1997 Ct. Sup. 8268
No. CVNH 8013Connecticut Superior Court, Judicial District of New Haven, Housing Session
August 1, 1997
MEMORANDUM OF DECISION
LEVIN, JUDGE.
This civil action for damages was noticed for trial for July CT Page 8269 29, 1997 at 11:00 a.m. Notice was sent to the defendants at the address they disclosed in their appearance. The defendants failed to appear for trial.
The court having heard the evidence finds the issues for the plaintiff. Judgment may enter for the plaintiff in the amount of $3,280.66 plus attorney’s fees for the prosecution of this action in the amount of $650.00[1] , plus taxable costs.
BY THE COURT
Bruce L. Levi Judge of the Superior Court
(Fla. 1990), reh. den. What Judge Milton Pollock of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York wrote several years ago is especially pertinent here:
The `meter’ approach (recording time) of computing compensation has created a tendency in applications of this sort to go so far as to obscure the objective value of the particular services to be evaluated in monetary terms. The meter method tends to disregard the fact that a fee for legal services must also bear a proper relationship to the value of the engagement to the client, the amount involved and the importance of the services required. The requirement that time records be kept by counsel seeking compensation through the courts was initiated as a check against runaway charges on the upside and to put in bold relief the actual time required and spent on a legal task. In short, time records were required to highlight unrestrained fee demands. However, the requirement of time records was not an invitation for the distortion of the value of the required services or the proliferation of unnecessary unwarranted activity in the light of the overall objective requirements of the case.
It is possible to spend an enormous amount of time on relatively and objectively trivial and CT Page 8270 inconsequential matter either through a failure to appreciate the overall place in the total engagement of a particular segment, or through lack of basic fundamental knowledge of the subject matter, or some other reason. Consequently, before the meter is allowed to sweep the costs out of proportion to the subject matter it is incumbent on counsel to discriminately select his activities consistent with the requirements of an engagement, but with a realistic awareness that a case may not be worth what the meter will tally up to if left to run without restraint.
Browning v. Peyton, 123 F.R.D. 75, 78 (S.D.N.Y. 1988).” GordonScalo v. Ashton, Superior Court, judicial district of Fairfield, No. CV95 320592 (March 20, 1995).