One-Minute Delay Costs MoFo $1M in Attorney Fees
Missing a deadline for an attorney fee request by one minute has apparently cost a Morrison & Foerster client $1 million, the Wall Street Journal Law Blog reports.
MoFo contended it was late because a hired courier got stuck in traffic on his motorcycle. The courier arrived at the courthouse after closing time, requiring the attorney fee request for Toshiba America Information Systems to be filed the next day.
U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney of Santa Ana, Calif., refused the law firm’s motion for attorney fees in a Nov. 14 opinion (PDF posted by the Law Blog).
The reason for the delay was within the control of the law firm, and the circumstances “however regrettable, do not meet the standard for ‘excusable neglect,’ ” Carney wrote. “The entirely foreseeable obstacle of traffic in Southern California in the late afternoon … cannot justify an enlargement of time.”
In any event, the request for attorney fees was inadequate because it was not supported by sufficient evidence from Morrison & Foerster lawyer Mark Mersel or in-house lawyers for Toshiba America, Carney said. Submitted declarations were “mere summaries of attorney work and time spent, without any connection between the listed hours and a particular task,” Carney said.
Mersel told the Law Blog his client has asked him not to comment on the case. He left Morrison & Foerster and joined Bryan Cave last week.
