2012 Conference Executive Record Report.pdf - YMCA of Greater ...

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Team 43 v 54 CHUCK MAZE ON BEHALF OF 15 MINOR, Appellant, v. THE CITY OF ALBANY, NEW YORK, Respondent. Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department, New York COUNSEL: for Appellant. March 10, 2012, Argued March 10, 2012, Decided Emily Davis and Devon Drake, Nikita Mehta and Grace Kockubinski, for Respondent. JUDGES: Mallone, Al-Ajmi, Dhami, Vanini, King, Finan OPINION We the Appellate Court of the State of New York uphold the lower court’s decision and maintain the fee that Judge Kheleher awarded to Katie Boardman. A major determining factor of this case was whether or not Judge Kheleher abused her discretion in determining the proper award for Katie Boardman. Both the petitioner and the respondent spent a major amount of time detailing with how much the fee should be augmented or diminished but both sides failed to prove to us that Judge Kheleher abused her discretion in administering the Lodestar Method. The appellant mentioned how in Matakov v. Kel-Tech Construction Inc. “It is well established that a trial court’s fee award in a class action is entitled to broad deference, “and will not be overturned absent an abuse of discretion, such as a mistake of law or a clearly erroneous factual finding.” This was in regards to the 30% fee reduction of Katie Boardman’s award by Judge Kheleher without a reason. However, we have found that this reduction was completely within Judge Kheleher’s discretion. This decision is upheld by Lunday v. City of Albany with the precedent that “We do not require that the court sets forth item-by-item findings concerning what may be countless objections to individual billing items.” The first adjustment of the Lodestar method detailed in Rahmey v. Blum is “the novelty and difficulty of the questions presented.” The respondent stated that they agree with the fee award for novelty, while the petitioner acknowledged the fee award but stated it wasn’t enough. We have found that Judge Kheleher’s decision of a $50,000 augmentation due to the new theory that a “third party could cause pain and suffering from an industrial accident” is the correct amount for the novelty of this case. This decision that it is a novel case is supported by the fact that there is no case law that would give precedents to abide by in ruling one way or another. This lack of case law also increases the difficulty of the original trial. We can turn to the case of Fleming v. Barnwell to find that a similar situation of lack of case law would cause an increase of the fee award “in part by the novelty of the case” and “the difficulty involved in proving” the claim. The increase that Judge Kheleher made is the correct adjustment. The second adjustment of the Lodestar method is “the skill requisite to perform the legal services.” The petitioners stated that the amount of requisite skill is high because of the novelty of the case and disagreed with the $50,000 decrease because it was her first case. The respondents failed to show that because this was her first case she deserved the reduction prescribed by Judge Kheleher. We have found that the Judge Kheleher’s reduction of $50,000 due to the fact that this was her first case and there was not much skill requisite is a sufficient amount. In Fleming v. Barnwell an experienced lawyer got the requested “award of $425,000” and his award was granted because of his experience. Therefore, Katie Boardman’s award should be reduced because she is inexperienced. The third adjustment of the Lodestar Method is “the preclusion of other employment by the attorney due to acceptance of the case.” The respondents failed to mention the issue of preclusion and thus, do not have any complaints with the fee award of $100,000 issued by Judge Kheleher. We also agreed with Judge Kheleher’s decision because none of the precedent cases have any preclusion involved. We can refer to the dissent in Matakov v. Kel-Tech which states, “The trial court ‘is intimately familiar with the nuances of [a] case, [and] is in a far better 69
position to [rule on a fee application] than is an appellate court, which must work from a cold record.” With this being said we reserve the discretion to Judge Kheleher. The seventh adjustment of the Lodestar Method states “the amount involved and the results obtained.” The petitioners supported an augmentation to the fee award for the results obtained because they won on all accounts. However, the respondents requested an increase in the penalty of $25,000 because they stated that the $46.22 won for each student is not comparable to the $708,000 won for the Boardman’s. We agree with the Judge’s decision to decrease the fee award by $25,000. This decision is supported by the comparison between this and Barnwell v. Fleming because in this precedent case there was $30,000 won for each client, which would constitute a major decrease in our case. However, the fact that none of the students complained about the award and the fact that the Boardmans got exactly what was requested and won on all accounts, justifies the decrease of $25,000. The eighth adjustment of the Lodestar Method states “the undesirability of the case.” The petitioners requested an increase in award because of the fact that they had to deal with 45 clients – the 15 students and their 30 parents. The respondents requested for a reduction to the award because she jumped at the opportunity and created this case. However, we found that neither of these arguments was compelling enough to constitute an adjustment. To support this decision we refer to Matakov v. Kel-Tech again, “The trial court ‘is intimately familiar with the nuances of [a] case, [and] is in a far better position to [rule on a fee application] than is an appellate court, which must work from a cold record.” We agree with the decision of Judge Kheleher and will uphold the adjustments to the award. 70
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