Boswell v. Shirley's Personal Care Services of Okeechobee, Inc., 211 So. 3d 210

Plaintiff sued individual and corporate defendants over a non-compete, seeking injunctive relief and damages; the suit was later voluntarily dismissed.
Defendants moved for attorney’s fees: individuals invoked the contract fee provision and Fla. Stat. §57.105(7); corporate defendant invoked Fla. Stat. §542.22.
At the first fee hearing, parties stipulated to a reasonable hourly rate ($250) and total hours (96.104); the trial court awarded $28,366.85 in fees.
On appeal this court held defendants were entitled to fees only for defending the plaintiff’s injunctive-relief claim and remanded for allocation limited to work on that claim.
On remand defendants provided time entries broken down by percentage allocation to the injunction claim (93.45%); plaintiffs contested sufficiency of the allocation evidence.
The trial court denied fees on remand for lack of adequate proof of reasonable hours for the injunction claim; the majority reverses and awards $24,026 (93.45% of prior total).

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether defendants put plaintiff on adequate pretrial notice of fee claim despite not pleading fees in the answer	Defendants failed to request fees in the answer so no entitlement	Pretrial statement sufficed to give notice	Notice via pretrial statement was sufficient (earlier decision)
Whether remand required re-proving reasonableness of rate and hours or only allocation to injunction claim	Plaintiffs: defendants failed to prove reasonable hours attributable to injunction on remand	Defendants: parties already stipulated to rate and total hours; remand required only allocation to injunction work	Remand required only allocation; no need to re-prove reasonableness of rate/hours already stipulated
Whether defendants met their burden to apportion fees where time records did not originally segregate work by claim	Plaintiffs: allocation evidence was inadequate and too imprecise	Defendants: counsel testimony, percentage allocations, and expert affidavit sufficiently apportioned time to injunction claim	Defendants met burden by allocate-by-percentage testimony and affidavit; award of $24,026 affirmed on appeal

Van Diepen v. Brown, 55 So.3d 612 (Fla. 5th DCA 2011) (party seeking fees on multiple claims must prove portion of effort attributable to fee-eligible claim)
Anglia Jacs & Co., Inc. v. Dubin, 830 So.2d 169 (Fla. 4th DCA 2002) (when claims share a common core, full fee may be awarded unless separable time is shown)
Tucker v. Tucker, 513 So.2d 733 (Fla. 2d DCA 1987) (parties may stipulate to aspects of a fee award obviating additional proof)
Effective Teleservices, Inc. v. Smith, 132 So.3d 335 (Fla. 4th DCA 2014) (guidance on apportionment where claims differ in time, parties, theories, and fee authorization)
DiStefano Constr., Inc. v. Fidelity & Deposit Co. of Md., 597 So.2d 248 (Fla. 1992) (trial court fee determinations reviewed for abuse of discretion)
Fla. Patient's Compensation Fund v. Rowe, 472 So.2d 1145 (Fla. 1985) (fee awards require specific findings as to reasonableness of hours expended)