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Team 63 v 52
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: RJ Morrow and Mason Callahan,
for Appellant.
Emily Collins and Adrianna
Wurster, for Respondent.
JUDGES: Dewitt, Domagola, Parakkatu, Blaszczyk,
Furia
OPINION
We the Appellate Court of the State of New York
find in favor of appellant in part and respondent in
part. Both proved that there was an abuse of
discretion on behalf of the lower courts. The
respondents provided sufficient evidence that the
hourly rate for the 2000 hours of interviews should be
decreased. The appellants effectively persuaded the
court that the adjustments for novelty, and nature of
the relationship should be increased.
The first issue we must consider is if we should defer
our authority to the lower courts discretion in
determining attorney fees. As the respondents pointed
out, in the case of Flemming v. Barnwell, “While the
determination as to the proper amount of fees lies
largely within the discretion of the court, the
discretion is not unlimited.” The appellant furthered
this precedent when citing the case of Lunday v. City
of Albany which states that in a case of “abuse of
discretion” the lower courts decision in determining
fees will be overturned. In this case the 30%
reduction of all fees was proved an abuse of Judge
Kheleher's discretion because according to People v.
Lunday “whenever the court augments or reduces the
lodestar fee, it must state its reasons for doing so as
specifically as possible.” Clearly here Judge
Kheleher's failure to state the reason for this arbitrary
adjustment was an abuse of discretion.
Since an abuse of discretion was established, we next
determined there were several incorrect calculations
in the original fees. In the case of Rahmney v Blum
the Lodestar fee, defined as “to multiply the number
of hours reasonably expended on the litigation by the
reasonable hourly rate”, is used to calculate attorney
fees and then several adjustments, “(1) the novelty
and difficulty of the questions presented; (2) the skill
requisite to perform the legal services properly; (3)
the preclusion of other employment by the attorney
due to acceptance of the case; (4) whether the fee is
fixed or contingent; (5) time limitations imposed by
the claim or circumstances; (6) the nature and length
of the profesional relationship; (7) the amount
obtained and the results obtained; (8) the
undesirability of the case; and (9) awards in similar
cases.” As stated by the respondents, the 2,000 hours
of interviews were excessive and should be
considered clerical work. According to the case of
Rahmney v. Blum, “it is important to distinguish
between legal work, clerical, and investigative tasks.”
Here, it is apparent that the lower court should have
considered all 2,000 hours clerical work and so all
fees in conducting the interviews should be consistent
with the paralegal hourly rate. Additionally,
throughout all of these interviews, only 2 witnesses
were found. Surely we must consider 2,000
interviews to find two witnesses excessive especially
when, as the respondents suggested, many of the
information obtained could have been recovered
through a written survey. In the original trial, Judge
Kheleher increased the the fee by $50,000 because it
was novel. We agree with the appellants that this
increase was insufficient to express the true novelty
and difficulty of the case. As emphasized by the
appellants, this was the first case where a third party
caused stress from an industrial accident making it
more difficult because there was no precedent case
law to guide the them. Furthermore, the appellants
went on to prove that the fee should be increased
because of the extensive 2 year relationship with
what would essentially be 45 clients (15 teens and 30
parents). These new adjustments will be applied to
the Boardmans attorney fees in this case.
The remainder of Judge Kelehers Lodestar
adjustments will remain the same. Although the
appellant did argue concerning the Boardmans'
preclusion of other employment for this case, we
must agree with the respondents that because this was
Katy Boardman's first case, it cannot be reasonably
assumed that she would have the opportunity to find
other means of employment had she not been
working on this case. We further agree with the trial
courts decision to reduce the fee by $25,000
concerning the success of the trial. As the
respondents argued, according to the matter of
Lunday v. City of Albany “the degree of success is
the most critical factor in determining attorneys fees”
and the Boardmans' won only $46.22 in candy and
soda for each of their clients. However, we reject the
notion that this fee should be further decreased
because the appellants were correct in their
contention that this case successfully set a new safety
precedent in New York State.
We disagree with the lower court's original findings
and remand for changes on the following factors (1)
adjustment in regards to the novelty be increased (2)
adjustments in regards to the nature and length of the
professional relationship be increased and (3) the
hourly rate and hours accounted for the 2,000 hours
be decreased.
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