# Hollander

> District Court, M.D. Florida · August 3, 2026

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/11434206

## Case

- **Full name:** Skye Energy Ventures, LLC v. Richard J. Hollander, et al.
- **Court:** District Court, M.D. Florida
- **Decided:** August 3, 2026
- **Opinion:** 100trialcourt
- **Cited by:** 0 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

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## Opinion text

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA
FORT MYERS DIVISION

SKYE ENERGY VENTURES, LLC,
Plaintiff,
v. Case No. 2:25-cv-274-SPC-KRH
RICHARD J. HOLLANDER, et al.
Defendants.
/

REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
At issue is Defendants Richard Hollander and Southern Logistics Financial,
Inc.’s Motion for Attorney Fees. (Doc. 47). Plaintiff Skye Energy Ventures, LLC
responded in opposition. (Doc. 48). The Court already determined that Defendants
are entitled to recover reasonable attorney’s fees incurred in defending against
Plaintiff’s Florida Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (“RICO”)
claim. (Doc. 46). As explained below, the undersigned recommends awarding
Defendants $16,360 in attorney’s fees.
Background
This action has a long history for a case that never got past the pleadings.
Over roughly 10 months, Plaintiff filed three separate complaints—each asserting
Florida and federal RICO claims, along with eight other counts. (Doc. 1; Doc. 19;
Doc. 30).
Initially, the Court dismissed the RICO claims with leave to amend. (Doc.
27). It then dismissed those same claims with prejudice. (Doc. 36). Plaintiff tried
resurrecting the RICO claims based on purported newly discovered evidence, but
the Court disagreed. (Doc. 45). Following that string of rulings, the Court held

Defendants were entitled to fees for defending the Florida RICO claim and directed
the parties to meet on a reasonable amount. (Doc. 46 at 5).
They did not agree. So Defendants filed this Motion, seeking $28,440 in fees.
(Doc. 47 at 22). That figure represents 71.1 hours of attorney time at $400 per hour,
which was a voluntary reduction from the 79 hours reflected in counsel’s bill. (Doc.

47-1). Plaintiff doesn’t dispute the hourly rate. It does, however, dispute the
number of hours expended—arguing Defendants made no meaningful effort to
allocate their billed time between the Florida RICO claim (for which fees are
recoverable) and the nine other counts in the case (for which they are not). What’s
more, Plaintiff says that bill entries reflect improper block billing, and the time
spent litigating the amount of fees itself is not compensable. (Doc. 48 at 2-13).

Legal Standard
Since entitlement is clear, the Court must now determine the amount of an
award of reasonable attorney’s fees. M.D. Fla. Local R. 7.01(a)-(c). The Florida
RICO statute provides:
The defendant shall be entitled to recover reasonable attorney’s fees
and court costs in the trial and appellate courts upon a finding that
the claimant raised a claim which was without substantial fact or legal
support. In awarding attorney’s fees and costs under this section, the
court may not consider the ability of the opposing party to pay such
fees and costs.
Fla. Stat. § 772.104(3). The statute therefore provides for recovery of “reasonable”
attorney’s fees. Id.
State law governs this substantive question of fees. See McMahan v. Toto,

256 F.3d 1120, 1132 (11th Cir. 2001). Florida (and federal) law applies the lodestar
framework for making that fee determination. Fla. Patient’s Comp. Fund v. Rowe,
472 So. 2d 1145, 1150 (Fla. 1985); Bell v. U.S.B. Acquisition Co., 734 So. 2d 403,
406 (Fla. 1999).
Under that approach, courts multiply the number of hours reasonably

expended by the reasonable hourly rate. Am. Civil Liberties Union of Ga. v.
Barnes, 168 F.3d 423, 427 (11th Cir. 1999). Once calculated, this lodestar figure
may be adjusted up or down depending on the circumstances. See id.
Discussion
The analysis proceeds in three parts. First, the Court addresses counsel’s
hourly rate. Second, this inquiry fleshes out the contested question of the number

