Opinion
Cause No. 3:01-CV-10 RM.
March 28, 2005
OPINION AND ORDER
During a private settlement conference conducted days from trial with cross-motions for summary judgment pending, Elkhart Community Schools settled the lawsuit brought against them by nine teachers represented by attorney Stephen Eslinger. Mr. Eslinger's petition for attorney fees was excluded from the settlement. Mr. Eslinger then filed the first of the fee petitions now before the court, seeking $270,866.89. Mr. Eslinger filed a second petition increasing his request in light of the preparation of his fee petition and papers responsive to the Schools' opposition. He then filed a third petition to reflect services rendered with respect to a discussion of revising the settlement papers. As supplemented, Mr. Eslinger's petition seeks $299,002.05.
The first petition seeks a lodestar award with a multiplier of 25 percent to reflect the excellent results Mr. Eslinger says he obtained for his clients. A party opposing a fee petition has "a `responsibility to state objections with particularity and clarity.'" Hutchison v. Amateur Electronic Supply, Inc., 42 F.3d 1037, 1048 (7th Cir. 1994) ( quoting Ohio-Sealy Mattress Mfg. Co. v. Sealy Inc., 776 F.2d 646, 664 (7th Cir. 1985)). The Schools challenge every aspect of Mr. Eslinger's petition.
The Schools challenge Mr. Eslinger's claimed hourly rate of $200, noting that at the time of the settlement conference, Mr. Eslinger represented his hourly rate to be $175, and in a post-settlement conference letter, Mr. Eslinger showed his hourly rates during the course of his handling of this case at $125, $150, and $180. They note that attorney Jay Lauer, whom Mr. Eslinger associated as cocounsel and whose fee petition the Schools satisfied, was compensated at an hourly rate of $150. Finally, the Schools note that Mr. Eslinger's contract with his clients reportedly calls for $175 per hour.
The Schools also challenged the hourly rate of $95 claimed for paralegals, whose identities and qualifications were not set forth in the original petition. The Schools note Mr. Eslinger offered nothing about the rate normally charged clients for the paralegals' services. The Schools ask that the paralegals' hours be excluded from any fee award or, at best, compensated at $55 per hour. They also note that the paralegals' time includes secretarial tasks.
The Schools challenge the reasonableness of the time for which Mr. Eslinger seeks compensation. They compare his claimed 1,259 hours to their own attorney's 401 hours and Mr. Lauer's 97 hours. The Schools claim that even to review so grossly inflated and unwarranted a claim would be a waste of the court's time, so the court should either deny any fee award altogether or simply cut the fees across the board by a factor of two-thirds.
Alternatively, the Schools challenge Mr. Eslinger's claims for a second filing fee, Federal Express service, payment to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, time associated with requests for admissions that were stricken as untimely, meals, "inter-firm communication," paralegal attendance at depositions, improbably long telephone calls, research into historical events not connected to this case, and time spent on activities that could have been performed by a paralegal or secretary.
Mr. Eslinger responded with the first 99-page affidavit the undersigned judge has seen in a judicial career now in its thirtieth year. The affidavit's contents are described below. Mr. Eslinger then submitted a supplemental fee petition seeking compensation for 84.5 hours at an hourly rate of $200 for preparation of the response to the Schools' objections to his original fee petition.
The plaintiffs were female employees at the Elkhart Community Schools Career Center. They filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging that they had been treated differently than the male employees at the Career Center. After receiving their right to sue letters, they filed this suit alleging gender discrimination in violation of the Equal Pay Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. They sought equitable relief, damages, fees, and costs. The Schools' motion for summary judgment and the plaintiffs' motion for partial summary judgment were pending when the parties reached their settlement in mediation.
Hourly Rate: Attorney Fees
Mr. Eslinger's submissions do not include his employment contract with the plaintiffs. He describes it both as a contingency fee agreement and as setting a compensation rate of $175 an hour. In his fee petition, he says in retrospect "that $175 per hour is inadequate" and that $200 is a more reasonable hourly rate for his services given his expertise and the superb result obtained.
The Schools presented time sheets showing that Mr. Eslinger's hourly rate started at $125 and increased over the course of time and the proceedings to $180. The Schools ask the court to apply either the $175 rate reportedly contained in the employment agreement or the varying rates set out in Mr. Eslinger's original bill. Mr. Eslinger doesn't contest the time sheets' accuracy, but argues they're not admissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 408.
