Civil Procedure — attorney fees

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United States Court of Appeals

Civil

Civil Procedure — attorney fees

A party may not seek reconsideration of a court’s award of attorney fees where it did not raise the issue earlier.

“It is well established that a motion to reconsider is only appropriate where a court has misunderstood a party, where the court has made a decision outside the adversarial issues presented to the court by the parties, where the court has made an error of apprehension (not of reasoning), where a significant change in the law has occurred, or where significant new facts have been discovered. Bank of Waunakee v. Rochester Cheese Sales, Inc., 906 F.2d 1185, 1191 (7th Cir. 1990).”

“The entirety of Mr. Broaddus’ argument on appeal is that the district court ‘decided Shields’ request for fees in a summary fashion’ and ‘did not hold an evidentiary hearing.’ We disagree with Mr. Broaddus that the district court’s analysis and reductions were done in a summary fashion. More importantly, Mr. Broaddus fails to explain why his belated hearing request is one of the limited circumstances where a motion to reconsider is appropriate. Therefore, we conclude that the district court did not err by not holding an evidentiary hearing after Mr. Broaddus’ belated request. For these reasons, we affirm the district court’s award of attorney’s fees.”

Affirmed.

11-1117 Broaddus v. Shields

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, St. Eve, J., Magnus-Stinson, J.