After six years of litigation, a District Court judge in Pennsylvania has awarded a plaintiff more than $62,000 in fees and costs, well below the $150,000 that was being sought after filing a class action lawsuit accusing the defendant of violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
The background: The case began in 2019 after the plaintiff received a series of debt collection letters from the defendant, a medical debt collector. The plaintiff incurred four separate debts to a medical facility. At each visit, the plaintiff provided her cell phone number. Each of the four debts were placed with the defendant for collection. The defendant sent the plaintiff a letter after it received each debt from the creditor. Each debt was given its own account number, and the four accounts were aggregated under a master number.
- The defendant placed two calls to the plaintiff’s cell phone seeking to collect on the first two debts. A financial advisor representing the plaintiff sent the defendant a letter disputing the first two debts and directing the defendant to stop contacting the plaintiff on her cell phone.
- After the third debt was placed with the defendant, it noted the cease and desist request on the master account and marked the third debt as disputed.
- After the fourth debt was placed with the defendant, it resumed making calls — 12 in all during a five-month span. On the final call, the plaintiff told the representative on the phone that her attorney had advised her that she should not be receiving calls from the defendant.
- She filed her suit a month later, alleging the defendant violated Sections 1692c, 1692g(a), and 1692e of the FDCPA and the TCPA by placing calls using an autodialer to her cell phone.
- The case ended up before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which found the plaintiff had standing to sue but vacated class certification of the case.
The ruling: Judge Anita B. Brody of the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania granted the plaintiff $3,326.25 in costs and $59,513.90 in attorneys’ fees, which is less than half the $147,000 that the plaintiff initially requested. While the court agreed the plaintiff was entitled to an award, it reduced the total based on several key findings:
- Administrative Tasks: Time billed for clerical work like calendaring deadlines or filing documents was excluded entirely. The court noted the attorneys had previously been warned about billing such tasks.
- Block Billing and Vagueness: Some entries lacked sufficient detail or grouped together billable and non-billable work, prompting further deductions.
- Limited Success: The plaintiff won only on an individual claim, not the broader class action. As a result, the court applied a 50% downward adjustment to reflect the “limited success.”
- “Reading between the lines, it appears as if Huber’s attorneys knew they were underbilling based on their current hourly rates to avoid the appearance of padding the bill,” Judge Brody wrote.
