MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

BARBARA LYNN, District Judge

Before the Court are the Declarations and Affidavits of Plaintiffs' counsel regarding attorneys' fees incurred in this case. On February 9, 2009, the Court entered judgment against the Defendant on Plaintiffs' claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA"), following a bench trial [Docket Entry #58]. Under the FLSA, Plaintiffs are entitled to payment by the Defendant of their reasonable attorneys' fees and taxable court costs, as provided by 29 U.S.C. § 216(b). As a result, the Court hereby ORDERS Defendant to pay to Plaintiffs attorneys' fees in the amount of $44,965.25, for the reasons stated herein.

To calculate the appropriate attorneys' fee award in this case, the Court uses the lodestar method, which requires the Court to take the number of hours it determines were reasonably spent on the case, and multiply those hours by an appropriate hourly rate, based on rates in the community for similar work, to obtain the "lodestar amount." Even though there is a "strong presumption" of reasonableness as to the lodestar amount, the Court may then increase or decrease the total amount based on the "relative weights" of twelve factors set forth by the Fifth Circuit in Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, Inc.:

(1) The time and labor required to represent the client or clients;

(2) The novelty and difficulty of the issues in the case;

(3) The skill required to perform the legal services properly;

(4) The preclusion of other employment by the attorney;

(5) The customary fee charged for those services in the relevant community;

(6) Whether the fee is fixed or contingent;

(7) The time limitations imposed by the client or circumstances;

(8) The amount involved and the results obtained;

(9) The experience, reputation, and ability of the attorney;

(10) The undesirability of the case;

(11) The nature and length of the professional relationship with the client; and

(12) Awards in similar cases.

While "the court should give special heed to the time and labor involved, the customary fee, the amount involved and the result obtained, and the experience, reputation and ability of counsel," the most critical factor in determining the lodestar amount is the degree of success obtained. But significant to this case, a low damages award, while proper to consider, should not alone lead to a reduction of the lodestar amount.

The attorneys' fee award may also be reduced if the party seeking attorneys' fees fails to demonstrate the exercise of billing judgment, which requires documentation of the hours charged and of the hours written off as unproductive, excessive, or redundant. This reduction in the lodestar amount is made by a percentage "intended to substitute for the exercise of billing judgment."

Turning to the lodestar amount in this case, the first step is determining the number of compensable hours from the attorneys' time records, "including only hours reasonably spent." Plaintiffs submitted affidavits from Mr. Richard J. Burch and Mr. Robert R. Debes, Jr. in support of their request for attorneys' fees. A total of 168.65 billable hours are claimed by Plaintiffs' counsel between October 2007 and January 2009. This equates to an average of 11 hours per month, which at the outset the Court finds to be reasonable.

However, Defendant disputes the necessity of two attorneys' attention to this matter, stating: "It was not reasonable and necessary in this case to send two seasoned FLSA lawyers to Dallas to try this case." A key consideration in determining the reasonableness of hours expended is whether the party seeking attorneys' fees has demonstrated billing judgment — that is, whether the party provided documentation of the hours charged and of the hours written off as unproductive, excessive, or redundant. In this case, only Mr. Debes billed for the trial of the case, as Mr. Burch did not bill for the day of trial despite his actual attendance. Mr. Debes' affidavit also states that he did not bill for any time spent conferencing with Mr. Burch, and did not bill for any time spent when both Mr. Burch and he worked on the same project. Additionally, Mr. Burch did not begin working on this case until August of 2008, and therefore only billed for approximately five months, as opposed to the full fifteen months that the case has continued. As a result, the Court does not find the amount of hours billed to be unreasonable simply because two attorneys billed their time.

As stated above, the Court also finds that an average of 11 hours per month is a reasonable amount of time to be spent on a case of this nature. And as Plaintiffs' counsel points out, the lack of production during discovery and lack of cooperation from Defendant with regards to settlement negotiations very likely increased the amount of time needed to prepare the case for trial. Plaintiffs are correct that "Sea Horse `cannot litigate tenaciously and then be heard to complain about the time necessarily spent by the Plaintiff in response.'"

The Court, however, agrees with Defendant that it is not reasonable in this case for Mr. Debes to bill his time in quarters of an hour, rather than tenths of an hour. Matters such as "correspondence" could just as easily take six minutes to complete as they could take fifteen, and the difference between these two time periods over the life of a case could easily add up to considerable overbilling. The Court finds that the lack of accuracy in this method of billing renders it unreasonable. The Court has no way of deducing the aggregate of overbilled time attributable to this method of billing for this case. As a result, the Court will reduce Mr. Debes total time spent on the case by 5%, or 5.14 hours. This results in a total of 97.61 hours billed by Mr. Debes. The Court finds that all other hours accounted for are reasonable, and that the affidavits properly demonstrate the exercise of billing judgment by Plaintiffs' counsel. Therefore, the total number of hours reasonably billed on this case is 163.51 hours.

The next step is determining the reasonable hourly rate for the attorneys and non-legal personnel who worked on the case. Plaintiffs' counsel billed at a rate of $275.00 per hour. The affidavit of Mr. Burch states that this rate is below his normal hourly rate of $375.00 per hour, due to the Defendant company's small size. The affidavit of Mr. Debes states that he normally bills at a rate of $300.00 to $325.00 per hour, but is requesting a lower rate due to the lack of complexity of the issues in this case. Mr. Burch's affidavit also cites to the Texas State Bar's "Hourly Rates in 2005 Report," which indicates that the median rate for labor and employment attorneys in 2005 was $275.00 an hour, and the average rate was $266.00 an hour.

Additionally, Defendant acknowledges the proficiency of Plaintiffs' counsel, calling them "FLSA super lawyers" and stating that they are "clearly experts" that have ample experience with FLSA litigation. The affidavits provided by Plaintiffs provide further evidence of the "experience, reputation, and ability" of counsel, as Mr. Burch cites to his role in a number of precedent setting labor and employment cases, and over ten years of experience, and Mr. Debes attests to over eighteen years of practice with employment-related matters. The Court finds that the $275.00 hourly rate is reasonable for the work performed in this case, especially given the knowledge and expertise of the attorneys.

The Court must now multiply the hours reasonably spent on this case by the applicable hourly rate to obtain the lodestar amount. Here, 163.51 hours multiplied by $275.00 an hour equals a lodestar of $44,965.25. The Court then looks to the factors enunciated in Johnson to determine if a reduction or increase in this amount is appropriate. Notably, the Court may not consider any factor already taken into account in calculating the lodestar amount, so as to avoid double counting. And the Supreme Court has stated that two of the Johnson factors, "complexity of the issues" and "results obtained" are "presumably fully reflected in the lodestar amount, and thus cannot serve as independent bases for increasing the basic fee award."

Having considered all of the remaining factors as applied to this case, the Court does not find that an adjustment of the lodestar amount is warranted. Defendant argues that the amount of actual damages in this case warrants a reduction in the amount of fees awarded. Plaintiffs were awarded a total damages amount of $16,402.62 (actual damages totaled $8,201.31 and the court ordered liquidated damages in this amount, doubling the award of damages). An award of $44,965.25 in attorneys' fees would be roughly two and one half times the amount of damages awarded. As noted above, while a low damages award is a proper factor to consider when assessing the reasonableness of the attorneys' fees awarded, it alone should not lead to a reduction of the lodestar amount. The Court does not find that the amount of damages recovered in this case warrants a reduction in the amount of attorneys' fees recovered.

Conclusion

SO ORDERED.