of hours reasonably expended. And third, the Court calculates the lodestar.
1. Hourly Rate
The Court begins with the easier question of counsel’s rate. Here, $400 per
hour is reasonable.
A reasonable hourly rate is the “prevailing market rate in the relevant legal

community for similar services by lawyers of reasonably comparable skills,
experience, and reputation.” Id. at 436 (quoting Norman v. Hous. Auth. of
Montgomery, 836 F.2d 1292, 1299 (11th Cir. 1988)). The applicant bears the
burden of establishing the claimed market rate. See Barnes, 168 F.3d at 427. The
Court may also use its own experience in assessing the reasonableness of attorney’s
fees. Norman, 836 F.2d at 1297.

This record supports Defendants’ requested, undisputed rate. Nearby judges
approved similar rates in comparable RICO litigation on more than one occasion.
In Omnipol, A.S. v. Worrell, for example, the court approved a $350 hourly rate
for RICO defense counsel with seven years of experience. No. 8:19-cv-794-VMC-
TGW, 2022 WL 18157514, at *3 (M.D. Fla. Dec. 19, 2022), R&R adopted, 2023 WL

130730 (Jan. 9, 2023). Likewise, in Oke v. Prontowash, LLC, the court approved
the same $350 rate in another federal RICO matter. No. 8:23-cv-2558-WFJ-TGW,
2024 WL 4894230, at *4 (M.D. Fla. Nov. 26, 2024). And more to the point, Judge
Steele recently approved the very rate that Defendants seek here—$400 per hour—
for this same attorney in a discrimination case. Jones v. Hogan Servs., Inc., No.
2:25-cv-211-JES-NPM, 2025 WL 3462532 (M.D. Fla. Dec. 2, 2025). Counsel’s

credentials bear out the reasonableness of that figure as well; he has practiced for
sixteen years and holds board certification in Employment Law. (Doc. 47 at 14-16).
Drawing from my familiarity with federal litigation in Southwest Florida,
expertise about the market value of services litigators provide, and considering the
unopposed rate, I recommend that $400 per hour be adopted as a reasonable rate.

2. Hours Reasonably Expended
The more contested question is how many of the hours Defendants billed
were reasonably expended in defense of the Florida RICO claim specifically.
Defendants ask the Court to award fees for 71.1 hours. (Doc. 47 at 19). Plaintiff, by
contrast, contends that no more than 21.89 hours can be attributed to RICO-
related work. (Doc. 48 at 11).

The answer lies somewhere in between. Having reviewed the billing records,
heavy dispositive motions practice, and competing submissions here, I find that
neither party claims a reasonable award. Instead, my recommendation is a middle
course grounded in the actual record—not either party’s characterization of it.
A. Full Intertwining Fails

Defendants’ primary position is that the Florida RICO claim was so
intertwined with the remaining nine counts that no meaningful allocation between
them is possible, so the Court should treat the entire 71.1-hour request (accounting
for a voluntary ten percent reduction) as compensable. (Doc. 47 at 17-19). The
undersigned cannot agree.
Where, as here, a party is entitled to fees for only some of the claims litigated

in a case, the Court must examine the relationship between those claims to
determine the appropriate scope of any fee award. Durden v. Citicorp Tr. Bank,
FSB, 763 F. Supp. 2d 1299, 1306 (M.D. Fla. 2011). If the claims involve a common
core of facts and related legal theories, a full fee may be awarded unless the movant
spent a separate and distinct amount of time on claims for which fees are not

authorized. Id; Yellow Pages Photos, Inc. v. Ziplocal, LP, 846 F.3d 1159, 1167 n.3
(11th Cir. 2017).
Courts find true intertwining of claims when the operative pleadings are so
tangled and poorly organized that it is functionally impossible to divide into
discrete, separately defensible claims. Filippova v. Mogilevsky, No. 18-80044-
CIV, 2019 WL 1216150, at *6-7 (S.D. Fla. Feb. 14, 2019), R&R adopted, 2019 WL

1216205 (Mar. 7, 2019). But a movant’s own characterization of the scope of
intertwined work does not control that inquiry where the record itself allows the
Court to calculate a more precise allocation. Durden, 763 F. Supp. 2d at 1310-11
(rejecting the movant’s proposed 50% self-reduction as insufficient and imposing
a larger, independently calculated reduction); see also Runion v. Bernard, No.

