14 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 1152c
Attorney’s fees — Insurance — Personal injury protection — Evidence — Time records — Where, due to inadequate time records kept by insured’s counsel, there is confusion as to whether some work claimed by attorney was done by associate who bills at lower rate, disputed hours will be paid at lower rate — Fee award is further reduced to compensate insurer for time required to address discrepancies in time records — Expert witness fee, costs and prejudgment interest awarded
VERONICA VIDAURRE, Plaintiff, vs. UNITED AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendant. County Court, 17th Judicial Circuit in and for Broward County. Case No. 05-19982 COCE 53. September 26, 2007. Robert W. Lee, Judge. Cris E. Boyar, Margate, for Plaintiff. Charles L. Vaccaro, Lidsky, Vaccaro & Montes, Hialeah, for Defendant.
JUDGMENT AWARDING ATTORNEYS’ FEES AND COSTS
THIS CAUSE came before the Court on September 4 and September 20, 2007 for hearing of the Plaintiff’s Motion for Attorneys’ Fees, and the Court’s having reviewed the Motion and entire Court file; heard argument; and been sufficiently advised in the premises, the Court finds as follows:
Background. On April 24, 2007, this Court entered its Final Judgment in Favor of Plaintiff finding that Plaintiff was entitled to an award of fees as prevailing party. On April 30, 2007, the Plaintiff filed its Motion for Attorneys’ Fees and Costs. On May 7, 2007, this Court entered its Order on Plaintiff’s Motion for Attorney’s Fees and Costs, requiring that the Plaintiff file “a detailed breakdown of fees sought in the form of date, provider, description of work, time spent, and hourly rate sought.” On June 28, 2007, the Plaintiff filed its Affidavit purporting to provide the information required by the Court’s Order of May 7th. In the Affidavit, Plaintiff’s counsel averred that the information contained in the affidavit “is true and correct.”
The Court set the matter for hearing for September 4th. As the issues were not able to be fully addressed in the time allotted, the motion was continued to September 20th. At the hearings, the Defendant was able to demonstrate that on at least 11 of the 111 days billed by Plaintiff, counsel for Plaintiff had billed total work on this and other files in excess of that which was possible to work on a single day. For instance, on one day, Plaintiff’s counsel billed for more than 30 hours of work on multiple files.
Plaintiff’s counsel explained that he did not keep contemporaneous time records, and that in reconstructing his time, he billed on the date the work was sent out. For instance, if he had worked on a motion over the course of several days, he would bill the total time on the day the motion was sent out. The evidence at the hearing further suggested that some of the work was possibly done by an associate, who bills at a lower rate.
The Plaintiff seeks a total of 100.5 hours (96.6 at $375 per hour; and 3.9 at $275 per hour). The Defendant has conceded that 84.8 hours of work was reasonable, and has further agreed that the hourly rates sought are reasonable. Nevertheless, the Defendant urges further reductions due to the clearly inaccurate record keeping. Additionally, the Defendant states that it has spent between 6 to 8 hours on this file alone on the issue of the discrepancy.
Conclusions of Law. At best, Plaintiff’s counsel’s records reveal an unacceptable level of sloppiness. Frankly, at his caliber and level of experience, Plaintiff’s counsel should simply have no excuse for the poor recordkeeping done by his office. The Plaintiff argues that the case law does not specifically require that he keep contemporaneous time records. While this may be so, Plaintiff was ordered to provide a date-by-date breakdown of his work. Additionally, the failure to keep contemporaneous time records has clearly contributed to a poor reconstruction of the time spent on this matter. As stated by the Florida Supreme Court, “inadequate documentation may result in a reduction in the number of hours claimed .” Florida Patient’s Compensation Fund v. Rowe, 472 So.2d 1145, 1150 (Fla. 1985). This is true because “Florida courts have emphasized the importance of keeping accurate and current time records of work done and time spent on a case, particularly when someone other than the client may pay the fee.” Id.
The Court believes that the appropriate resolution is to award fees for the disputed days at the lower hourly rate, due to the confusion caused by Plaintiff’s clearly “inadequate documentation” and failure to abide by this Court’s Order. The Court therefore finds that 68.8 hours at an agreed hourly rate of $375.00; and 16.0 hours at an agreed hourly rate of $275.00 are reasonable. The Court additionally finds that under the case law, a further reduction of $1,650.00 is appropriate for the time the Defendant has had to spend to address the discrepancies created by Plaintiff. The Plaintiff is also entitled to an expert witness fee in the amount of $625.00. Finally, the Defendant has agreed that the Plaintiff is entitled to taxable costs in the amount of $857.00. Accordingly, it is
ADJUDGED that
The Plaintiff is awarded $30,032.00 (attorneys’ fees, taxable costs, and expert witness fee), plus prejudgment interest of 11% from April 24, 2007 (the date of the judgment) until the date of this judgment in the amount of $1,411.80, for a total sum of $31,443.80, which sum shall accrue post-judgment interest at the rate of 11% per annum until paid, for which sums let execution issue.
