Page:Baker Botts L.L.P. v. ASARCO LLC.pdf/9

Rh a case addressing §330(a)’s predecessor, this Court concluded that the phrase “ ‘reasonable compensation for services rendered’ necessarily implies loyal and disinterested service in the interest of” a client. Woods v. ''City Nat. Bank & Trust Co. of Chicago, 312 U. S. 262, 268 (1941); accord, American United Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Avon Park'', 311 U. S. 138, 147 (1940). Time spent litigating a fee application against the administrator of a bankruptcy estate cannot be fairly described as “labor performed for”let alone “disinterested service to”that administrator.

This legislative decision to limit “compensation” to “services rendered” is particularly telling given that other provisions of the Bankruptcy Code expressly transfer the costs of litigation from one adversarial party to the other. Section 110(i), for instance, provides that “[i]f a bankruptcy petition preparer … commits any act that the court finds to be fraudulent, unfair, or deceptive, on the motion of the debtor, trustee, United States trustee (or the bankruptcy administrator, if any),” the bankruptcy court must “order the bankruptcy petition preparer to pay the debtor … reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs in moving for damages under this subsection.” §110(i)(1)(C). Had Congress wished to shift the burdens of fee-defense litigation under §330(a)(1) in a similar manner, it easily could have done so. We accordingly refuse “to invade the legislature’s province by redistributing litigation costs” here. Alyeska Pipeline, 421 U. S., at 271.

The law firms, the United States as amicus curiae, and the dissent resist this straightforward interpretation of the statute. The law firms and the Government each offer a theory for why §330(a)(1) expressly overrides the American Rule in the context of litigation in defense of a fee application, and the dissent embraces the latter. Neither theory is persuasive.