USCA11 Case: 21-13778 Document: 62-1 Date Filed: 01/20/2023 Page: 1 of 8
[DO NOT PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 21-13778
Non-Argument Calendar
____________________
EDWARD WILLIS, JR., et al.,
Plaintiffs,
JOHN E.D. GRUNOW, JR.,
HARBOR COURSE PROPERTIES, LLC,
As successor in interest by merger to
O.R. GOLF PARTNERS, LTD, as assignees of
EDWARD WILLIS, JR. and EDUARDO WILLIS, III,
d/b/a WORMMYS,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
versus
NOVA CASUALTY COMPANY,
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2 Opinion of the Court 21-13778
Defendant,
LATHAM, LUNA, EDEN & BEAUDINE, LLP,
Claimant-Appellee.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
D.C. Docket No. 4:10-cv-10041-KMM
____________________
Before JILL PRYOR, BRASHER, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
John E.D. Grunow, Jr., and Harbor Course Properties, LLC,
contest the amount of attorney’s fees owed to their former counsel,
Latham, Luna, Eden & Beaudine, LLP. After the law firm obtained
two settlements for the clients, the clients refused to pay deferred
fees and a premium required by their fee agreement. The law firm
sought a charging lien for the total amount owed under the agree-
ment, and a magistrate judge recommended enforcing the law
firm’s charging lien. The district court adopted the magistrate
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21-13778 Opinion of the Court 3
judge’s recommendation and report, determining the law firm was
entitled to $1,012,469.99 based on the parties’ fee agreement.
On appeal, the clients argue that the district court erred in
adopting the magistrate judge’s report because it (1) improperly
considered the reasonableness of the firm’s fees and (2) overlooked
whether the firm’s hours billed violated their ethical duties to the
client. We disagree and affirm.
I.
The law firm Latham, Luna, Eden & Beaudine, LLP, repre-
sented its clients John E.D. Grunow, Jr., and Harbor Course Prop-
erties, LLC, in an environmental dispute against the clients’ con-
tractor and cutters retained by the contractor for illegally cutting
down mangrove on the clients’ property. From 2002 to 2013, the
clients paid the firm monthly. But after the clients developed con-
cerns about the cost of the ongoing litigation, the firm and clients
devised a mixed contingency fee agreement. That fee agreement
allowed the clients to pay the law firm substantially discounted
hourly rates each month, but it authorized the firm to impose ret-
rospectively higher hourly rates based on the amount of money it
recovered. For the first $1 million the firm recovered, clients were
to pay one-half of the difference between the discounted and regu-
lar rates. For any recovery over $1 million, the clients would pay
the remaining deferred fees and a premium. If the clients wished to
dispute any amount in a periodic invoice, the fee agreement re-
quired they notify the law firm within thirty days. In line with the
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4 Opinion of the Court 21-13778
fee agreement, the law firm sent the clients eighty-two invoices,
and the clients paid each within thirty days at the reduced hourly
rate.
After years of litigation, the firm recovered for the clients
two settlements: first, against the clients’ contractor and the con-
tractor’s cutters for the damaged mangrove and, second, against
the cutter’s insurance company for bad faith failure to indemnify.
The law firm calculated the amount the clients owed under the
contingency fee portion of the agreement as totaling over $1 mil-
lion based on time billed, deferred fees, and a premium. The clients
repudiated the bill, and the law firm moved to enforce a charging
lien in the district court. The matter was assigned to a magistrate
judge, who recommended enforcing the law firm’s charging lien
pursuant to the fee agreement in the amount of $1,012,469.99.
Central to this appeal, the magistrate judge rejected two ar-
guments from the clients. First, she refused to entertain the clients’
argument that the firm’s fees were unreasonable, finding the par-
ties bound by the amounts agreed to in the fee agreement. The
magistrate judge continued, “even if the Court were charged with
reviewing the reasonableness of the fees, the Client would have
waived its objections” by failing to timely object to the firm’s
monthly invoices. Second, the magistrate judge rejected the cli-
ents’ argument that the law firm wasted its money by failing to
identify “a crucial insurance law issue” before obtaining the second
settlement. The magistrate judge reasoned that the argument that
the firm “took ill-advised legal positions is not, even if true, a valid
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21-13778 Opinion of the Court 5
basis for challenging” the law firm’s entitlement to payment under
the fee agreement. The district court adopted the magistrate
judge’s recommendation and report in full. This appeal followed.
II.
Under Florida law, a “charging lien is an equitable right to
have costs and fees due an attorney for services in the suit secured
to him in the judgment or recovery in that particular suit.” Sinclair,
Louis, Siegel, Heath, Nussbaum & Zavertnik, P.A. v. Baucom,
428
So. 2d 1383, 1384 (Fla. 1983). A charging lien enforces a contract
between the attorney and client. See
id. at 1385. We “review[] a
trial court’s award of attorneys’ fees for abuse of discretion. How-
ever, a trial court’s interpretation of a contract is a matter of law
subject to a de novo standard of review.” US Acquisition, LLC v.