2:20-cv-718-JLB-KCD, 2022 WL 18492497, at *5 (M.D. Fla. Dec. 5, 2022)
(rejecting the characterization because each motion to dismiss followed a
consistent structure where discrete sections were devoted to separate claims).
The same conclusion follows here, for two reasons.
First, Plaintiff’s pleadings weren’t of a shotgun character that produced full
intertwining like Filippova. The complaint in Filippova ran 277 pages and 1,565

paragraphs, which was described as “mind numbing” and “at best incoherent and
riddled with redundancy,” among “the worst examples of civil complaints this
Court has ever seen.” 2019 WL 1216150, at *6. The issues here were more
segregable and distinct.
Second, and independently, Defendants’ own motions to dismiss undercut

their intertwining argument just as the motions in Runion defeated the same
argument. Both motions organize their RICO arguments into identifiable,
separately captioned sections that are visibly—and logically—distinct from the
sections addressing the other counts. (Doc. 23 at 11-17; Doc. 34 at 7-18).
Simply put, the Court can excise unrecoverable (or unsupported) figures
rather than swinging a hatchet at the bills to account for partially recoverable fees.

See DJ Lincoln Enters., Inc. v. Google, LLC, No. 20-CV-14159-
Rosenberg/Reinhart, 2022 WL 4287640, at *12 (S.D. Fla. July 28, 2022), R&R
adopted, 2022 WL 3754182 (Aug. 30, 2022) (awarding fees under § 772.104(3)
with a 60% across-the-board cut). The undersigned therefore declines to award the
full 71.1 hours on an intertwining theory and instead evaluates the billing records

category by category, as set out below.
B. Federal RICO Time is Recoverable
Although Defendants’ entitlement to fees rests on the Florida RICO statute
specifically, the Court finds time spent defending against the related federal RICO
claim is properly included in the award as well.
Again, a full fee is appropriate where the claims at issue share a common

core of facts and related legal theories such that no separate and distinct time was
spent on one over the other. Durden, 763 F. Supp. 2d at 1306. That describes the
relationship between the federal and Florida RICO counts at issue. Both counts
turned on the identical defect—Plaintiff’s repeated failure to plead a viable RICO
enterprise. Across both rounds of 12(b)(6) briefing, these claims were analyzed

under the same Rule 9(b) particularity standard, enterprise requirement, and
pattern-and-continuity demand. Indeed, the Court stated that “in addressing the
federal RICO claim, [it] inherently addresses the Florida RICO claim (Count II) as
well.” (Doc. 36 at 3 n.2).
The undersigned, therefore, recommends that time devoted to the RICO
claims generally be treated as an undivided category.

C. Block Billing Requires Scrutiny
Many of the disputed entries combine several distinct tasks into a single,
undifferentiated figure. That practice is itself a documentation problem
independent of the claim-allocation question. Block billing prevents the Court
from determining which portion of the fees billed on a particular date is

recoverable and which is not, and “warrants a reduction of the number of hours”
where fees are recoverable for only some of the work an entry describes. Kearney
v. Auto-Owners Ins. Co., 713 F. Supp. 2d 1369, 1377 (M.D. Fla. 2010).
The remedy is not automatic exclusion of every block-billed entry; nor is it
license to abandon the inquiry as unworkable. A court may instead use its own
judgment to reach a reasonable figure. The goal is “rough justice,” not “auditing

perfection,” and a court may rely on its overall sense of the litigation and
reasonable estimates in allocating an attorney’s time. Fox v. Vice, 563 U.S. 826,
838 (2011). This Court took exactly that approach in Runion, evaluating each
block-billed motion to dismiss, rather than attempting to parse minutes out of an
undifferentiated entry.

