Legal Memorandum: Calculating Attorney's Fees under FCA

Issue: Under federal law, may a district court summarily disallow attorney’s fees as ‘unfair’ when calculating attorney’s fees awardable in a False Claims Act (FCA), or qui tam, claim?

The Third Circuit has applied the long-standing principle that a prevailing party is also entitled to reimbursement for time spent litigating its fee application.  Planned Parenthood v. AG, 297 F.3d 253, 268 (3^rd Cir. 2002).  A district court cannot simply order a wholesale and summary disallowance of fees as “unfair.”  See Moreno v. City of Sacramento, 534 F.3d 1106, 1116 (9^th Cir. 2008) (holding “if all the district court offers is a conclusory statement that a fee request is too high, then we can’t tell if the court is applying its superior knowledge to trim an excessive request or if it is randomly lopping off chunks of the winning lawyer’s reasonably billed fees.”)  

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