Tabas, Freedman, Soloff, Miller & Brown, P.A.,
87 So. 3d 1229,
1234 (Fla. 4th DCA 2012) (cleaned up).
A charging lien requires four elements: first, a valid contract,
express or implied, between the attorney and client; second, an un-
derstanding between the parties that payment is dependent upon
recovery; third, the client’s attempt to avoid payment of the fees or
a dispute over the amount involved; and fourth, timely notice of
the lien.
Id. Unless the terms of the fee agreement are “illegal, pro-
hibited, or excessive, under a periodic fee agreement for services
already performed, the lawyer is entitled to a money judgment for
the amount of fees due under the contract.” Franklin & Marbin,
P.A. v. Mascola,
711 So. 2d 46, 52 (Fla. 4th DCA 1998); see also R.
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6 Opinion of the Court 21-13778
Regulating Fla. Bar 4-1.5(d). The charging lien “is to be based on
the amount agreed with the client, not an amount to be deter-
mined by the trial court.” Gossett & Gossett, P.A. v. Mervolion,
941 So. 2d 1207, 1209 (Fla. 4th DCA 2006).
On appeal, the clients do not dispute that the four require-
ments for a valid charging lien are satisfied. Instead, they challenge
the district court’s evaluation of the fees’ reasonableness.
First, the clients contend the district court erred in adopting
the magistrate judge’s report because it was based on an incorrect
evaluation of the reasonableness of the firm’s fees. We disagree.
When attorney’s fees are governed by a contractual fee agreement,
and the client does not "dispute or otherwise question" the amount
billed, a court may not rewrite the agreement based on what it con-
siders to be a reasonable fee. See Rodriguez v. Altomare,
261 So.
3d 590, 592 (Fla. 4th DCA 2018).
Here, the district court, in adopting the magistrate judge’s
recommendation and report, did not evaluate the reasonableness
of the firm’s work or its fee. The magistrate judge explicitly de-
clined to consider the reasonableness of the fees, determining that
the fee agreement controlled. She reasoned, “even if the Court
were charged with reviewing the reasonableness of the fees, the
Client would have waived its objections” by never disputing the
firm’s monthly invoices.
Id.
The clients mistakenly point to the magistrate judge’s dis-
cussion of the firm’s alleged failure to identify “a crucial insurance
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21-13778 Opinion of the Court 7
law issue” as addressing the reasonableness of its work or fees. As
the magistrate judge explained, this is a contract action rather than
a legal malpractice suit, and her review of “certain legal positions
taken” was irrelevant to “whether the Fee Agreement was
breached and whether the resulting lien is enforceable.” She ex-
plained that the client’s “argument that the Law Firm took ill-ad-
vised legal positions is not, even if true, a valid basis for challenging
the Law Firm’s entitlement to the fees owed under the Fee Agree-
ment.”
Second, the clients contend that the district court should
have considered the reasonableness of fees—and failed to do so
here—because the firm’s number of hours charged violates its eth-
ical obligations. The clients point to the Rules Regulating the Flor-
ida Bar 4-1.5, which imposes on attorneys an ethical obligation to
“charge fair and reasonable fees regardless of how an attorney
words a fee agreement.” See Elser v. Law Offices of James M. Russ,
P.A., 679 S. 2d 309, 312 (Fla. 5th DCA 1996). “Specifically, an attor-
ney owes his or her client a duty to only charge the client for those
hours that are reasonably necessary to perform legal services under
the contract.”
Id.
The clients do not consider excessive the rates determined
in the 2013 fee agreement, but the number of hours charged.
Among other things, they allege that the firm billed for multiple
attorneys to attend depositions and meetings, that partners per-
formed tasks that could have been performed by paralegals, and
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8 Opinion of the Court 21-13778
the firm charged too much time for simple matters that should
have taken less time.
We agree with the district court that, as a matter of contract
law, the clients cannot object to the number of hours billed at this
time. The fee agreement required that, if the clients wished to ob-
ject to the hours billed, they notify the law firm within thirty days
of any invoice. Where a fee agreement specifies that the client must
object to hours billed, the client may not later assert “after-the-fact
objections to the expenditure of time that might have been avoided
if seasonably raised.” Franklin & Marbin, P.A.,
711 So. 2d at 52. Had
the clients not wanted to pay for multiple attorneys to attend a dep-
osition or for work that took too long, the clients should have
raised that objection when they received the invoice, and the firm
could have responded appropriately. Instead, the clients carefully
reviewed every invoice before paying them but objected to none.
Failing to have done so, the clients may not now attack the number
of hours billed as excessive.
Id.
III.
The district court is AFFIRMED.
