Opinion
01 Civ. 1196 (CBM).
January 14, 2002
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Plaintiff brought the instant suit under the Communications Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 1064 (codified as amended at 47 U.S.C. § 151 et seq.). In a Memorandum Opinion and Order issued on November 29, 2001, this court directed the entry of a default judgment against defendants for failure to comply with this court's discovery orders.
At that time, the court directed plaintiffs to
file and serve by December 18, 2001, (1) copies of the agreements referenced in the complaint and upon which plaintiffs' claims are premised, and (2) copies of invoices originally delivered to defendants which support a finding of liability in the amount of $519,441.18. The agreements and invoices should be accompanied by affidavits from person(s) with personal knowledge of the representations contained therein.
Mem. Op. Order 11/29/01 at 4. The court gave defendants until January 4, 2002, to file and serve any objections to the total amount of damages claimed.
On December 18, 2001, plaintiffs submitted to the court an affidavit from Sally Green, a paralegal in the risk and receivables department of WorldCom. Attached as exhibits to that affidavit are copies of the applicable service agreements and invoices. Plaintiffs seek — and the invoices support — a finding of liability in the amount of $523,734.83.
As of today, defendants have failed to file any objections to the documents submitted. The court therefore finds that plaintiffs are entitled to recover $523,734.83 in damages.
Also in accordance with the aforementioned Memorandum Opinion and Order, plaintiffs submitted on December 18, 2001, their motion for attorneys' fees, a declaration by attorney Marc. J. Rachman, and copies of billing histories, memoranda, and invoices. The defendants, ordered to respond by January 4, 2002, have failed to submit any papers in opposition.
Generally, courts may not award attorneys' fees to a prevailing party absent statutory or contractual authority. See Alyeska Pipeline Serv. Co. v. Wilderness Soc'y, 421 U.S. 240 (1975). In the instant case, Section 2.1.3.4 of MFS Telecom, Inc. F.C.C. Tariff No. 2 and Section II, Rule 7.07 of MCI WorldCom Communications, Inc. F.C.C. Tariff No. 11, provide that if plaintiffs prevail against defendants in an action to enforce any provision of the Tariffs, defendants will be liable to plaintiffs for all costs, expenses, and fees — including reasonable attorneys' fees — incurred by plaintiffs in connection with the prosecution of such an action. See Compl. Exs. A, B.
When parties validly contract to permit the recovery of attorneys' fees, "a federal court will enforce contractual rights to attorneys' fees." McGuire v. Russell Miller, Inc., 1 F.3d 1306, 1313 (2d Cir. 1993). As for the calculation of fees, the court in McGuire explained, "to compute a reasonable amount of attorneys' fees in a particular case requires more than simply a report of the number of hours spent and the hourly rate. The calculation depends on an assessment of whether those statistics are reasonable, based on, among other things, the time and labor reasonably required by the case, the skill demanded by the novelty or complexity of the issues, the burdensomeness of the fees, the incentive effects on future cases, and the fairness to the parties." Id. at 1315.
Plaintiffs' invoices indicate that the attorneys working on this matter have billing rates ranging from $250 to $325 per hour. The invoices submitted to the court detail the hours expended and the services performed by each of the charging attorneys based on each attorney's contemporaneous time records and service entries. The invoices also include associated costs and expenses. The total amount claimed by plaintiffs in fees, costs, and expenses is $15,587.13.
The court cannot conclusively state that plaintiffs' request for attorneys' fees and costs is unreasonable given the complexity of issues in this matter and the amount of work required by plaintiffs's attorneys due to defendants' failure to comply with numerous discovery requests and defendants' subsequent default.
As of today, defendants have failed to respond to plaintiffs' motion for attorneys' fees. The court, therefore, will grant plaintiffs' unopposed motion for $15,587.13 in attorneys' fees and costs.
ORDER
For the foregoing reasons, and further to this court's Memorandum Opinion and Order dated November, 29, 2001, is it hereby ORDERED that plaintiffs have judgment against defendants in the amount of $539,321.96 plus applicable interest, of which $523,734.83 represents damages and $15,587.13 represents attorneys' fees, costs, and expenses.
SO ORDERED.