I believe that the Court should follow the same approach here. In doing so,
any ambiguity that block billing leaves unresolved is construed against the fee
applicant—who bears the burden of documenting hours with sufficient
particularity to permit review. Norman, 836 F.2d at 1303.
D. First Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 23)
For the first dispositive motion, which was 24 pages, Defendants request

$9,400, representing 23.5 hours of work:
Date Description Hours Amount
5/15/2025 Review amended complaint; 2 $800
Outlining arguments for MTD;
Teleconference with client.
5/16/2025 Continue outlining arguments for 3.5 $1,400
MTD, researching case law re: same,
Prepare redline of CMR.
6/3/2025 Drafting MTD and legal researching 5 $2,000
re: same.
6/4/2025 Continue drafting of MTD and legal 3.9 $1,560
research; Telephone conference with
client.
6/9/2025 Editing and drafting RICO sections 4.6 $1,840
of MTD, researching case law re
same; Teleconference with client;
Reviewing additional documents
provided by client.
6/11/2025 Finalizing MTD and editing same. 1.5 $600
6/12/2025 Final revisions and filing MTD; 2 $800
Telephone conference with client.
6/20/2025 Review and analyze Plaintiff’s 1 $400
response to MTD.
Total 23.5 $9,400

This briefing wasn’t like the perfunctory, case-quoting brief that warranted
a fifty-percent reduction in Runion. Its RICO section applies Rule 9(b), the
enterprise requirement, and the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine specifically to
Plaintiff’s pleaded allegations, rather than regurgitating abstract law. (Doc. 23 at
11-17). But the motion’s primary theory rested on the Paymaster Services
Agreements and their exculpatory and hold-harmless provisions. (Doc. 23 at 6-11).
That was a threshold argument—unrelated to RICO—occupying a substantially
larger share of the motion.
Weighing the genuine quality of the RICO argument against how much of

the motion’s overall effort it actually represents, the Court recommends 12 hours
be awarded—totaling $4,800.
The undersigned does not suggest that 23.5 hours was an unreasonable
amount of time to spend drafting a thorough dispositive motion addressing ten
claims. The problem is not that the hours billed are excessive in theory; Defendants

can only recover fees for the RICO portion of that work, which was never the whole
object that the motion tried to accomplish. Awarding the full 23.5 hours simply
because the time as a whole appears reasonable would effectively require Plaintiff
to underwrite Defendants’ defense of the nine other counts as well, which is
precisely the outcome that § 772.104(3) was designed to prevent. See Chodorow v.
Moore, 947 So. 2d 577, 579-80 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2007); Durden, 763 F. Supp. 2d

at 1306.
E. Second Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 34)
For work on the next motion, which was 26 pages, Defendants request
$6,200, representing 15.5 hours of work:
Date Description Hours Amount
7/21/2025 Review and analyze 2nd amended 5 $2,000
complaint and attached exhibits;
Compare allegations to prior pleadings;
Review order granting MTD; Begin
outlining arguments for renewed MTD
and begin drafting same
7/22/2025 Continued drafting MTD and legal 2.4 $960
research re same
7/27/2025 Continued drafting renewed MTD. 2.5 $1,000
7/28/2025 Attend Rule 16 conference; Review 2.2 $880
CMSO; Finalizing renewed MTD;
Teleconference with client.
8/11/2025 Reviewing and analyzing Plaintiff’s 3.4 $1,360
responses to renewed MTD; Comparing
arguments to Court’s prior order granting
MTD; Outlining possible reply brief re
RICO counts; Telephone conference with
client.
Total 15.5 $6,200

