ST. LOUIS – A federal judge in St. Louis upheld the awarding of more than $27,000 in legal fees resulting from a 2018 decision.
U.S. Magistrate Judge David Noce of the Eastern District of Missouri issued an order March 15 in favor of Tom Dunne Jr., who sought legal fees resulting from an order sustaining his motion to compel defendants to produce documents before a trial. Those defendants, Resource Converting Inc., Tim Danley and Rick Kersey, opposed Dunne’s motion to seek legal fees and also sought to have Noce reconsider the Oct. 30 order.
According to Noce, Dunne first sought to compel documents in an Oct. 13, 2017, motion, saying the Resource Converting defendants didn’t respond to his good-faith efforts to resolve discovery disputes. That dispute resulted in a court order to produce documents and an award of $16,477 in attorney fees in favor of Dunne.
However, Resource Converting didn’t fully comply with that order, leading Dunne to file another motion on Feb. 20, 2018, to enforce the first order and a second motion to compel production of more documents. A week later, the defendants filed a detailed response. After an April 10 hearing, the case was stayed for several months pending a related trial in federal court in Iowa.
After the stay was lifted, Dunne refiled his motion. The defendants’ counsel filed a motion to withdraw three days before a status conference. Noce granted Dunne’s motion, after which Dunne requested $49,337 in legal fees.
In the March 15 order, Noce stressed both parties had several opportunities to argue the matter in court, including extensive briefing and oral arguments on everything at issue in Dunne’s motion to enforce the first order and second motion to compel production of documents.
“The fact that the matter was denied as moot during a stay and then refiled upon the lifting of the stay does not nullify the previous proceedings,” Noce wrote. “The (Resource Converting) defendants had multiple opportunities to argue the motion and otherwise cooperate with plaintiff on discovery matters. The court only issued its order after several months of noncompliance, both before and after the imposition of the stay. The (Resource Converting) defendants have also not shown any significant error in the court’s order that must be corrected. Accordingly, the motion for reconsideration is denied.”
Noce further said neither party disputed the hourly rate of the people billed, only whether Dunne’s legal team did the 174.2 hours of billed work. Noce agreed with the Resource Converting defendants the hours claimed were excessive. The defendants said Dunne’s lawyers should only be compensated for hours related to preparing and prosecuting the motion to compel release of documents.
“The court does not order attorney fees for general discovery review or unrelated discovery matters, but only for time spent on relevant due-diligence efforts and directly preparing the motion to compel,” Noce wrote. “Where unrelated activities were included in the narrative without specifying the time spent on each activity, the court excluded the time entry.”
Noce reduced the billable hours to 96.55, dropping the total legal bill to $27,393.