Saunders v. Albertsons/Safeway, LLC. et al

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO
Civil Action No. 1:24-cv-00814-PAB-SBP
JAMIE LEE SAUNDERS,
Plaintiff,
v.
ALBERTSONS/SAFEWAY, LLC, 1 and
UNITED FOOD AND COMMERCIAL WORKERS UNION, LOCAL #7,
Defendants.
ORDER
Susan Prose, United States Magistrate Judge
This matter comes before the court on three motions filed by Plaintiff Jamie Lee
Saunders: a motion for costs, ECF No. 74 (“Motion for Costs”); a motion for ruling (styled as a
“Third Motion for Costs”), ECF No. 126; and a motion to strike a notice of lien filed by her
former attorney, ECF No. 125. The undersigned considers these motions pursuant to the Order of
Reference, ECF No. 32, the memoranda referring the motions, ECF Nos. 75, 127, and 28 U.S.C.
§ 636(b)(1).
The court has reviewed the motions, the related filings, and the applicable law. For the
reasons set forth below, the court now respectfully issues the following ORDER2 concerning
1 Counsel has explained that this defendant is properly referred to as “Safeway Inc.,” see ECF
No. 76 at 1, and so the court will refer to it as “Safeway” in this Order.
2 Because the motions addressed here are non-dispositive, the court proceeds by order. See Fiber
Optic Designs, Inc. v. New England Pottery, LLC, 262 F.R.D. 586, 594 (D. Colo. 2009)
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each of the motions.
A. 	Motion for Costs (ECF No. 74)3
1. 	Background
Ms. Saunders, a former meat cutter at Safeway’s store in Montrose, Colorado, see ECF
No. 1 ¶ 3, disclosed Alejandro Echeverry, Ph.D., as an expert witness “on the Food & health
Safety issued [sic] raised in her complaint” and the “Public Policy claim set forth in her
complaint[.]” See Plaintiff’s Expert Witness’s Report Disclosure dated June 19, 2025, ECF No.
96-2 at 1; see also ECF No. 1 ¶¶ 139-149 (claim asserting “Retaliation, Harassment and
Wrongful Termination for Reporting Compliance and Safety Issues in violation of Public Policy
against Defendant Safeway,” based on the alleged “mishandling of products in the Meat
Department”). Dr. Echeverry is identified as an “Associate Professor of Practice in Food
Microbiology and Food Engineering” in the “Department of Animal and Food Sciences at Texas
Tech University.” Expert Opinion of Alejandro Echeverry, Ph.D., dated June 16, 2025, ECF No.
(magistrate judge granting in part and denying in part a request to shift deposition-related fees
via an order); see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(a) (“When a pretrial matter not dispositive of a party’s
claim or defense is referred to a magistrate judge to hear and decide, the magistrate judge must
promptly conduct the required proceedings and, when appropriate, issue a written order stating
the decision.”).
3 As a preliminary matter, in its surreply, Safeway includes an embedded motion to strike the
Motion for Costs on grounds that Ms. Saunders’s reply brief was not timely filed and that she
relied on a fictional, AI-generated case. See ECF No. 86 at 3; see also ECF No. 77 at 3 (citing
Lampe v. United States, 18 F. App’x 744 (10th Cir. 2001)). The court declines to strike the
Motion for Costs. The approximately two-week delay in filing the reply caused no prejudice to
Safeway, and as to the reference to an AI-generated case, Ms. Saunders has acknowledged this
error and apologized to the court and opposing counsel. See ECF No. 84 at 2. Ms. Saunders,
however, is respectfully warned that future filings must comply with all applicable procedural
rules and that citing to hallucinated cases may result in her filings being stricken without further
analysis.
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96-2 at 4.
The record indicates that Ms. Saunders has paid Dr. Echeverry a total of $10,000 thus far:
$5,000 as an initial retainer and an additional $5,000 in expert fees after that, realized over ten
hours at a rate of $500 per hour. See ECF No. 74-3 at 3 (referencing a $5,000 “Second Retainer”
paid by Ms. Saunders on August 5, 2025). Ms. Saunders has offered no argument as to why the
original $5,000 retainer could be charged to Safeway and, accordingly, the court denies her
request for reimbursement of that initial retainer. As to the remaining $5,000 Ms. Saunders paid
Dr. Echeverry, the court must decide whether Safeway is obliged to reimburse that amount4
under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(4)(E)(i), which states that “[u]nless manifest
injustice would result, the court must require that the party seeking discovery pay the expert a
reasonable fee for time spent in responding to discovery under Rule 26(b)(4)(A) or (D).” 5
Safeway contends the answer to that question is no.