This motion presented the opposite circumstances from the recycled
motions in Runion. It responded to new substantive allegations in the Second
Amended Complaint—i.e., kickback, alter ego, third enterprise, and reworked
pattern-and-continuity theories. (Doc. 30 ¶¶ 26-27, 34). In fact, RICO issues
occupied the largest single section of that motion, spanning roughly eleven of its
twenty-six pages and addressing six distinct sub-issues in detail. (Doc. 34 at 7-18).
Given the genuinely new and substantial nature of this work, the undersigned
recommends 12 hours—for a total of $4,800.
As with the first motion to dismiss, this is not a finding that the 15.5 hours
billed were unreasonable in the aggregate. That time may well reflect what drafting
a twenty-six-page motion addressing ten counts actually required. The point
remains the same as in Section D: only the portion of that work devoted to the
RICO claim is recoverable. Together, Sections D and E yield 24 recoverable hours,
in place of the 39 hours Defendants seek.
F. RICO-Specific Order Review and Pre-Motion Letter
Plaintiff specifically objects to each of the following entries, characterizing
each as work that “is not work on the RICO claim.” (Doc. 48 at 4, 8, 10-11).

Date Description Hours Amount
5/5/2025 Drafting detailed email to OC .6 $240
regarding deficiencies in federal
complaint; Responding to email from
opposing counsel.
6/30/2025 Review and analyze order granting .5 $200
MTD in part.
8/20/2025 Reviewing and analyzing order .5 $200
dismissing RICO counts with
prejudice; Telephone conference with
client.
11/17/2025 Reviewing and analyzing order .3 $120
denying Rule 59 motion.
1/14/2026 Reviewing and analyzing order .5 $200
granting entitlement to attorney’s
fees; Telephone conference with
client.
Total 2.4 $960

Neither party’s position on these entries is satisfying, though for different
reasons. A bare assertion that an entry “is not work on the RICO claim,” repeated
across various unrelated entries without engaging what each entry describes, falls
short of the specific and reasonably precise objection Barnes requires. 168 F.3d at
428. Still, it would be impractical to demand that counsel specify (in every entry
across a ten-count case) exactly which claims a given task or claim touches.
Defendants’ own billing nonetheless undercuts their position as to these five
entries specifically. Where bills affirmatively describe an entry as reviewing the
order “dismissing RICO counts with prejudice” or “granting entitlement to
attorney’s fees” under RICO, counsel himself supplied the specificity that Plaintiff’s
more generalized objections otherwise lack, so he cannot then argue that allocation
is impractical. Instead of Plaintiff’s generic objections or the absence of context, it

is Defendants’ own billing descriptions that settle which entries are compensable.
Combined with the pre-motion letter, which focuses on RICO’s Rule 9(b)
predicate act and intracorporate conspiracy defects, the undersigned recommends
that all 2.4 hours be recoverable in full—totaling $960.
G. Fees for Rule 59(e) Opposition

The following entries do not appear among Plaintiff’s itemized objections,
(Doc. 48 at 10-11):
Date Description Hours Amount
9/16/2025 Reviewing and analyzing 2.2 $880
Plaintiff’s rule 59 motion;
Outlining response and legal
research re same.
9/17/2025 Reviewing Rule 59 motion and all 6 $2,400
its attachments; Drafting response
to Rule 59 motion and
finalizing/filing same.
Total 8.2 $3,280

Where a fee opponent has not lodged a specific objection to a particular
entry, the Court will not, on its own initiative, search the record for reasons to cut
it. Fox, 563 U.S. at 838 (Federal “courts need not, and indeed should not, become
green-eyeshade accountants.”). These entries also reflect substantive work
defeating Plaintiff’s attempt to resurrect the dismissed RICO claims. (Doc. 45). The
undersigned recommends all 8.2 hours are recoverable—totaling $3,280.
H. Motion for Entitlement to Fees
Defendants request $2,280 for litigating entitlement to fees and the amount,
representing 5.7 hours of work:

