InfoBytes Blog
7th Circuit agrees with reduction of attorney’s fees in FDCPA action
On May 15, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit held a prevailing consumer’s request for $187,410 in attorney’s fees was unreasonable in a FDCPA action. In 2014, the consumer and a debt collector settled the consumer’s FDCPA related claims for $1,001 plus attorney’s fees of $4,500. Despite the settlement agreement, the debt collector continued to attempt to collect the debt, and the consumer sued a second time alleging violations of the FDCPA and FCRA. The consumer did not respond to multiple settlement offers from the debt collector, including one in March 2015 for $3,051, proceeding to trial on the FDCPA claim, and subsequently rejected a settlement offer from the debt collector of $25,000 and reasonable attorney’s fees. At trial, the jury only awarded the consumer the $1,000 in FDCPA statutory damages, after which he sought to recover $187,410 in attorney’s fees. The district court reduced his request to $10,875, concluding that the consumer’s rejection of “meaningful settlement offers precluded a fee award in such disproportion to his trial recovery.”
On appeal, the appellate court agreed with the district court that the March 2015 settlement offer of $3,051 was reasonable, rejecting the consumer’s argument that the settlement “was not substantial and therefore should have been disregarded by the district court in determining the fee award.” The appellate court also rejected the consumer’s argument that because the settlement offer disclaimed liability for the debt collector, his results at the jury trial were much better than the settlement as it yielded judgment on the merits. The appellate court noted that settlement offers regularly disclaim liability, and by operation, judgment against the debt collector would still have been entered under Rule 68. Therefore, the appellate court concluded the district court did not abuse its discretion when reducing the attorney’s fees to $10,875 based on 29 hours’ worth of work at an hourly rate of $375 prior to the March 2015 settlement offer.