FedEx Fee Fight Heats Up
A fight is brewing over attorney fees claimed by two plaintiffs lawyers who sued FedEx Corp. for discrimination.
The San Francisco lawyers represented clients who split off from a huge class action and won $4.5 million in damages, the Recorder reports. Now the fee fight is getting “nastier and nastier,” according to the publication.
Kay McKenzie Parker, who was dropped as a lawyer for the plaintiffs before the case went to trial, is seeking $700,000 in a request for double her hourly fees, the legal newspaper says. But the lawyer who took the case to trial, Waukeen McCoy, opposes the claim. His firm is seeking nearly $2.2 million in fees at twice its hourly billing rate.
Parker’s lawyer says it’s odd for McCoy to oppose his former co-counsel’s fee request, since FedEx would pay it. McCoy disagrees.
“If the court awarded [Parker] fees, it would be a possibility that my fees, which I worked hard for, would be reduced,” McCoy told the legal publication.
Meanwhile FedEx has accused McCoy of false billing claims. The company claims he billed 129.5 hours to respond to a FedEx 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 told the Recorder the 23.5 hours must have been a typo and the summary judgment work was done on a dismissal motion that was listed on the docket under a different plaintiff’s name, causing FedEx to miss it.
A judge has appointed a special master to hear the dispute.
