Judge calls lawyer's fee 'excessive'
A federal judge in Boston has sharply reduced the fee a Texas lawyer can charge two Filipino ship workers who won a government whistle-blower payment, calling the lawyer's attempt to bill his clients nearly $300,000 "unethically excessive."
The workers were among 12 employees aboard several oil tankers that illegally dumped waste in waters from Maine to California from 2001 to 2003. As a result of reports the workers made to the Coast Guard, the firm that operated the ships, New York-based
Most of the lawyers involved in the case billed the workers less than $10,000 for their legal work, and one attorney did the work for free. But Beaumont, Texas, lawyer Zachary J. Hawthorn brokered a 33 percent contingency fee arrangement for his two clients, an amount that would have totaled nearly $300,000.
In his ruling, issued last week, US Magistrate Judge Robert B. Collings called Hawthorn's requested fee "unethically excessive" and concluded that charging $25,000 per client, or $50,000 total, would be the "outer limit of reasonableness."
Reached in Texas, Hawthorn criticized the decision as "wrong" and said he plans to appeal it. He maintains that the court system has no right to interfere with a fee arrangement agreed to by his clients, and he insists that their cases were more complicated than those of the other ship workers. Had he not interceded on their behalf, Hawthorn said, John O. Altura and Benedict A. Barroso were at risk of not receiving whistle-blower payments at all.
In explaining his decision, Collings wrote that Hawthorn "probably overstates the impact that his own legal efforts could realistically have had on the result here" and "was never at risk of expending a substantial amount of time and resources" on the case.
Federal prosecutors, as well as several private lawyers involved in the case, had contended that all 12 ship workers were nearly guaranteed to receive whistle-blower money because none of the parties in the case opposed the payments. In legal documents, US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan and assistant US Attorney Jonathan F. Mitchell described Hawthorn's requested fee as "grossly disproportionate to the amount and importance of the work Hawthorn performed."
They also suggested he took advantage of unsophisticated ship hands who are not native English speakers, and they contended his work was "materially indistinguishable" from that of the other lawyers, who were paid far less.
In his decision, Collings concluded that "it was by no means a foregone conclusion that [Hawthorn's] clients would be entitled to a whistle-blower award." But Collings noted that Altura and Barroso's fates hinged largely on whether government officials recommended they receive the money. Ultimately, the government made that recommendation, paving the way for the two men to receive their awards, and leaving little legal work for Hawthorn to do, Collings wrote.
Hawthorn argues that Collings had no jurisdiction in the matter, and that the case should have been dealt with in Texas, where it originated. He also contends that since Altura and Barroso could not afford a private attorney, a contingency fee was their only way to access to the courts.
But Allison D. Burroughs, a Boston lawyer who represented one of the ship workers and charged less than $10,000 for her services, does not believe a contingency fee was appropriate in the case. "There ended up being a government-generated windfall for these people, so why should any lawyer feel like they're entitled to any of that?" she said.
Neither Altura nor Barroso, who live in the Philippines, could be reached for comment yesterday.
Because the illegal dumping was so widespread, the cases were investigated in several states and the ship workers were represented by lawyers across the country. All the cases eventually were consolidated in Massachusetts.
Sacha Pfeiffer can be reached at pfeiffer@globe.com.
