In a case that was defended by Avanti Bakane and the team at Gordon Rees, a District Court judge in Georgia has ordered the plaintiff’s in a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act case to pay nearly $50,000 in attorney’s fees and costs to the defendant, overruling all of the plaintiff’s objections to reduce the award.
The Background: The judge dismissed the suit last June, and ordered the plaintiffs to show cause why they should not be ordered to pay the defendant’s legal fees because of how they handled the case.
- The plaintiffs attempted to voluntarily dismiss their claims because of misrepresentations that were made to their counsel, only to withdraw the motion a week later.
- The plaintiffs also filed a motion for summary judgment the day after the defendant filed a motion to depose the plaintiff’s attorney, based on testimony from the plaintiffs that he was the “moving force” in deciding not to dismiss the case.
- After filing the motion for summary judgment, the plaintiffs filed another motion to dismiss the suit.
- During their depositions, the plaintiffs made statements such as they were “going with what the attorney said” and that they were “being led by him” and that the attorney said the plaintiffs “had to” move forward even though they wanted to dismiss the case.
The Ruling: The plaintiffs attempted to argue that the defendant’s request was unreasonable because they were “replete with overbillings” and sought to have the award reduced by 75%, but Judge Russell G. Vineyard of the District Court for the Northern District of Georgia rejected each and every argument made by the plaintiffs.
- In most of their arguments, the plaintiffs contended that having multiple attorneys work on the same motion or document was redundant, but as long as they weren’t duplicating each other’s work, there is nothing against it, Judge Vineyard noted.
