See, e.g., Gusman v. Unisys Corp., 986 F.2d 1146 (7th Cir.1993). In such eases, General Rule 4[7] would require the movant to provide the respondent with business-record evidence sufficient to show the types of litigation in which hourly non-contingent rates have actually been paid and the rates that were paid for each type.
Although the Rule would require disclosure of actually-paid hourly rates, the Committee does not suggest that this is the only kind of relevant evidence to establish the appropriate market rate. Some movants’ attorneys will not have charged hourly non-contingent rates to paying clients, for example, attorneys employed by nonprofit or “public interest” organizations, or attorneys who confine their practice to contingent plaintiffs’ litigation. Such movants will have to rely on other kinds of evidence to establish the appropriate rate. Moreover, even as to attorneys who have been paid on a non-contingent hourly basis, the rates they have been paid may not be conclusive as to the hourly rate that should be used in determining the lodestar. See Gusman, 986 F.2d at 1150-51. Accordingly, General Rule 4[7] contemplates that other kinds of evidence may be used to establish this hourly rate, and requires the movant to provide the other side with such evidence.

(Def.’s Ex. A).

Significantly, the Gusman

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
171 F.R.D. 224, 1997 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1649, 1997 WL 72018, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/youakim-v-mcdonald-ilnd-1997.