2012 Conference Executive Record Report.pdf - YMCA of Greater ...

Team 48 v 51
CHUCK MAZE ON BEHALF OF 15
MINOR, Appellant, v. THE CITY OF
ALBANY, NEW YORK, Respondent.
Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First
Department, New York
March 10, 2012, Argued
March 10, 2012, Decided
COUNSEL: Mikhail Lindsay and Alvin
Moreira, for Appellant.
Jon Nelson and Ferdousi
Jahan for Respondent.
JUDGES: Orr, Mazzeo, Jacobs, Cicerelli,
Kappel, Sutton
OPINION BY: Last
OPINION
We the Appellate Court of the State of New
York find that the judge abused her
discretion during the determination of fees.
As cited in Matakov v. Kel-Tech, the “trial
court’s fee award in a class action is entitled
to broad deference, and will not be
overturned absent an abuse of discretion,
such as mistake of law or a clearly erroneous
factual finding.” This original fee is
determined by the Lodestar test, which
multiplies the number of hours by the
reasonable hourly rate, and several
adjustments can be made to this. Both the
appellant and respondent showed that the
trial judge incorrectly applied the Lodestar
test and accordingly an abuse of discretion
existed thus allowing us to reexamine the
determination of fees.
First, the appellant cited Flemming v.
Barnell Nursing Home to prove that the
“determination as to the proper amount of an
award of counsel fees lies largely within the
discretion of the court, the discretion is not
unlimited.” Because the appellant showed
that the courts original ruling can be
changed, we then move to the prongs which
can be used to adjust the fee amount. As
cited in the case of Rahmey v. Blum,
novelty is one such prong to be considered
when adjusting the Lodestar fee amount.
Judge Kheleher originally increased the fee
amount by $50,000 because of its novelty.
However, we believe that this estimate was
not sufficient. The appellant successfully
proved that this case was novel because it is
a unique issue that had not previously been
brought to court. We rule to change this
increase to $125,000.
The respondent also made compelling
arguments to have the Lodestar fee adjusted.
First, they claimed that the $300 per hour
rate given to Katie was not accurate because
that rate is the American Bar Association’s
rate for an experienced attorney. The
respondents adequately showed that because
Katie is just out of law school, has never had
a case before, and much work for this case
consisted of merely interviews, giving her
this rate is not accurate. Because of this, we
choose to lower Katie’s rate to $225 per
hour. The respondents also successfully
argued that the amount recovered was
significantly disproportional to the fees
received. The Boardman’s received
$708,000, which is significantly
disproportional to the $46.22 each student
received. Because of this, we choose to
increase the $25,000 reduction to $100,000.
After these adjustments, we have determined
that final total the Boardman’s will receive
will be $550,500.
72