Thabico Company v. Kiewit Offshore Services, Ltd., 2:16-cv-00427

Thabico Company (plaintiff) filed a third lawsuit against Kiewit Offshore Services, Ltd. (defendant) about a crane transaction after prior defeats, prompting the court to find bad-faith forum-shopping and sanctionable conduct.
The Court previously granted sanctions against Thabico under its inherent power and Rule 11 (Order Granting Sanctions, D.E. 39).
Kiewit submitted a fee claim of $99,127.16 for defense costs; Thabico failed to meaningfully oppose that amount through counsel.
Thabico attempted to file pro se objections through its president; the Court struck those filings because a corporation cannot proceed pro se.
The Court reviewed Kiewit’s billing records, applied lodestar methodology, found hourly rates and staffing reasonable, but deducted charges for duplicative/excess entries, travel, Westlaw (treated as overhead), and arithmetic errors.
After deductions, the full recoverable fee was $85,174.78; the Court awarded sanctions equal to 75% of that amount—$63,881.09—against Thabico.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether corporate plaintiff may file pro se objections	Thabico president signed objections pro se seeking to contest fees	Kiewit moved to strike corporate pro se filing as unauthorized	Court struck Thabico's pro se filings; corporations must be represented by counsel
Whether Kiewit may recover attorney's fees as sanctions under court's inherent power/Rule 11	Thabico sought to blame attorneys and relitigate merits; did not contest fee reasonableness	Kiewit sought full defense costs as sanctions, relying on inherent power and Rule 11	Court held inherent-power/Rule 11 sanctions appropriate given bad-faith filing and awarded fees (but reduced percentage)
Proper method and reasonableness of requested fees	Thabico did not meaningfully contest lodestar inputs	Kiewit used lodestar with reasonable hourly rates and staffing	Court applied lodestar, found rates/hours reasonable, made specific billing deductions, and accepted lodestar as basis
Scope of award (apportionment/blame)	Thabico argued attorneys bore responsibility	Kiewit sought sanctions only against Thabico (not its lawyers)	Court found Thabico primarily at fault but attorneys shared some responsibility; awarded 75% of recoverable fees (not 100%)

Chambers v. NASCO, 501 U.S. 32 (1991) (federal courts may use inherent power to sanction bad-faith litigation conduct)
Perdue v. Kenny A. ex rel. Winn, 559 U.S. 542 (2010) (lodestar presumption of reasonableness for fee awards)
Combs v. City of Huntington, Texas, 829 F.3d 388 (5th Cir. 2016) (district court must exclude excessive, duplicative, or inadequately documented billing)
Southwest Exp. Co., Inc. v. I.C.C., 670 F.2d 53 (5th Cir. 1982) (corporations cannot appear pro se)