Innovative Solutions International Inc v. Houlihan Trading Co Inc

1 THE HONORABLE JOHN C. COUGHENOUR UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON 7 AT SEATTLE INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS CASE NO. C22-0296-JCC INTERNATIONAL, INC., Plaintiff, ORDER v. HOULIHAN TRADING CO., INC, et al., Defendants.

14 This matter comes before the Court on Plaintiff Innovative Solutions International, Inc.’s (hereinafter “Plaintiff” or “Innovative”) motion for reconsideration (Dkt. No. 380). Having thoroughly considered the parties’ briefing and the relevant record, the Court hereby GRANTS in part and DENIES in part the motion for the reasons explained herein.

18 I. BACKGROUND 19 Innovative asks the Court to clarify its March 27, 2025, ruling granting in part and denying in part Innovative’s motion for treble damages, attorney fees, and post-judgment interest (Dkt. No. 377). (Dkt. No. 380 at 2.) Specifically, Innovative seeks reconsideration of the Court’s ruling to the extent it inadvertently (1) omitted Innovative’s request for attorney fees incurred in litigating the attorney fees motion, and (2) “double counted” the 20% discount for entries that were both block-billed and vague, thereby applying a 40% total discount to such entries. (See generally id.) Pilgrim’s opposes. (See generally Dkt. No. 386.)

26 // II. DISCUSSION 2 A. Legal Standard 3 Motions for reconsideration are generally disfavored. LCR 7(h)(1). They are only appropriate where there is “manifest error in the prior ruling or a showing of new facts or legal authority which could not have been brought to [the Court’s] attention earlier with reasonable diligence.” Id. “Manifest error” is “an error that is plain and indisputable, and that amounts to a complete disregard of the controlling law or the credible evidence in the record.” Munoz v. Locke, 2013 WL 12177035, slip op. at 2 (W.D. Wash. 2013) (internal citation and quotation omitted). As such, motions for reconsideration must “point out with specificity the matters which the movant believes were overlooked or misapprehended by the [C]ourt, any new matters being brought to the [C]ourt’s attention for the first time, and the particular modifications being sought in the [C]ourt’s prior ruling.” LCR 7(h)(2). In turn, reconsideration should not be used to ask the Court to “rethink what it had already thought through—rightly or wrongly.” Wilcox v. Hamilton Constr., LLC, 426 F. Supp. 3d 788, 791 (W.D. Wash. 2019) (cleaned up); see, e.g., Brown v. Murphy, 2023 WL 6481566, slip op. at 1 (W.D. Wash. 2023); Hoffman v. Transworld Sys. Inc., 2019 WL 109437, slip op. at 1 (W.D. Wash. 2019).

17 B. Innovative’s Request for Fees in Litigating Attorney Fees 18 Innovative contends that the Court may have “inadvertently omitted” Innovative’s request for attorney fees in bringing its original attorney fees motion. (Dkt. No. 380 at 2.) It rightly observes that the Court’s prior ruling “d[id] not appear to consider or discuss” this request. (Id. at 3.) In response, Pilgrim’s asserts that the Court “properly used its broad discretion to exclude those fees from the final award.” (Dkt. No. 386 at 3.)

23 The Court finds that this omission rises to the level of manifest error. That is, the Court manifestly erred in overlooking Innovative’s additional fee request when Innovative consistently raised it in its motion, reply, and declarations attached thereto, and offered controlling authority in support thereof. (See Dkt. No. 355 at 7 n.5) (citing Fisher Props., Inc. v. Arden-Mayfair, Inc., 798 P.2d 799, 807 (Wash. 1990)), (see also Dkt. Nos. 363 at 4 n.1, 364 at 2–3, 364-1). The Court therefore GRANTS Innovative’s motion for reconsideration with respect to the additional fees it incurred in bringing its original motion for attorney fees and INCREASES Innovative’s initial award of $2,974,671.60 by $86,025.60,1 for a combined total of $3,060,697.20.

5 C. Discount for Block-billed and/or Vague Entries 6 Innovative also seeks clarification from the Court as to whether it intended to “double count” the 20% discount to Innovative’s block-billed and vague entries. (See Dkt. No. 380 at 3– 4.) Said differently, Innovative contends that the Court inadvertently applied a 40% discount to time entries that Pilgrim’s challenged as both vague and block-billed. (Id. at 3) (see also, e.g., Dkt. No. 362-4 at 5) (Pilgrim’s flagged entry no. 145 as both vague and block-billed, so the Court’s prior calculation resulted in an overall 40% discount to this entry). To the extent this “double discount” was unintentional, Innovative seeks to recover an additional $62,332.40 in attorney fees. (Dkt. No. 380 at 4.)

14 The Court acknowledges that the language of its ruling was not entirely clear on this issue. Accordingly, the Court CLARIFIES that this “double discount” was, in fact, intentional.

16 That is, the Court intended to apply a 20% discount to each of Innovative’s time entries that were block-billed and/or vague. As such, if a time entry was guilty of both defects, then it fell victim to the 20% discount for each defect. Innovative does not otherwise demonstrate manifest error in the Court’s prior ruling or present new facts or legal authority that would change the Court’s analysis. See LCR 7(h)(1). The Court therefore DENIES Innovative’s motion for reconsideration with respect to the appropriate discount for vague and/or block-billed time entries.

22 III. CONCLUSION 23 For the foregoing reasons, the Court GRANTS in part and DENIES in part Plaintiff’s 1 Per Innovative’s counsel’s request, this figure represents 80% of Innovative’s total request for $107,532, and thus reflects the 20% discount the Court previously applied to Innovative’s time entries. (See Dkt. No. 380 at 3; see also Dkt. No. 377 at 9) (Court’s application of discount).

1 motion for reconsideration (Dkt. No. 380). Specifically, the Court increases the attorney fees’ award to $3,060,697.20. The Court’s method of discounting vague and/or block-billed entries remains unchanged.

5 DATED this 17th day of April 2025.

A John C. Coughenour UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE