No Damaging or Unsightly Municipal Pollution, Inc. v. King County

No. C82-186V (W.D. Wash. August 4, 1986)

The court holds that a supplemental award of costs and attorneys fees for time spent preparing the application for reimbursement of the attorneys fees and litigation costs of a prevailing citizen's group under Resource Conservation and Recovery Act § 7002(e) is appropriate. The court first holds that the hourly rates of counsel are reasonable, but that the time devoted is unreasonable, and awards only half the total billed. The court also holds that its earlier order on costs and fees, 16 ELR 21019, was to cover all charges billed through the time of and for the trial on the merits, and refuses to make any additional award for costs and fees billed through March 1986 (the time of the trial), but not included in the original application. The court holds, however, that miscellaneous costs incurred since April 1986, and an expert's fee for services rendered before, but not invoiced until after the trial, may be awarded.

[The opinion on the merits appears at 16 ELR 21016. The opinion on the original attorneys fees award appears at 16 ELR 21019.]

Counsel are listed at 16 ELR 21016.

[16 ELR 21021]

Voorhees, J.:

Order

Having considered the application of plaintiff for a supplemental award of litigation costs, together with the memoranda and affidavits submitted by counsel, the Court now finds and rules as follows:

1. From the material submitted by counsel for plaintiff the Court finds that 45.4 hours of Mr. Leed's time at $125 per hour for a total of $5,675.00 and 74.4 hours of Mr. Wolfe's time at $35 per hour for a total of $2,569.00 were charged to this matter during the months of April and May, 1986. The Court further finds that a charge of $125.00 per hour for Mr. Leed's time and a charge of $35.00 per hour for Mr. Wolfe's time are both reasonable.

2. The total time charged to this action by plaintiff's counsel for the two months of April and May, 1986, was 120.8 hours. Most of that time was devoted to the preparation of plaintiff's application for an award in reimbursement of litigation costs. Plaintiff is unquestionably entitled to recover for the hours reasonably required to assert and to defend its application for litigation costs, but the Court must review the time devoted to the preparation of its application in order to make sure that that time was reasonably required.

3. After reviewing the tasks accomplished and the time devoted by plaintiff's counsel to the accomplishment of those tasks the Court finds that more time was devoted to those tasks than was reasonably necessary. For example, 10.9 hours were apparently devoted to the following task: "Assemble billing records and copies for King County and assist King County review." If the time records of plaintiff's counsel were properly maintained, five hours should have been, in this Court's opinion, more than adequate time within which to assemble and copy the relevant records. Similarly, 49.3 hours were devoted to the following task: "Prepare 16 page reply memorandums and affidavit responding to King County's objections." The Court has reviewed that material and is of the opinion that the time necessary to accomplish that activity should have been no more than half that time. 49.3 hours represents over six eight-hour days. In light of its review of the tasks and time, the Court finds that plaintiff should be reimbursed for one-half of the time charges made by plaintiff's counsel during April and May, 1986, or the sum of $4,122.00.

4. The Court is unwilling to make any award for reimbursement of miscellaneous costs or expert fees which were billed through March, 1986, but which were not included in the original application. It was the Court's intention that the original award was to cover all time charges and all costs invoiced before April, 1986.

5. The Court finds that plaintiff has reasonably incurred miscellaneous costs since March 31, 1986, in the sum of $190.06 for which it has not been, and should be, reimbursed. The Court has disallowed $94.00 of the costs for which reimbursement is claimed by plaintiff as those costs were invoiced before April 1, 1986.

6. With respect to the claim for reimbursement for fees paid to James Carr the Court finds that plaintiff should be reimbursed in the sum of $3,457.60 for services rendered before but invoiced after March 31, 1986. The Court will not make an award for any services of Carr invoiced before April, 1986.

Accordingly, plaintiff shall have judgment against defendant King County in the sum of $7,769.66 in reimbursement for litigation costs incurred in this matter in April and May, 1986.

The Clerk of this Court is instructed to send uncertified copies of this order to all counsel of record.

The Clerk shall also prepare and enter judgment to reflect this award.