The court disagrees with Mr. Eslinger's reading of Rule 408. That Rule prohibits evidence concerning settlement offers or statements made during settlement offers, but "does not require the exclusion of any evidence otherwise discoverable merely because it is presented in the course of compromise negotiations." The time sheets were attached as Exhibit A to the Schools' response to the fee petition; the cover letter with which Mr. Eslinger sent the time sheets was attached as Exhibit B. That cover letter, in which Mr. Eslinger states a sum he would take in satisfaction of his fee petition, is one of the sorts of communications Rule 408 contemplates and protects (though the court may consider the cover letter in determining whether the time sheets themselves are protected by Rule 408, see Fed.R.Evid. 104(b), 1101(d)(1)).
The cover letter describes its attachment as "a computerized printout of the contemporaneous time entries which I had on the above captioned case," and goes on to explain how the records are kept and what they mean. There is no suggestion that the records have been discounted (or changed at all) to provide a settlement offer, or that they are anything other than the records Mr. Eslinger routinely kept, as he kept them. This is not a situation in which "the document, or statement, would not have existed but for the negotiations." Ramada Devel. Co. v. Rauch, 644 F.2d 1097, 1107 (5th Cir. 1981). Rule 408 does not bar the court's consideration of the time records.
The Schools don't dispute that the plaintiffs are prevailing parties and, so, entitled to a reasonable attorney fee. See Connolly v. National School Bus Service, Inc., 177 F.3d 593, 595 (7th Cir. 1999) ("A plaintiff who has settled a case is considered a prevailing party if she has achieved some success on the merits and can point to a resolution that has changed the legal relationship between herself and defendant."). A district court calculating reasonable attorney's fees should begin its determination by multiplying the hours reasonably expended by a reasonable hourly rate to arrive at a base figure — the "lodestar." Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424 (1983); Divane v. Krull Elec. Co., 319 F.3d 307, 317 (7th Cir. 2003). The lodestar calculation is presumed to be a reasonable fee award.Eddleman v. Switchcraft, Inc., 927 F.2d 316, 318 (7th Cir. 1991). The court may then adjust the lodestar for other factors.Bankston v. State of Illinois, 60 F.3d 1249, 1255 (7th Cir. 1995).
Since the lodestar may only reflect reasonably expended hours, the prevailing party's attorney must exercise "billing judgment," which "`consists of winnowing the hours actually expended down to the hours reasonably expended.' In exercising `billing judgment,' the Supreme Court emphasized that counsel for the prevailing plaintiff should `exclude from a fee request hours that are excessive, redundant, or otherwise unnecessary, just as a lawyer in private practice ethically is obligated to exclude such hours from his fee submission.'" Spegon v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago, 175 F.3d 544, 552 (7th Cir. 1999) ( quoting Case v. Unified Sch. Dist. No. 233, 157 F.3d 1243, 1250 (10th Cir. 1998), and Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 434 (1983)).
Under this standard, Mr. Eslinger's requested rate of $200 is not a reasonable hourly rate. He did not bill these plaintiffs at that rate. His second affidavit discloses that he was billing one other employment discrimination client at that rate, but there is no indication that he was doing so while representing these plaintiffs. To the extent his agreement with these plaintiffs set forth an hourly rate, that rate was $175, not $200. The employment contract's hourly rate is an imperfect depiction of Mr. Eslinger's billing rate because that rate was to be charged only if the plaintiffs fired him. His actual compensation was to be based on a contingency factor not part of this record, so it might have been higher or lower. Still, it is the only rate that can be gleaned from the employment contract. Mr. Eslinger's time sheets, as originally prepared, disclose an hourly rate that varied over time, ranging from $120 to $180.
Mr. Eslinger's request for $200 per hour doesn't reflect the rate he would receive from paying clients. In his supplemental affidavit, Mr. Eslinger identified one client in an ongoing case that he charged $200 per hour, but he identified the case only as a "discrimination case," leaving the court unable to afford that statement much weight in determining the reasonable rate for this case. Compare Denius v. Dunlap, 330 F.3d 919, 930-931 (7th Cir. 2003). He also referred to cases in which he was paid at rates of $350 and $225, but the nature of those cases is undisclosed. These plaintiffs appear to have agreed to pay either a percentage of a positive recovery, nothing if they lost the case, or $175 per hour if they discharged Mr. Eslinger.
