ST. LOUIS – A federal judge awarded a plaintiff more than $9,500 in legal fees resulting from her lawsuit against a collections agency.
Judge John Ross of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri did not award plaintiff Melissa Breeden's original request for $11,340 in attorneys' fees, writing that a "reduction in the amount of attorney’s fees requested is warranted given the requirements of this case."
After Breeden received a collections letter on Sept. 6, 2018, she sued Consumer Adjustment Co. Inc., in mid-November. Consumer Adjustment filed its answer on Dec. 21, prompting Breeden’s first amended complaint on Feb. 20. Six days later, Consumer Adjustment served Breeden with an offer of judgment, saying she was entitled to $1,751 in damages as well as legal fees encountered in bringing the action.
Although Breeden accepted Consumer Adjustment’s offer the next day, the parties could not agree on a suitable amount of fees. That brought the issue to Ross, who issued an opinion April 8 on Breeden’s motion seeking $11,340 in fees under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
According to Ross’ opinion, Breeden’s figure includes 37.8 hours for her attorney, Boris Graypel, at a rate of $300 per hour. Breeden said Consumer Adjustment displayed “‘intransigent posture and continuous opposition’ throughout the litigation,” according to Ross.
In response, Consumer Adjustment said Graypel billed an excessive amount of hours and charged too much relative to local prevailing rates as well as his own lack of experience.
To enhance her point about the circumstances of the case, Breeden pointed to a Jan. 21 collection letter Consumer Adjustment sent — a month after it filed the answer to Breeden’s initial complaint. She said that letter, sent after Consumer Adjustment offered judgment, “necessitated additional research as well as two amendments to her complaint (the first of which was filed, and the second drafted, but not filed, due to the accepted offer of judgment),” according to Ross.
Consumer Adjustment said Graypel shouldn’t have billed 9.1 hours for preparing the initial complaint since 40 percent was identical to a complaint Breeden filed against Medical-Commercial Audit Inc., the ruling states. It also challenged two billable hours on research, saying the same research was done for the MCA case, as well as 1.4 hours to review and analyze the one-page Consumer Adjustment collections letter.
Further, Consumer Adjustment said some of the work Breeden sought to recover at $300 per hour was paralegal work that should’ve been billed at $100 per hour, and also questioned various other line items, such as 0.4 hours for reading three short emails, 2.5 hours billed to prepare documents that were never served and 5.6 hours spent preparing the motion for seeking attorney’s fees.
Ultimately Consumer Adjustment said it only felt obligated to compensate Graypel for 23.1 hours, and said it should do so only at $225 per hour. Ross agreed a partial reduction in fees was appropriate, noting that while 14.7 hours were contested, he would only remove eight of those hours.
“This is appropriate given the atypical amount of time Mr. Graypel spent researching claims and drafting the complaint, reviewing communications, and performing administrative work,” Ross wrote.
However, Ross also said he reviewed Graypel’s qualifications and experience, as well as rates listed in the U.S. Consumer Law Attorney Fee Survey Report. Based on that information as well as Ross’ own experience in the federal court district, he deemed Graypel’s hourly rate reasonable.
The final tally showed 29.8 hours at $300, 1.8 hours of paralegal work at $100 and $400 in costs for a total award of $9,520.