Date Description Hours Amount
8/28/2025 Begin drafting motion for 3.9 $1,560
entitlement to attorney’s fees, legal
research re same.
8/29/2025 Finalizing and editing motion for 1.4 $560
entitlement to attorney fees, filing
same.
9/26/2025 Reviewing and analyzing Plaintiff’s .4 $160
response to motion for entitlement
to attorney fees.
Total 5.7 $2,280

Defendants filed a motion for entitlement to fees. (Doc. 38). The Court
granted that request. (Doc. 46). “It is settled that in litigating over attorney’s fees,
a litigant may claim fees where entitlement is the issue, but may not claim
attorney’s fees incurred in litigating the amount of attorney’s fees.” N. Dade
Church of God, Inc. v. JM Statewide, Inc., 851 So. 2d 194, 196 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App.
2003). The undersigned recommends that this number is reasonable, and that
Defendants should be awarded $2,280.
I. Case Development, Discovery, and Client Communication
Plaintiff specifically objects to each of the following entries (Doc. 48 at 5-7,
9-10):
Date Description Hours Amount
4/16/2025 Reviewing federal complaint; Meeting with 2 $800
client to discuss case, obtain factual
background and plan strategy.
4/17/2025 Reviewing documents related to 1.5 $600
transaction provided by client, comparing
same against documents attached as
exhibits to federal complaint.
4/29/2025 Reviewing financial documents related to 1.1 $440
transaction provided by client.
6/11/2025 Drafting affidavit of client; Telephone 1.7 $680
conference with client.
7/30/2025 Reviewing Plaintiff’s discovery requests; 3.1 $1,240
Begin outlining objections; Telephone
conference with client.
7/31/2025 Drafting objections and responses to 2.7 $1,080
discovery requests.
7/31/2025 Reviewing file; Drafting Initial Disclosures .7 $280
8/14/2025 Drafting and revising responses to 1.4 $560
discovery requests.
Total 14.2 $5,680

Fees for work attributable equally to a RICO claim and to other claims are
not recoverable, because they would have been incurred regardless of whether
Plaintiff had asserted a RICO theory. Fernau v. Enchante Beauty Prods., Inc., No.
18-cv-20866, 2021 WL 1520755, at *9 (S.D. Fla. Mar. 11, 2021), R&R adopted, 2021
WL 1152835 (Mar. 26, 2021). None of these entries mentions RICO, and each
would have been required to defend the other counts regardless. While there may
have been RICO issues in the early discovery, the Court has no way to know. So
Defendants dropped their burden in this area. And the undersigned recommends
that all 14.2 hours be excluded.
J. Administrative and Clerical Tasks
Plaintiff also objects to each of the following entries (Doc. 48 at 5-6, 8-9):
Date Description Hours Amount
5/4/2025 Drafting notice of appearance, notice 2.3 $920
of related cases, interested persons
disclosure and notice of lead counsel
(and filing same); Outlining
arguments for MTD.
5/6/2025 Email correspondence to OC. .1 $40
5/7/2025 Reviewing email from OC; Preparing .2 $80
and filing notice to court re: plaintiff
to file an amended complaint.
5/21/2025 Email to OC. .1 $40
5/22/2025 Review email from OC; Prepare and .2 $80
file motion for enlargement of time.
6/13/2025 Drafting and filing updated 3.01(g) .1 $40
certificate.
7/10/2025 Reviewing Plaintiff’s unopposed .1 $40
motion for enlargement of time and
order granting same.
9/10/2025 Reviewing plaintiff’s motion for .1 $40
enlargement, order granting same.
Total 3.2 $1,280

