KANSAS CITY — A federal judge has awarded $11,550 in attorney fees and expenses to LTC Management Services and Health Systems after determining that the defendants in a lawsuit lacked an objectively reasonable basis for removing the case from state court to federal court.
In an order issued June 4, U.S. District Judge Greg Kays of the Western District of Missouri granted in part the plaintiffs’ fee application following an earlier ruling that remanded the case to the Jackson Circuit Court.
The court had previously concluded that the defendants’ removal of the case was improper and awarded fees and costs under federal law.
The underlying lawsuit stems from allegations by LTC Management Services and Health Systems that attorney Jonathan Steele, several affiliated law firms, Michelle White and Stephanie Alexander maliciously prosecuted a nursing home negligence case against them by using false affidavits and fabricated trial exhibits. The defendants deny those allegations.
After the case was removed to federal court, the plaintiffs sought to have it returned to state court.
On April 23, the court granted the motion to remand and determined that the defendants lacked an objectively reasonable basis for seeking federal jurisdiction.
The court subsequently invited the plaintiffs to submit a request for attorneys’ fees and costs associated with obtaining the remand.
The plaintiffs requested $33,770 in fees and expenses. According to the filing, attorney Douglas Carter sought compensation at a rate of $800 per hour for approximately 40 hours of work related to the motion to remand and the subsequent fee application.
The plaintiffs also sought compensation for seven hours of paralegal work billed at $150 per hour.
The defendants objected to the request, arguing that the amount sought was excessive given the nature of the work performed. Kays ultimately agreed that both the number of attorney hours claimed and the hourly rate requested were unreasonable under the circumstances.
In evaluating the request, the court applied the lodestar method, which calculates fees by multiplying a reasonable hourly rate by a reasonable number of hours worked.
The judge also considered a series of factors established by federal case law, including the complexity of the issues involved, the skill required, customary fees in the legal market and the results obtained.
Kays concluded that the motion to remand was not particularly complex and that existing Eighth Circuit precedent clearly dictated the outcome.
The court wrote that a competent second-year associate should have been able to handle the matter and found that 35 attorney hours was a reasonable amount of time to spend on the work.
The court also rejected Carter’s argument that $800 per hour represented a reasonable market rate for his services.
While Carter cited affidavits from other attorneys, previous court approvals of similar rates and legal industry survey data, Kays found those arguments unpersuasive in the context of a straightforward motion to remand.
The court noted that the work required competency but did not demand extraordinary skill or the type of complex litigation experience that might justify a premium billing rate.
Kays further stated that the court’s experience reviewing attorney billing records suggested that a reasonable rate for this type of work in the relevant legal market would fall between $250 and $350 per hour.
The court selected a rate of $300 per hour for attorney time and approved the requested paralegal rate of $150 per hour.
Using those figures, the court calculated an award of $10,500 for attorney work and $1,050 for paralegal work, for a total of $11,550 in attorneys’ fees and expenses.
In the final order, Kays granted the plaintiffs’ fee application in part and directed the Steele defendants to pay the $11,550 award within 21 days.
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri case number: 4:25-cv-00926
