Nelson v. I.Q. Data International, Inc.

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN
SOUTHERN DIVISION
ELIZABETH NELSON,
individually and on behalf of
similarly situated persons,
Plaintiff,
v.
I.Q. DATA INTERNATIONAL,
INC.,
Defendant.
___________________________ /
Case No. 22-12710
Hon. F. Kay Behm
United States District Judge
Hon. Elizabeth A. Stafford
U.S. Magistrate Judge
ORDER ON PLAINTIFF’S BILL OF COSTS AND DEFENDANT’S
OBJECTIONS (ECF No. 70, 72)
I. 	PROCEDURAL HISTORY
On June 27, 2025, the court entered an Opinion and Order
Accepting and Adopting the Magistrate Judge’s January 28, 2025
Report and Recommendation to Grant Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel and
Motion for Sanctions (ECF No. 68). As part of the sanctions entered
against Defendant I.Q. Data International, I.Q. Data was ordered to
pay Plaintiff’s attorney’s fees and costs. As a result of that order,
Plaintiff filed a bill of costs (ECF No. 70), to which I.Q. Data objects in
part (ECF No. 72).
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For the reasons explained, the court OVERRULES Defendant’s
objections except as to the hourly rate, and imposes fees and costs
accordingly.
II. 	ANALYSIS
Plaintiff seeks $25,860 for her counsel’s attorney’s fees, and
$211.70 in costs, for a grand total award of $26,071.70.
A. 	Lack of Final Judgment
First, Defendant argues that the bill of costs is procedurally
improper because it was not filed after a final judgment. This argument
is puzzling, to the say the least. Fees and costs were ordered following
the court granting a motion to compel under Rule 37, not a default
under Rule 55 or a final judgment under Rule 54. 	See Fed. R. Civ. P.
37(a)(3)(5); 37(b)(2); e.g. Angulo v. Serendipity Day Spa, LLC, No. 1:23-
cv-11820, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 196483 (E.D. Mich. Oct. 29, 2024)
(imposing costs on a motion to compel). The objection is thus
OVERRULED.
B. 	Attorney’s Fees
Determining a reasonable fee begins with calculating the product
of a “reasonable hourly rate” and the “number of hours reasonably
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expended on the litigation,” known as the “lodestar” amount. 	Hensley v.
Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 433 (1983) (noting that the court may adjust
the fee based upon the circumstances of the case, including the “results
obtained”). Defendant objects that Plaintiff’s request for fees is too
high, both with respect to the number of hours expended and the
requested hourly rate. In calculating a reasonable fee, “district courts
are not required to act as ‘green-eyeshade accountants’ and ‘achieve
auditing perfection’ but instead must simply to do ‘rough justice.’” 	The
Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless v. Husted, 831 F.3d 686, 703
(6th Cir. 2016) (quoting Fox v. Vice, 563 U.S. 826, 838 (2011)). In other
words, the court may rely estimates based upon its “overall sense of a
suit.” 	Id.
i. 	Number of hours
Plaintiff seeks compensation for a total of 43.1 hours. Defendant
argues this amount of hours is unreasonable, vague, and duplicative.
The court finds this objection without merit.
First, Defendant objects to the amount of time spent on drafting
the motion to compel (8.3 hours), and the response to I.Q. Data’s
objections to the Magistrate Judge’s Report and Recommendation (23
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hours), which collectively account for 31.3 hours of the total hourly
amount. Defendant calls this “facially questionable” and that it does
not specify “what part of the document was being drafted.” The court
disagrees that these amounts were facially questionable; both the
motion to compel and the report and recommendation covered a lot of
ground regarding the record to-date. Both focused on a long history of
discovery violations by Defendant, and the report and recommendation
both compelled responses to Plaintiff’s discovery requests and
recommended dispositive sanctions (which this court accepted and
adopted). Defendant can hardly complain that it took significant time
for a single attorney to review the record in order to both a) draft the
motion to compel in the first place and b) respond in a fact-intensive
manner to I.Q. Data’s objections to the Magistrate Judge’s detailed
R&R, which ruled on the motion to compel.
