On October 3, 2023, Justice Crane of the New York County Commercial Division issued a decision in Fuks v. Rakia Assoc., 2023 NY Slip Op. 33400(U), cutting a fee award in half because of inefficiencies, overlitigation, excessiveness, duplicative efforts and work, and excessive block-billing, explaining:
An award of reasonable attorneys’ fees is within the sound discretion of the court. When evaluating the reasonableness of
attorneys’ fees, the court examines several factors, including the time and labor required, the difficulty of the issues involved, and the skill and effectiveness of counsel reducing the amount requested to eliminate work that was duplicative or was unnecessarily performed by an attorney, rather than a secretary or paralegal. The burden of proving the reasonableness of the requested fees is on the requesting party.The court may reduce fees that are excessive. The court may also reduce fees where the amount requested lacks proof. Additionally, a fee award may be reduced where there is block billing – the practice of lumping multiple charges together in a
single billing entry. Specifically, courts permit a reduction of fees when the use of block billing makes it makes it exceedingly difficult for the court to identify whether the amount of time spent on a particular task is reasonable.In support of the fee request, counsel for Shomron has submitted several attorney invoices and timesheets that set forth the hours billed and the work that was performed. However, these invoices and timesheets are deficient for several reasons and ultimately prevent the court from determining the reasonableness of Shomron’s attorneys’ fee request.
First, in the April 10, 2023 dated decision on Motion Seq. No. 29, the court denied the part of the motion seeking a modification to Shomron’s alleged attorneys fees, without prejudice to a separate motion for REASONABLE attorney’s fees and limited to those fees incurred prosecuting the constructive trust claim. However, the time records submitted in support of this attorneys’ fee request do not differentiate between those fees generally incurred in prosecuting this case, versus those fees that were specifically incurred in prosecuting the constructive trust claim, as specified in the Order. In fact, counsel submits over a hundred pages of time records and invoices for this motion, but fails to direct the court’s attention, in any way, to the relevant entries related to just those fees incurred in prosecuting the constructive trust claim.
Additionally, the invoices and time entries are also unclear on whether such work was being performed for one action, the other action, or both, and ultimately fail to differentiate what work is being done for which case. The time records and invoices counsel submitted also clearly highlight the duplicative and unnecessary work that was performed throughout the past three decades that this case has been pending. The records and invoices are clear evidence of overlitigation and underscore the numerous instances of unnecessary legal work that counsel performed.
The invoices and time entries are also rife with instances of block billing, making it nearly impossible for the court to discern how much time was spent on each specific task and ultimately prevents the court from determining the reasonableness of the fee request.
For instance, the March 24, 2014 entry for 3.25 hours states the following: “Telephone call with Barry Tempkin; e-mails to Tempkin transmitting documents; e-mails to Barry Fertel; telephone with Ruth Shomron; telephone with Michael Lippman; e-mails to Lippman transmitting documents; drafted proposed affidavit for Lippman per conversation.” In another example, the November 3, 2017 entry for 2.75 hours provides the following: “Drafted letter and sent same to Referee Hewitt in support of in limine motion to preclude testimony of Fuks’ proposed expert witness Richard Farren re: rents and profits; telephone with Lawler, and emails to/from Lawler and Referee re: same.”
Accordingly, the court declines to award Shomron the $352,890.20 it seeks on this motion and instead awards Shomron attorneys’ fees in the amount of $176,445.10, approximately 50% of the requested award, to account for inefficiencies, overlitigation, excessiveness, duplicative efforts and work, and excessive block-billing.
(Internal quotations and citations omitted).