A District Court judge in Maryland has granted in part and denied in part a plaintiff’s motion for attorneys’ fees in a Fair Credit Reporting Act case, awarding $24,080 in fees and $252.50 in costs after cutting the request for work performed after the plaintiff accepted an offer of judgment.
The background: A consumer sued a credit reporting agency and a debt buyer under the FCRA, alleging her consumer credit information was being reported inaccurately.
- While the case was not a novel one, the plaintiff’s counsel noted it presented certain challenges because documents produced in discovery indicated the plaintiff appeared to be the victim of a “merged file” rather than a “mixed file.”
- Later that year, the plaintiff accepted the defendant’s offer of judgment, and the court entered judgment in her favor for $60,000, plus reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs.
- The plaintiff moved to recover her fees, but last August the judge denied the motion without prejudice, finding it sought fees accrued after the offer of judgment was accepted, billed for purely administrative tasks, included entries that were duplicative or lacked detail, and did not organize the time records by litigation phase as required by the court’s local rules.
- In September, the plaintiff filed a supplemental motion seeking $32,665 in fees and $252.50 in costs for roughly 76.5 hours of attorney and paralegal work.
The ruling: Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby of the District Court for the District of Maryland granted the supplemental motion in part, awarding $24,080 in fees along with the full amount of requested costs.
- Judge Griggsby reduced the award by $8,235, covering work performed after the plaintiff accepted the offer of judgment, reading the plain text of the offer to limit recoverable fees to those incurred before its date.
- The judge was satisfied the plaintiff had cured the deficiencies flagged in the earlier decision, having withdrawn $832 in fees for administrative tasks, removed duplicative billings, and supplemented entries that lacked detail, noting that counsel is not required to record how each minute was spent but should identify the general subject matter of the time expended.
- The plaintiff’s seven attorneys took the case on a wholly contingent basis, and the judge observed that the judgment exceeded the statutory damages available under the FCRA.
