To the victor, go the spoils. Also, so do the prevailing party fees as Zuffa filed its Motion for Attorney Fees as a result of its obtaining a dismissal of Mark Hunt’s lawsuit against the company.
Zuffa, as a matter of the winner in the lawsuit filed by Hunt, will able to collect attorney fees and costs. This was included in Hunt’s promotional contract, as is standard for most (if not all) Zuffa promotional contracts with its athletes.
As a requisite to collect the attorney fees and costs, Zuffa must file a Motion with the Court. This gives Hunt’s attorneys a chance to respond which usually is standard to state that the attorney fees and costs are too much. The court, in its discretion, may on its own reduce (or even increase) the request.
Zuffa’s Motion for Atto… by Jason Cruz on Scribd
Campbell & Williams, Zuffa’s longtime attorneys in Nevada, filed the motion and lay out the reasons it believes it is entitled to $301,792.50 in attorney fees and an additional $86,442.72 in costs for a total of $339.711.42
C&W Billing Records by Jason Cruz on Scribd
On behalf of Zuffa, Campbell & Williams argues that it is entitled to the amount. According to the law cited by Zuffa, the Court must provide an explanation for any reduction in the amount of fees allowed and if opposing counsel cannot come up with specific reasons to reduce the fee, it should grant the award in full “or with no more than a haircut.” This refers to a modest reduction, if any by the Court of “no more than a 10% reduction in the hours sought.”
Zuffa advocates on its behalf that it “incurred significant attorney’s fees in connection with the extensive dispositive motion briefing in this case.” It also cites the fact that it wanted to stay discovery while they filed their motion to dismiss. However, Hunt opposed the request to halt discovery causing a rise in legal fees to the discovery (Zuffa notes Hunt sent it 100 written discovery requests with 31,000 potentially responsive documents). Zuffa outsourced a lot of the document review as highlighted by an invoice attached to the motion which amounted to over $8,000. The outsourcing included a team that were paid $38 an hour and a project manager earning $85 an hour.
In the declaration of J. Colby Williams, he notes that they did not seek the $6,375 attorney fees incurred by Donald J. Campbell who bills out at $750 per hour. It also notes that it used law clerks to run the case more efficiently. However, attorney J. Colby Williams billed 418.2 hours to the case and he bills out at $600 per hour.
Payout Perspective:
The attorney fees and costs log include each minute logged for the case and the costs associated. This even included a $1.00 parking charge and another print charge of $0.60. This also includes legal research and other costs associated with the litigation. In all likelihood, Hunt will oppose the fees with the hope that the Court knocks down the amount.
Of course, obtaining the Court approval on legal fees and costs is just one thing. However, there is also the method of having Hunt pay which may be another issue considering that he is a New Zealand resident. Unless there are Hunt business interests in the U.S. or Hunt fights again in the UFC and/or U.S., Zuffa may have a hard time collecting assuming he does not willingly pay. MMA Payout will keep you posted.
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