Defendant also objects to what it describes as Plaintiff’s counsel
billing for “several days for ‘prep,’ but . . . not specify[ing] what the
preparation entailed.” ECF No. 72, PageID.1196. The court seriously
questions whether this objection is made in good faith and whether
Defendant’s representation to the court complies with Rule 11. The
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timesheet neither bills “several days” for preparation nor fails to
explain what that preparation was for. Plaintiff’s counsel submitted a
grand total of two (2) hours (not days) for “prep for oral arguments on
motion to compel and sanctions,” which is both a reasonable amount of
time and sufficiently detailed to explain the expenditure of time. ECF
No. 70-1, PageID.1185. Defendant’s misrepresentations on this point
will be taken into account as the court considers final resolution of its
order to show cause (ECF No. 75).
Defendant does not specifically object to any other entries, and the
court finds them facially reasonable.
The objection to reduce Plaintiff’s counsel’s hours by 50% is
therefore OVERRULED, and the court finds the amount of hours
reasonable.
ii. 	Hourly Rate
Mr. Warner also seeks an hourly compensation rate of $600, which
Defendant argues should be lowered to $300 (below the median rate) or
else $450. The court agrees that $600 is an excessive rate in light of
counsel’s prior motion seeking compensation in this same case at $450
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per hour, and reduces the request to that rate. 	See ECF No. 42,
PageID.450.
In general, “the ‘prevailing market rate’ is that rate which lawyers
of comparable skill and experience can reasonably expect to
command within the venue of the court of record.” 	Adcock–Ladd v.
Secretary of Treasury, 227 F.3d 343, 350 (6th Cir. 2000). “District
courts have relied on the State Bar of Michigan [] Economics of Law
Practice Survey to determine average billing rates in Michigan, and the
Sixth Circuit has approved this practice.” 	O’Connor v. Trans. Union,
LLC., No. 05-cv-74498, 2008 WL 4910670 at *5 (E.D. Mich. Nov. 13,
2008). In 2019, Magistrate Judge Stafford, following the State Bar of
Michigan Economics of Law Practice in Michigan for 2017, approved a
$400 hourly rate for Mr. Warner (the 75th percentile for consumer law).
McClain v. Hanna, 19-10700-TGB-EAS, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 193350
(E.D. Mich.) (Stafford, M.J.), adopted in relevant part by 2019 U.S. Dist.
U.S. Dist. 222691, at * 8 (E.D. Mich. Dec. 30, 2019) (Berg, J.). Under
the current 2023 State Bar of Michigan Economics of Law Practice in
Michigan survey, the 75th percentile of Consumer law (including lemon
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law) would result in an hourly rate of $450.
https://www.michbar.org/file/pmrc/pdfs/EoL_Report23.pdf.
Plaintiff’s counsel also lists the amounts that prior courts have
found to be reasonable hourly rates for him. In the Eastern District of
Michigan, he was twice awarded $400 per hour in 2019; in the Northern
District of Illinois, he received as high as $550 in 2019. ECF No. 70-1,
PageID.1182. Granted, in the intervening six years, one would expect
his hourly rate to rise. However, the court takes into account that the
issues in these particular motions and briefings were fact-intensive and
record-based, but not particularly legally complex. The court exercises
its discretion to reduce Mr. Warner’s request to the 75th percentile, at
$450 per hour. 	See Wayne v. Village of Sebring, 36 F.3d 517, 533 (6th
Cir. 1994) (“A district court has broad discretion to determine what
constitutes a reasonable hourly rate for an attorney.”).
The objection is OVERRULED in part, but sustained to the
extent explained. A $450 hourly rate for 43.1 hours yields a total of
$19,395 in reasonable attorney’s fees.
C. 	Costs
Plaintiff seeks $211.70 (two hundred eleven dollars and seventy
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cents) in costs, for the cost of the transcript of oral arguments on the
motion to compel. Defendant does not appear to object to that cost.
III. 	CONCLUSION
Therefore, the court OVERRULES Defendant’s objections except
as to Mr. Warner’s hourly rate, and adopts a $450 hourly rate instead.
Therefore, Defendant is ORDERED to pay $19,395 in attorney’s
fees and $211.70 in costs, for a total of $19,606.70 to Plaintiff’s counsel
by December 15, 2025. 	Plaintiff shall notify the court if Defendant
fails to comply with this order, and Defendant is warned that failure to
comply will be met with further sanctions.
SO ORDERED.
Date: November 20, 2025 	s/F. Kay Behm
F. Kay Behm
United States District Judge
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