Safeway explains that it paid Dr. Echeverry $500—his requested hourly rate—for each of
the five hours he sat for his deposition on September 5, 2025, for a total payment to him of
$2,500. See ECF No. 76-1. This, Safeway argues, is the “time [he] spent in responding to
discovery,” ECF No. 76 at 4 (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(4)(E)(i)), and “Plaintiff’s expert
witness deposition preparation is an expense that properly fell on Plaintiff.” Id. (citing Benjamin
v. Gloz, 130 F.R.D. 455, 457 (D. Colo. 1998)). The analysis of whether a party is entitled to
compensation for an expert’s deposition preparation time is somewhat more nuanced than
4 Ms. Saunders asks the court to direct that Safeway pay this $5,000 directly to Dr. Echeverry.
ECF No. 74 at 3.
5 Rule 26(b)(4)(A) permits the deposition of experts, and Rule 26(b)(4)(D) regulates discovery of
experts employed only for trial preparation.
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Safeway acknowledges.
2. 	Legal Principles
Nothing in Rule 26(b)(4)(E)(i) itself, or in the accompanying Advisory Committee
Note—which states only that “the expert’s fees for the deposition will ordinarily be borne by the
party taking the deposition”—explicitly defines “responding to discovery” to encompass an
expert’s deposition preparation time. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26 advisory committee’s note to 1993
amendment; see also Fiber Optic Designs, Inc. v. New England Pottery, LLC, 262 F.R.D. 586,
591 (D. Colo. 2009) (observing that “Rule 26(b)(4)(C)6 does not specifically address whether
fees can be recovered for time spent preparing for a deposition, and case law does not provide
any consistent guidance for resolving that issue”). This court has located no opinion by the Tenth
Circuit Court of Appeals evaluating whether expert witness fees for deposition preparation time
are recoverable under Rule 26(b)(4)(E)(i), and the parties have pointed to none.
Courts within the Tenth Circuit have expressed differing points of view on the question
of compensability of preparation time for expert depositions. See Sterisil, Inc. v. ProEdge Dental
Prods., Inc, No. 13-cv-01210-REB, 2019 WL 1429280, at *4 (D. Colo. Mar. 29, 2019) (finding
that “[c]ompensation for reasonable [expert deposition] preparation time is reasonable,” and
awarding 7.5 hours of preparation time for an expert’s deposition that lasted seven hours) (citing
McCulloch v. Hartford Life and Accident Ins. Co., No. Civ. 3:01CV1115AHN, 2004 WL
2601134, at *2 (D. Conn. 2004)); Fiber Optic Designs, 262 F.R.D. at 594 (“elect[ing] to follow
6 This is the predecessor version of Rule 26(b)(4)(E)(i). See Boos v. Prison Health Servs., 212
F.R.D. 578, 579 (D. Kan. 2002) (observing that “[p]ursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
26(b)(4)(C)(i), a party seeking discovery from an expert is required to pay ‘a reasonable fee for
time spent in responding to discovery’”).
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the line of cases requiring reimbursement under Rule 26(b)(4)(C) for an expert’s deposition
preparation,” and ordering reimbursement for four hours of deposition preparation time, rather
than the requested sixteen hours); Gloz, 130 F.R.D. at 457 (finding that “exclusion of
‘preparation’ time is supported by the lack of a provision for compensation for time spent by
experts in responding to interrogatories under Rule 26(b)(4)(A)(i)”) (quoting Rhee v. Witco
Chem. Corp., 126 F.R.D. 45, 47 (N.D. Ill. 1989)); Cricut, Inc. v. Enough for Everyone, Inc., No.
2:21-cv-00601, 2024 WL 1585600, at *2 (D. Utah Apr. 11, 2024) (declining to shift fees for time
spent preparing for an expert deposition “[a]gainst [a] legal backdrop” in which “the Tenth
Circuit has not addressed this issue and district courts in this circuit are divided”); Jones v.
OfficeMax N. Am., Inc., No. 17-1219-JTM-KGG, 2018 WL 6590100, at *1 (D. Kan. Dec. 14,
2018) (“Courts have interpreted the phrase ‘time spent in responding to discovery’ to include the
‘expert’s reasonable time in preparation for the deposition.’”) (quoting Monsour’s Inc. v. Menu
Maker Foods, Inc., No. 05-1204-MLB, 2007 WL 437780, at *1-2 (D. Kan. Feb. 6, 2007)).
Looking outside the Tenth Circuit, all Circuit Courts of Appeals to address the matter
have construed Rule 26(b)(4)(E) as encompassing expert witness fees for preparation of
deposition testimony. As the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals observed:
This text [of Rule 26(b)(4)(E)(i)] is not limited to an expert’s time in the deposition;
it covers the expert’s “time spent in responding to discovery.” The time spent
preparing for a deposition falls within this language. So all of the circuit courts
to have considered this question have held that experts may seek compensation
for deposition preparation.
Phillips v. Tangilag, 14 F.4th 524, 543 (6th Cir. 2021) (emphasis added) (citing Halasa v. ITT
Educ. Servs., Inc., 690 F.3d 844, 852 (7th Cir. 2012) (affirming decision to reimburse an expert
for deposition preparation); Knight v. Kirby Inland Marine Inc., 482 F.3d 347, 356 (5th Cir.