The better evidence of Mr. Eslinger's hourly rate would seem to be his contemporaneous time sheets, which show an hourly rate of $120 when he began representing these plaintiffs. That hourly rate is consistent with the $175 rate in the event of discharge: a discharge would cost Mr. Eslinger the opportunity to earn a higher fee through verdict or settlement, so a premium rate would be reasonable. The time sheets also show Mr. Eslinger's hourly rate increasing over time, eventually to $180. If the starting $120 rate is thought to be what Mr. Eslinger would charge clients in a case of this sort, there is no reason to think the finishing $180 rate is anything different.
District courts setting fee awards may "use either current rates or past rates with interest when calculating the lodestar amount, because either method provides `[a]n adjustment for delay in payment [which] is . . . an appropriate factor in the determination of what constitutes a reasonable attorney's fee.'"Mathur v. Board of Trustees of Southern Illinois Univ., 317 F.3d 738, 745 (7th Cir. 2003). Given the passage of time since Mr. Eslinger began his representation of these plaintiffs, the court believes it is most appropriate to use the hourly rate reflecting the market value of Mr. Eslinger's services when the settlement was reached, or $180.
Hourly Rate: Paralegals
The fee petition seeks an award for paralegal time at $95 per hour. Mr. Eslinger stated in his second affidavit that he routinely charged and received that rate from clients for paralegal work. The Schools offer nothing to the contrary.
The original fee petition did not identify the paralegals or their qualifications; once the Schools pointed that out, Mr. Eslinger submitted an affidavit providing details on the persons for whom paralegal fees are sought. Kathy Anderson, a certified paralegal, worked in Mr. Eslinger's law office for thirteen years before leaving to spend full time with her family. Pam Paluszewski, a certified paralegal, joined Mr. Eslinger in autumn 1998 and eventually left for a governmental paralegal position. Brandi Stickler, whom Mr. Eslinger describes as "one of the best paralegals I have ever known," took over for Ms. Paluszewski; the record does not indicate any certification for Ms. Stickler. Sharon Peterson worked for Mr. Eslinger for fifteen years, "including as a part time paralegal" as she worked full time as a school teacher, until she left Mr. Eslinger for a job in Michigan; the record does not indicate any certification for Ms. Peterson. Finally, Angela Blondell, who had a college degree in criminal justice and planned to go on to law school, did some research until leaving for a law office in Wisconsin; the record does not indicate any certification for Ms. Blondell.
The Schools make no suggestion that attorneys in this area don't normally charge separately for paralegal time, so a fee award may include a separate component for paralegal services. See Missouri v. Jenkins by Agyei, 491 U.S. 274, 289 (1989). The time sheets indicate that Mr. Eslinger generally had paralegals doing skilled work that did not require the skills of an attorney, so the case law strongly supports awarding, as part of the fee award, a separate component for paralegal services. See Matter of Continental Illinois Securities Litigation, 962 F.2d 566, 568-574 (7th Cir. 1992).
Indiana does not require that paralegals be certified or licensed. Mr. Eslinger's submission demonstrates that the persons for whom he seeks compensation performed tasks ordinarily performed by paralegals.
Mr. Eslinger asserts that the requested hourly rates are reasonable. Once a movant meets the burden of coming forth with evidence that the requested rate is reasonable, the burden shifts to the opponent to show unreasonableness. Batt v. Micro Warehouse, Inc., 241 F.3d 891, 894 (7th Cir. 2001); see also Potence v. Hazleton Area Sch. Dist., 357 F.3d 366 (3rd Cir. 2004). Assuming Mr. Eslinger's assertion satisfies his burden, but see Uphoff v. Elegant Bath, Ltd., 176 F.3d 399, 406-411 (7th Cir. 1999) ("Only self-serving affidavits were offered to demonstrate the market rate for these two associates, and as we already have explained, such evidence will not satisfy the Plaintiffs' burden."), the Schools carried their burden by presenting the contemporaneous time records already discussed. Those records disclose charges of no more than $75.00 per hour for the paralegal time. For the reasons already set forth concerning the reasonable rate for attorney time, the court finds $75.00 to be a reasonable hourly rate for the paralegals.
