System Management, Inc. v. Loiselle’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 16 district · 1 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 19 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “To calculate a reasonable attorney’s fee, the Court will begin with the number of hours listed in the contemporaneous billing records for each person who worked on the plaintiffs case.... [T]he Court will discount for excessive hours .... Once the Court determines the reasonable number of hours that each person worked on the plaintiffs case, the Court will sum the product of each person’s hours multiplied by a reasonable hourly rate to achieve the lodestar figure. There is a “strong presumption” that the lodestar figure is “reasonable.” Neither the amount of damages recovered nor the actual terms of the fee agreement between the plaintiff and his attorneys will be used to vary the lodestar figure. A few words on the reasonable hourly rate are in order. Courts in the First Circuit traditionally have tinkered extensively with the fees awarded in civil rights cases. Although the tinkering— especially the distinction between core and non-core time — originally was an effort to use the Model Code factors to determine a reasonable hourly rate, such tinkering now should be considered solely a function of discretion rather than a definition of what is reasonable. That is because the lodestar calculation presumably captures the balance of all the Model Code factors; additional tinkering merely serves to double count some factors. To determine a reasonable hourly rate, Blum [v. Stenson, 465 U.S. 886 , 895 & n. 11, 104 S.Ct. 1541 , 79 L.Ed.2d 891 (1984) ] instructs the Court to find the”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. 176 F. Supp. 2d 77 - Davignon v. Clemmey

2. “In guiding the lower courts, [t]he Supreme Court has attempted to give the word “costs” a consistent meaning in federal law. See Crawford Fitting Co. v. J.T. Gibbons, Inc., 482 U.S. 437 [,441-45], 107 S.Ct. 2494 , 96 L.Ed.2d 385 (1987) (harmonizing “costs” in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(d) with “costs” in 28 U.S.C. § 1920 ) .... [T]he Supreme Court noted that the word “costs” in fee-shifting statutes should be given the same meaning as the word “costs” in section 1920 of Title 28, [West Va. Univ. Hosps. v. Casey,] 499 U.S. 83 , 87 n. 3, 111 S.Ct. 1138 , 113 L.Ed.2d 68 (1991). The Supreme Court went on to note, however, that reasonable out-of-pocket expenses incurred by the attorney and normally charged to the client could be awarded as part of the “attorneys’ fees.” Id. (citing Northcross v. Bd. of Educ., 611 F.2d 624 , 639 (6th Cir.1979) (“Reasonable photocopying, paralegal expenses, and travel and telephone costs are thus recoverable pursuant to the statutory authority of § 1988”)).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. 399 F. Supp. 2d 3 - Radford Trust v. First Unum Life Insurance Co. of America

3. “lodestar approach” originated in a case under the Clayton Act, Lindy Bros. Builders, Inc. v. Am. Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp., 487 F.2d 161 (3d Cir. 1973), appeal after remand, 540 F.2d 102 (3d Cir.1976). 3 . The genesis of the distinction between a lawyer's”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. 224 F. Supp. 2d 342 - United States Ex Rel. Averback v. Pastor Medical Associates P.C.