Following a favorable judgment in a bad faith case, plaintiff’s counsel in Clemens v. New York Central Mutual Fire Ins. Co., sought $1.12 million in fees, costs and interest.

While Pennsylvania’s bad faith statute does permit an award of attorneys’ fees when an insurer has acted in bad faith, U.S. District Judge Malachy E. Mannion of the Middle District of Pennsylvania denied counsel’s request and referred the case to the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

The plaintiff’s attorneys sought $48,050 for their work on the UIM claim, $827,515 for working on the bad-faith claim and $27,090 for preparing the fee petition, for a total of $902,655 in fees for a case that had been litigated for nearly nine years. Judge Mannion began his memorandum opinion with a cautionary reminder that “attorneys are quasi-officers of the court and they are expected to be careful and scrupulously honest in their representations to the court . . . they must exercise care, judgment, and ethical sensitivity in the delicate task of billing time and excluding hours that are vague, redundant, excessive or unnecessary.”  Judge Mannion then spent the next 100-pages going through plaintiff’s counsel’s request line-by-line, slashing fees he deemed vague, duplicative and excessive.

Even in victory, lawyers are expected to adhere to the rules of professional conduct. As a self-policing profession, the enforcement of such rules can be lax, but this federal case is a strong reminder that unscrupulous conduct has no place in the court room.

Thanks to Hillary Ladov for her contribution to this post.