Reasonableness of Hours
The Schools offer a variety of criticisms of the number of hours for which Mr. Eslinger seeks compensation. First, they compare Mr. Eslinger's claimed 1,259 hours in his initial petition to their own 401 billed hours. The court of appeals has discouraged such comparisons, at times using disparaging language that may not be appropriate in every case. See, e.g., Helfrich v. Carle Clinic Ass'n, P.C., 328 F.3d 915, 919 (7th Cir. 2003) ("The difference shows. You get what you pay for."). The court of appeals also has noted that plaintiffs' counsel in civil rights cases often must invest more time than defense counsel because of the difficulty of achieving success in such cases. See Sheehan v. Donlen Corp., 173 F.3d 1039, 1048 (7th Cir. 1999) ("[A] plaintiff risks the likelihood, given the low success rate of employment discrimination cases, of bearing her own attorneys' fees and at least the possibility of being stuck with the employer's attorneys' fees. It is, therefore, rational, and so reasonable, for a plaintiff to encourage her attorneys to be thorough.").
The Schools then ask the court simply to deny the fee petition as unreasonable (apparently due to the sheer number of hours), but the court has no reason to agree that the petition is unreasonable. Most of the appellate decisions in recent years on reasonableness of hours have addressed the issue in the context of the relationship of the fee petition to the recovery. See, e.g., Wallace v. Mulholland, 957 F.2d 333, 338-339 (7th Cir. 1992); Littlefield v. McGuffey, 954 F.2d 1337, 1350-1352 (7th Cir. 1992). The settlement in this case is sealed, so the court cannot announce the aggregate recovery Mr. Eslinger achieved for the plaintiffs. It will have to suffice to say that the court perceives nothing about the amount of the aggregate recovery that makes unreasonable Mr. Eslinger's dedication of 1,259 hours (his and paralegals') to the task of achieving it.
The Schools then challenge several expenses claimed in the initial fee petition — filing fees, Federal Express charges, deposition and copying costs, and meals. In response, Mr. Eslinger agreed that inclusion of a (second) filing fee of $125 was a mistake, made no effort to explain the inclusion of the $45.35 Federal Express bill, justified the deposition and copying expenses to the court's satisfaction, and tried unsuccessfully to justify the inclusion of the meal expenses. Although it may well have been reasonable for Mr. Eslinger's staff to order in while preparing for mediation, and for the entire plaintiffs' team to dine together during the mediation, nothing in law allows the Schools to be charged for those meals. The court disallows $472.35 of Mr. Eslinger's initial petition, reflecting the cost of the meals, the Federal Express delivery, and the "second" filing fee.
The Schools also object to 201 entries (over the span of forty months) reflecting communication between Mr. Eslinger and his co-counsel or his paralegals. The Schools refer to those as inter-firm communications, and cite Wengryn v. Connor Sports Flooring Corp., No. 01C1519, 2002 WL 2022608 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 3, 2002), for the proposition that inter-firm communications are not properly includable in a fee petition. The court doesn't readWengryn as authority for such a proposition. The Wengryn plaintiff retained three geographically diverse law firms, which "resulted in significant overstaffing, duplication of work, and excessive inter-firm communication." Id. at *5. These plaintiffs hired one attorney, who retained one co-counsel and delegated considerable work to paralegals. The Schools haven't convinced the court that there is anything unreasonable about the only two attorneys handling a nine-plaintiff case discussing the case (even if, since both were sole practitioners, the communication might be described as "inter-firm"), or about an attorney instructing paralegals on their tasks. Nor can the court find anything unreasonable about such communications occurring, on average, a little over once a week. The court overrules the Schools' objections to the "inter-firm communications."
The Schools next object to a series of entries reflecting time Mr. Eslinger or the paralegals spent performing tasks the Schools say were secretarial. Many of the entries reflect Mr. Eslinger "organizing files" or entering information into a database he used to keep track of information. The court is persuaded that those activities, as clarified in the response, were properly charged as attorney time. It appears to the court that Mr. Eslinger reviewed files when he "organized" them. Making notes during review of significant information is properly charged as attorney time, and it should be no less so if the notes are made electronically in a database.
