Consumer Protection: Over $69,000 in fees awarded to prevailing plaintiff in defective RV suit

Where the purchaser of an RV vehicle prevailed on her defective vehicle claim, she was awarded over $69,000 in attorneys’ fees.

Background

In January 2024, Katherine Shore sued Keystone RV Company after purchasing a defective 2022 Keystone Fuzion that Keystone warranted, but could not repair, within a reasonable amount of time. In August 2024, Shore filed an amended complaint, adding RV Retailer Virginia LLC as a defendant. In June 2025, the parties reached a settlement, resolving all claims except for Shore’s request for attorney’s fees and costs.

This case is now before the court on Shore’s motion for attorney’s fees and costs. Shore requests a total of $94,370 in attorney’s fees, with $63,605 for local counsel John Gayle of the Consumer Law Group and $30,765 for several attorneys and staff at Burdge & Wells Law Office.

Rates

In support of the requested rates, Shore provided the resumes and time records of all attorneys on the case; affidavits from attorney Gayle, Wells and Thomas Domonoske, a long-time consumer attorney whose practice is based in the Eastern District of Virginia and a consumer law fee survey prepared by an attorney in 2019.

Defendants argue that the rates requested for Gayle and Burdge are unreasonable primarily because Domonoske admitted that his normal hourly rate is $700 in the Eastern District of Virginia and that, in the Western District of Virginia, he requests and receives $500. Accordingly, defendants contend that Shore did not meet her burden of demonstrating that $700 and $565 were, respectively, reasonable hourly rates for Gayle and Burdge in the local market, and they request that the court set the reasonable rate for Gayle and Burdge at $500 (representing “the top market rate for experienced consumer law attorneys in this district”).

The court agrees with defendants that Shore did not meet her burden of establishing $700 and $565 as reasonable rates for highly experienced consumer law attorneys in this market. And, though defendants do not argue that the rates for Wells and Steuart are unreasonable, the court also finds that Shore did not meet her burden of establishing $450 and $395 as reasonable rates.

In two recent civil, but not consumer-protection, cases, this court found that $400–$450 were reasonable rates for partners. In a consumer case, this court found that $300 was a reasonable rate for an attorney with 20 years of experience in consumer law, and that a higher rate was not reasonable because the case was neither large nor complex like the civil cases where the court allowed for higher rates.

Considering the depth of Gayle’s, Burdge’s, Wells’s and Steuart’s experience in the consumer-law field, the court finds that rates of $450 for Gayle and Burdge, $400 for Wells and $300 for Steuart are reasonable top-of-market rates in the Western District of Virginia. The court finds that all other requested rates are reasonable.

Time

Though courts in this circuit have reduced hours for inter-office communications, none of the hours billed here are for communications between counsel at Burdge & Wells. Instead, they involve communications between attorneys at Burdge & Wells and Gayle, who works at a different firm. In a similar RV breach of warranty case, the court found that the 16.97 hours spent on emails between co-counsel were reasonable because it was “unsurprising” that lead counsel communicated with local counsel by email. The same rationale applies here.

Moreover, the timesheets are adequately specific as to the tasks performed by each attorney and staff member, and each entry establishes the relevance of each task to the case, including the drafting and reviewing of the complaints and motions, developing case strategy and preparing for mediation. Accordingly, the court will apply a reduction only for the two hours of overlap from Gayle’s hours, so the total hours reasonably expended among all attorneys and staff who worked on this case is 170 hours. Shore is therefore entitled to attorneys’ fees totaling $69,487.50.

Costs

Shore requests $40,599.43 in expert witness fees and $345.93 in other litigation costs, including the filing fee for pro hac vice admission, research costs and postage. Defendants argue that an award of expert witness fees requires specific statutory authority by Congress and that there is no such authority in the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. The court agrees with defendants. The Virginia Consumer Protection Act likewise does not provide explicit authority to award expert-witness fees. The court will therefore award Shore $345.93 in costs.

Plaintiff’s motion for fees and costs granted in part, denied in part.

Shore v. Keystone RV Company, Case No. 4:24-cv-00003, Oct. 9, 2025. WDVA at Danville (Cullen). VLW 025-3-422. 15 pp.