DECISION AFTER INQUEST The court presumes familiarity with the facts underlying this case but provides the following background as relevant to this inquest on attorneys’ fees. In Motion Sequence No. 04, plaintiffs Newark Rehabilitation Center, PA (“Newark Rehab”), Rehabilitation Medicine Practice of N.Y., P.L.L.C. (“Rehab Medicine”), and Jose Colon, M.D. (“Colon”) (collectively, “Plaintiffs”) moved to strike both defendants’ answers and affirmative defenses, as well as defendant Simela’s counterclaims, due to the spoliation of their cellphones, electronic information and thousands of text messages (Doc 126 [Sussman Affirmation] 2). On July 25, 2023, the court granted the motion for discovery sanctions (Doc 227 [MS 04 Decision]). Specifically, the court issued two adverse inferences: 1) an adverse inference that the missing text messages tend to show that defendants Simela and Gonzalez conspired to steal patients away from plaintiffs; and 2) another adverse inference that “Angela Polonio” and Gonzalez are one and the same (id.). Additionally, the court found that defendants behaved in a contumacious, willful and dilatory fashion, such that monetary sanctions in the form of attorneys’ fees were appropriate (id. at 4). The court awarded plaintiffs their reasonable attorneys’ fees spent uncovering defendant’s misrepresentations and for the time plaintiffs spent on the underlying motion (MS 04) (id.). Plaintiffs now seek a total of $127,564.45 in attorneys’ fees, comprised of $113,376.25 for work they did to uncover defendants’ misrepresentations and omissions, as well as for the time they spent drafting the sanctions motion. Plaintiffs also seek $14,188.20 representing plaintiffs’ counsels’ work on this fee application. As discussed further below, the court declines to award the full amount plaintiffs seek. Discussion An award of reasonable attorneys’ fees is within the sound discretion of the court (see Diakrousis v. Malanga, 61 AD3d 469 [1st Dept 2009]). When evaluating the reasonableness of attorneys’ fees, the court examines several factors, “including the time and labor required, the difficulty of the issues involved, and the skill and effectiveness of counsel…reduc[ing] the amount requested to eliminate work that was duplicative or was unnecessarily performed by an attorney, rather than a secretary or paralegal” (JK Two LLC v. Garber, 171 AD3d 496, 496 [1st Dept 2019]; S.T.A. Parking Corp. v. Lancer Ins. Co., 128 AD3d 479, 480 [1st Dept 2015]). The burden of proving the reasonableness of the requested fees is on the requesting party (EVUNP Holdings LLC v. Frydman, 154 AD3d 558, 559 [1st Dept 2017]). The court may reduce fees that are excessive (see Solow Management Corp. v. Tanger, 43 AD3d 691 [1st Dept 2007]). The court may also reduce fees where the amount requested lacks proof (Josefsson v. Keller, 141 AD2d 700 [1st Dept 1988]). Additionally, a fee award may be reduced where there is block billing — the practice of lumping multiple charges together in a single billing entry (see Matter of Silverstein v. Goodman, 113 AD3d 539, 540 [1st Dept 2014]; RMP Capital Corp. v. Victory Jet, LLC, 139 AD3d 836, 840 [2d Dept 2016] [25% reduction of fee award "due to the use of block billing, including vague and nonspecific billing entries, and the nature of th[e] lawsuit”]). Specifically, courts may reduce requested fees when the use of block billing makes it “makes it exceedingly difficult for the court to identify whether the amount of time spent on a particular task is reasonable” (546-552 W. 146th St. LLC v. Arfa, 99 AD3d 117, 123 [1st Dept 2012]). Preliminarily, plaintiffs are not entitled to recover $14,188.20 for making this fee application (Doc 229 [Giunta-Popeil Affirmation]