As to some entries, the court agrees with the Schools. Several entries (5/3/01, 10/4/01, 10/8/01, 10/11/01) relate to repair and revision of the plaintiffs' trust accounts. Mr. Eslinger explains that a mistake was made in the trust account, perhaps by a bookkeeper, and it became necessary for either Mr. Eslinger or a paralegal to address the problem. The court agrees that the work was necessary, but because this was not work on the litigation, it is not properly charged to the Schools as part of the fee award. The court denies those 4.15 hours of paralegal time. As to another entry (8/1/01), Mr. Eslinger explains that after a court deadline was missed, he wrote a computer program to keep track of the deadlines. Without assurance that the program's use was case-specific, it is functionally the same as the purchase of a word processing program — perhaps necessary for the provision of legal services, but not properly assessed as part of a fee award. The court denies those 1.1 hours of attorney time.
Mr. Eslinger concedes that several "photocopying" and travel entries in his fee petition were, at least in part, clerical. With respect to some block entries, he attributes only .1 hour to the clerical activity. Since the fee petition itself reflects virtually no charges for .1 hours and the fee petition itself includes the clerical activity in a block charge, the court denies the entire block charge:
Date Hours
10/30/01 1.00 10/31/01 4.00 11/2/01 2.00 11/6/01 1.45 11/13/01 1.40 1/2/02 2.00 1/8/02 2.25 4/12/02 1.00 _____ 15.10
On July 5, 2002 and April 28, 2003, Mr. Eslinger himself charged for travel, once to his secretary's home to check a file and once to the post office. Neither of those trips can be deemed attorney time rather than secretarial. The court denies the fee petition to the extent of .5 hours on July 5, 2002 and .25 hours on April 28, 2003. Finally, the records seem to indicate a double charge on July 22, 2002 of 1.5 hours to serve a subpoena. The court agrees with Mr. Eslinger that such time can be charged as paralegal time, but it can be so charged only once. The court reduces the fees by 1.5 paralegal hours to reflect the apparent duplication.
The plaintiffs filed requests for admissions twelve days after the deadline set by the court, and the court struck those requests. The Schools object to every entry in the fee petition that goes to the preparation of those requests. Mr. Eslinger agrees that some reduction is appropriate, but argues that the preparation of the requests, timely or not, had the impact of reducing trial preparation time. The court agrees with that argument, but declines to proceed on an entry-by-entry basis such as Mr. Eslinger's analysis. The court reduces the fees by eighty percent of the entries allocated to preparation of the requests for admission. The fee petition sought compensation for 7.75 attorneys hours, 3.8 paralegal hours, and $229.17 in litigation costs on such entries; the court will award compensation for 1.55 attorneys hours, .76 paralegal hours, and $45.83 in litigation costs.
The Schools object to time entries reflecting research on the Voting Rights Act and Rosa Parks — topics they contend are completely unrelated to this case. In Mr. Eslinger's response, he explains his use of the former in the summary judgment briefing and his intent to use the latter in his final argument at trial. Finding that the research was not unrelated to the case, the court overrules the Schools' objections to those entries.
The Schools object to time entries relating to the time in which the plaintiffs' claims were before the EEOC. The Schools say, without citation to authority, that such fees are not recoverable under 42 U.S.C. § 1988. Mr. Eslinger responds that the right to sue letters were prerequisites to filing this suit and all time spent before the EEOC furthered the prosecution of the federal case. The court overrules the Schools' objections to those entries.
Finally, the Schools object to time entries they say were vague or simply excessive. Mr. Eslinger responded with satisfactory explanations for each of those entries. The court overrules the Schools' objections to those entries.
Using the hourly rates identified in Mr. Eslinger's contemporaneous records, the lodestar amount — reasonable hours times reasonable hourly rate — up to the time of the fee petition is:
Attorney 865.18 hrs. $180/hr = $155,732.40 Paralegals 361.66 hrs. $75/hr = $27,124.50 ___________ $182,856.90
Recoverable litigation costs total $6,089.74.