Time spent on simple ministerial tasks such as filing a notice of appearance
is not compensable. N. Dade Church of God, 851 So.2d at 196. So the notice of
appearance, notice of related cases, interested-persons disclosure, notice of lead
counsel, and the 3.01(g) certificate are not compensable. The May 4 entry also
combines some purely clerical filings with “outlining arguments for MTD,” a
substantive task; this constitutes improper block billing. Kearney, 713 F. Supp. 2d
at 1377. The undersigned declines to shift this drafting time into Section D because
five other entries already account for outlining and drafting the first motion to
dismiss. The May 6 and May 21 entries are deficient too because neither identifies
the subject of the correspondence. Inadequately documented entries do not permit
the Court to assess whether the work was reasonable or related to the RICO claims.
Rowe, 472 So.2d at 1150. The entries for May 4, May 6, May 21, and June 13 are
excluded in full.
The remaining four entries stand on different footing. The May 7 and May
22 entries each reflect the preparation and filing of a substantive notice or motion,
not ministerial work. The July 10 and September 10 entries reflect review of both

a short unopposed motion and the resulting endorsed order. At .1 hours (six
minutes) apiece for reviewing two related, brief filings, those entries do not raise
an unreasonableness concern. The Court recommends .6 hours for these four
entries, totaling $240.
K. Litigating the Amount of Fees

Plaintiff objects to the following entries:
Date Description Hours Amount
1/30/2026 Attend scheduled 3.01(g) conference .5 $200
with Plaintiff’s counsel, who did not
attend.
2/3/2026 Attend scheduled 3.01(g) conference. .2 $80
2/17/2026 Begin drafting motion for attorney’s 2.5 $1,000
fees, researching same.
2/19/2026 Drafting motion for attorney’s fees. 3.1 $1,240
Total 6.3 $2,520

As stated above, fees incurred litigating the amount of a fee award, as
distinct from entitlement to one, are not recoverable. N. Dade Church of God, 851
So. 2d at 196. In general, Florida courts don’t allow “attorney’s fees incurred in
litigating the amount of attorney’s fees.” Id.; but see Mallas v. Mallas, 326 So. 3d
704, 706-07 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2021). Applying the standard to the relevant
statute, the Court recommends excluding the fees incurred due to briefing the
amount of fees (i.e., no fees for fees). Mallas, 326 So. 3d at 707. The undersigned
therefore recommends all 6.3 hours be excluded.
3. Lodestar Analysis
Having sorted the billing records into these categories, the Court arrives at
the final calculation. “When a district court finds the number of hours claimed is

unreasonably high, the court has two choices; it may conduct an hour-by-hour
analysis or it may reduce the requested hours with an across-the-board cut.” Bivins
v. Wrap It Up, Inc., 548 F.3d 1348, 1350 (11th Cir. 2008) (citing Loranger, 10 F.3d
at 783). What a court may not do is combine the two approaches to the same hours,
since doing so risks discounting the same time more than once. Id. at 1351-52. The

undersigned avoids that pitfall here by treating each category of billed time only
once. No hours have been discounted under more than one theory.
Of the 79 hours reflected in the original bill, I recommend the following as
recoverable: 12 hours for the first motion to dismiss, 12 hours for the second
motion to dismiss, 2.4 hours for RICO-specific order and pre-motion letter, 8.2
hours for the Rule 59(e) opposition, 5.7 hours for the motion for entitlement to

fees, and .6 hours for the four entries related to reviewing and drafting substantive
motions. As for the other entries, the Motion should be denied.
Accordingly, these determinations yield 40.9 recoverable hours. Multiplying
that figure by the $400 reasonable hourly rate produces a lodestar of $16,360.
RECOMMENDED:

1. Defendants’ Motion for Attorney’s Fees (Doc. 47) be GRANTED and
DENIED in part.
2. The Court should arrive at a lodestar amount of $16,360 in
attorney’s fees payable to Defendants.
In Fort Myers, Florida, on August 3, 2026.

Kevin R: Huguele
United Sta agistrate Judge
Notice to All Parties
A party has fourteen days from this date to file written objections to the
Report and Recommendation’s factual findings and legal conclusions. A party’s
failure to file written objections “waives the right to challenge on appeal the district
court’s order based on unobjected-to factual and legal conclusions.” 11th Cir. R. 3-
1. To expedite resolution, parties may file a joint notice waiving the
fourteen-day objection period.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/11434206. Public record. Not legal advice.