Attorneys' Fees 'Excessive,' Says Property Owner Who Padlocked Cellsite Entrance

The hourly rates that plaintiffs STC Two and Global Signal claimed for three attorneys in their breach of contract suit against defendant Thomas Branham are reasonable, but their total hours billed, nearly 370, “are beyond excessive,” said Branham’s memorandum Thursday (docket 2:23-cv-00764) in U.S. District Court for Southern Ohio in Columbus in opposition to the plaintiffs’ motion for attorneys’ fees and court costs. The plaintiffs seek an attorneys’ award of nearly $135,000 in the case, in which the court granted summary judgment in the plaintiffs' favor. Branham is permanently enjoined from blocking or otherwise interfering with plaintiffs’ access easement over the property to the cellsite 24/7, after plaintiffs sued him from maintaining a padlock on the gate at the entrance of the property without providing them a key. The defendant’s Thursday memorandum said the lodestar approach used to calculate total hours is considered by virtually all authority to be reasonable, but a court may adjust the lodestar in accordance with relevant considerations based on the degree of difficulty in the prosecution of a case and whether its issues were “novel or challenging,” said the memorandum. The “lack of novelty of the issues and the reduced degree of difficulty of prosecution are evident by the existence of the single issue in the case, i.e., defendant padlocked the gate to the leased cell tower premises,” it said: “This simple act denied plaintiff its right of access as set forth in the lease and in the site agreement.” Though Branham conceded that he did “vacillate during the case as to certain issues,” which “may have resulted in certain work by plaintiff’s counsel which otherwise might have been avoided,” he maintained “the totality of the hours of work by plaintiff’s attorneys is disproportionate to the issue in the case which issue is wholly singular.” Defendant’s counsel received payment of about $12,000 for 40 hours worked, said the memorandum. “The disparity in the hours worked by each side supports a finding that the total hours expended by the three plaintiff’s lawyers are excessive," it said. "Any award of attorneys’ fees should be greatly reduced from plaintiff’s requested amount."