$25K Sanction Recommended for Reconstructed Billing Records

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$25K Sanction Recommended for Reconstructed Billing Records

Posted May 29, 2008, 09:01 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss

A special master has recommended a $25,000 sanction against a San Francisco plaintiffs lawyer for mishandling a fee request in litigation against FedEx.

Special Master Edward Swanson said lawyer Waukeen McCoy created billing records after the fact, misrepresented the nature of the documents, and did not produce requested documents, the Recorder reports.

"This conduct constitutes bad faith and is worthy of the court's sanction,” Swanson wrote.

Swanson cited deposition testimony by an associate at McCoy’s firm, Aldon Bolanos, who said McCoy had a set of ground rules for reconstructing billing records, the story says. A response to a motion for summary judgment, for example, was to be billed at full days for two weeks. Real billing records produced by Bolanos conflicted with the fee petition, Swanson said.

McCoy’s firm had sought nearly $2.2 million in fees at twice its hourly billing rate. FedEx had opposed the fee request, saying the law firm billed 129.5 hours to respond to a summary judgment motion five months before it was even filed and in one instance billed for 23.5 hours of one lawyer’s time for one day’s work.

McCoy says the 23.5 hour day was evidently a typo and the summary judgment billing error was over a wrong docket number. He “vehemently disputes” Swanson’s conclusions, according to the Recorder, and claims Swanson is retaliating for his attempt to remove him as a special master.

"I have not perjured myself in any form whatsoever," McCoy told the publication. "For him to even get close to that is amazing to me."

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