10-1889 & 10-3083 Pakovich v. Verizon LTD Plan

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Employment
ERISA

Once an ERISA plan pays the desired benefits, a court case challenging the denial of benefits is moot; the court retains jurisdiction over a fee request; but the request for fees must be substantiated.

“First, she concedes that the district court had discretion to deny her fee claim, but points out that the Plan did not challenge the time her counsel claims to have devoted to the case, her counsel’s hourly rate, or the costs sought, and argues that the district court thus abused its discretion in denying fees. Pakovich misunderstands the law. The district court was not obliged to award fees merely because the Plan did not specifically oppose those elements of Pakovich’s fee claim, especially when Pakovich’s fee petition nowhere argued that a $300 rate was reasonable; it merely used that figure to calculate its fees in one of the exhibits attached to its petition. It was Pakovich’s burden to present evidence of a reasonable rate, see Stark v. PPM Am., Inc., 354 F.3d 666, 674 (7th Cir. 2004), among other things, and the district court had no obligation to scour Pakovich’s filings looking for evidence that might have satisfied that burden. Further, we disagree with Pakovich’s contention that the Plan conceded in its opposition to her fee petition that $300 was a reasonable hourly rate. It merely calculated for the sake of argument the fees to which it believed Pakovich should be entitled if the court used the rate Pakovich requested; it did not concede that the rate was reasonable. Finally, Pakovich’s argument that her failure to adequately substantiate her fee request was inadvertent and excusable under Rule 60(b) is unhelpful. Without more, we find no abuse of discretion.”

Vacated in part, and Affirmed in part.

10-1889 & 10-3083 Pakovich v. Verizon LTD Plan

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, Reagan, J., Flaum, J.

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