Multiplier
Mr. Eslinger seeks a multiplier of 25 percent to reflect the excellence of the results achieved, the novelty and complexity of the issues involved, the skill needed to handle the case, and the effect of the time demands and the clients on his ability to accept other employment. Use of a multiplier in a fee award is designed to compensate in a manner that provides adequate incentive for the attorney to bring a particular type of case.Harman v. Lymphomed, Inc., 945 F.2d 969, 974 (7th Cir. 1991). A multiplier is appropriate when an attorney assumes an unusual risk of non-payment in taking a case. Id. at 971. The concern for non-payment may be less when, as here, individual plaintiffs seek a substantial monetary recovery and have a contingent fee contract with their attorney. See Price v. Marshall Erdman Assoc., Inc., 966 F.2d 320, 328 (7th Cir. 1992) ("When the lawyer can protect himself through the market against the risk of not being able to collect a fee, there is no need for the court to protect him against that risk as well in order to make sure that civil rights plaintiffs can obtain adequate representation."); Matter of Continental Illinois Securities Litigation, 962 F.2d 566, 573 (7th Cir. 1992) ("The problem with risk multipliers in such cases is that the lawyer has two sources of fees: the statutory fee award and the contingent-fee contract that he negotiates with his client. The latter takes care of the risk of loss and thus makes the inclusion of a risk multiple in the statutory award redundant, assuming as the cases do that the purpose of fee-shifting is to assure competent representation for plaintiffs rather than to make the cost of litigation to the successful plaintiff zero.").
No multiplier is appropriate in this case. The lodestar method compensates Mr. Eslinger at his highest hourly rate for nearly all the time he devoted to this case, and that time was considerable. The contingent fee agreement, which reportedly was triggered even if the plaintiffs fired him, provided adequate assurance against non-payment, and while reasonable minds may differ on what is novel and complex, the issues presented in the summary judgment briefs do not strike the court as so novel and complex as to warrant a multiplier. See Littlefield v. McGuffey, 954 F.2d 1337, 1350-1352 (7th Cir. 1992) ("[W]e cannot say the district court abused its discretion in denying Ms. Littlefield's attorneys a fee multiplier. Judge Williams did not rule a fee multiplier was inapplicable as a matter of law. Rather, she held that the risk to consider was `the risk of failure, and that risk just wasn't very large here. There were few novel legal issues, and the law and facts overwhelmingly favored Ms. Littlefield.' The court considered the appropriate factors and properly applied the law.").
The court declines to increase the lodestar.
The Supplemental Petitions
After the initial fee petition was filed, Mr. Eslinger filed his first and supplemental fee petitions, explaining that a dispute had arisen concerning the terms of the settlement agreement, requiring more work on his part, and he had incurred more fees in responding to the Schools' objections to his initial fee petition. In his first supplemental fee petition, Mr. Eslinger seeks compensation for an additional 84.5 hours of his time and an additional 5.25 hours of paralegal time. In his second supplemental petition (which includes time devoted to replying to the Schools' response to his first supplemental petition), Mr. Eslinger seeks compensation for an additional 15.75 hours of his time and another .75 hour for his paralegal. The Schools object.
The supplemental petitions are excessive. They include hours spent on a 99page affidavit filed in response to the objections to the original fee petition. As mentioned before, no 99-page affidavit ever before crossed the desk of the judge to whom this case is assigned. That excessive response to the first set of objections made the prompt ruling impossible — in turn, leading to the opportunity for the supplemental petitions — and bears a substantial share (though, of course, not all) of the responsibility for the ultimate delay in resolution of the fee issues in this case.
In Kurowski v. Krajewski, 848 F.2d 767 (7th Cir. 1988), the court of appeals decided that 1.6 hours billed to the preparation for an award of attorney's fees was reasonable in light of the 140 hours of time counsel spent litigating the merits of the case. In Ustrak v. Fairman, 851 F.2d 983, 987 (7th Cir. 1988), the court reduced by two-thirds a fee demand for preparing a fee petition that originally sought compensation for about one hour for every four reflected in the original petition. In Uphoff v. Elegant Bath, Ltd., 176 F.3d 399, 411 (7th Cir. 1999), the court of appeals upheld the district court's reduction, from the 9.9 hours of attorney time sought for preparing a fee petition in a case to which the attorney had spent just under 100 hours litigating, to 1.6 hours. Based on the reasoning of these cases, and recognizing that Mr. Eslinger reasonably spent a little more than 865 hours of attorney time litigating the merits of the case, the court sustains the Schools' objection to everything claimed beyond 10 hours of attorney time at $180 per hour, or $1,800.00.
Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, the court DENIES the plaintiffs' motion to strike [Docket No. 107] and GRANTS IN PART the plaintiffs' petition for attorney fees (Docket No. 103, as supplemented). The plaintiffs shall recover of the defendants attorney fees and costs of litigation in the sum of $190,746.64.
SO ORDERED.