Judge trims legal fees for Office Depot over ‘excessive’ billing in copyright case
By Mike Scarcella
Sept 18 (Reuters) -Office Depot has been awarded $927,000 in legal fees in a failed U.S. copyright lawsuit against it after a judge questioned its lawyers' billing records and rejected its fee bid for more than $2 million.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida on Tuesday agreed with the fee amount recommended last month by a federal magistrate judge who faulted Office Depot for what he called "excessive" billing and “vague” timesheet entries.
Cannon in June dismissed the copyright infringement case brought by data analysis company Infogroup, rejecting claims that Office Depot misused licensed data in considerations about where to open new stores.
In August, Office Depot’s lawyers at law firms including Hogan Lovells and DLA Piper said Infogroup, now known as Data Axle,should pay $2 million to cover the company's legal fees as the prevailing party under the federal Copyright Act.
Office Depot and several of its lawyers at Hogan Lovells and DLA Piper did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.
A lawyer for Infogroup, Greg Scaglione, in a statement welcomed the reduction in fees and said it still planned to appeal the award and the dismissal of the company’s claims.
U.S. District Judge Bruce Reinhart in a report last month said even though the long-running case spanned courts in two states, “the involvement of 16 timekeepers reflects significant overstaffing of this matter and that it would be unreasonable to award reimbursement for all of them.”
Reinhart said records submitted by Office Depot's lawyers contained examples of “excessive billing, redundancies, vague entries, and redactions that make it difficult for the court to assess the validity of the time spent.”
Office Depot in a filing said it did not object to Reinhart’s report.
The case is Infogroup Inc v. Office Depot Inc, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, No. 9:23-cv-80358.
For Infogroup: Gregory Scaglione of Koley Jessen; and Anthony Lawhon
For Office Depot: Damon Lewis of Hogan Lovells; and Nicholas Papastavros of DLA Piper
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