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2007) (affirming award of discovery costs, including deposition preparation time of two expert
witnesses); Haarhuis v. Kunnan Enters., Ltd., 177 F.3d 1007, 1015 (D.C. Cir. 1999)). Very
recently, the Ninth Circuit “join[ed] the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and D.C. Circuits in holding that
reasonable expert witness deposition preparation fees are recoverable under Rule 26. [Plaintiffs’]
suggestion that such fees are never recoverable cannot be squared with Rule 26’s plain text,
which requires the ‘party seeking discovery’ to ‘pay the expert a reasonable fee for time spent in
responding to discovery under Rule 26(b)(4)(A).’” Miller v. Sawant, 114 F.4th 1071, 1076 (9th
Cir. 2024) (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(4)(E)) (citing Phillips, 14 F.4th at 543); id. at 1075
(observing that “all of the circuit courts to have considered this question have held that experts
may seek compensation for deposition preparation”) (quoting Phillips, 14 F.4th at 543).
This court, like the many others referenced here, cannot reasonably construe Rule
26(b)(4)(E)(i), and its “time spent in responding to discovery” language, as imposing a ban on
recovery for time an expert expends in deposition preparation. The court is not persuaded to a
different interpretation by Safeway’s argument that “‘time spent in responding to discovery’ does
not include the time an expert spen[ds] preparing for deposition” where, as here, “a deposition is
wholly related to pending litigation,” ECF No. 76 at 3 (emphasis added)—a proposition that
appears to be premised on language extracted from the Fiber Optic Designs case. Safeway, in
this court’s view, reads too much into the “wholly related” language from that case, which
merely reflected that court’s observation that the plaintiffs reaped a double benefit from the
deposition of defendant’s expert because there was a related parallel proceeding before the
United States Patent and Trademark Office. See 262 F.R.D. at 594 (“Having made the tactical
decision to take [the] deposition [of the defendant’s expert] in advance of a USPTO ruling and
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the filing of dispositive motions in this case, I conclude that Plaintiffs reaped the lion’s share of
any benefit derived from the expert’s deposition preparation.”). Yet the court in Fiber Optic
Designs still made a partial award for the expert’s deposition preparation time. Put simply, the
court neither made nor recognized a rule that expert deposition preparation fees cannot be
recovered in cases where the deposition is “wholly related” to the litigation, nor does this court
find any justification for doing so.
Regardless, this court is not obliged to shift all of Dr. Echeverry’s deposition preparation
time to Safeway without further consideration of the question. Instead, reasonableness is the
touchstone for the court’s assessment because only “a reasonable fee for time spent in
responding to discovery” need be paid. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(4)(E)(i) (emphasis added); see, e.g.,
Cricut, 2024 WL 1585600, at *2 (recognizing as “the fundamental questions governing whether
an expert’s deposition preparation time may be properly shifted under the rule” to be whether the
fee was “reasonable” and whether the expert’s “bill reflects only ‘time spent in responding to
discovery under Rule 26(b)(A)(4)’”). “The party seeking reimbursement for the fee bears the
burden of establishing reasonableness.” Cricut, 2024 WL 1585600, at *3 (citation modified)
(citing Barnes v. District of Columbia, 272 F.R.D. 135, 137 (D.D.C. 2011)); Fiber Optic
Designs, 262 F.R.D. at 589 (same). In assessing the reasonableness of the fee, courts look to a
variety of factors: “(1) the witness’ area of expertise; (2) the education and training required to
provide the expert insight that is sought; (3) the prevailing rates of other comparably respected
available experts; (4) the nature, quality and complexity of the discovery responses provided;
(5) the fee actually being charged to the party who retained the expert; (6) fees traditionally
charged by the expert on related matters; and [7] any other factor likely to be of assistance to the
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court in balancing the interests implicated by Rule 26.” Young v. Glob. 3, Inc., No. CIV.A.03-N-
2255(CBS), 2005 WL 1423594, at *1 (D. Colo. May 26, 2005) (quoting U.S. Energy Corp. v.
Nukem, Inc., 163 F.R.D. 344, 345-46 (D. Colo. 1995)).
3. 	Application of the Legal Principles to the Facts Here
Dr. Echeverry’s August 26, 2025 bill to Ms. Saunders contains the following categories
of pre-deposition activities billed by Dr. Echeverry at a rate of $500 per hour for most of the
activities, with the exception of a $250 hourly rate for one call with Ms. Saunders and one half-
hour block for “Material Preparation” for defense counsel7 :
• 	4.5 hours for responding to Safeway’s subpoena and communications with
defense counsel: Under the heading “Material Preparation,” Dr. Echeverry lists a
“Subpoena Duces Tecum,” which defense counsel issued. ECF No. 76 at 2. In total,
the bill reflects 3.0 hours for preparation of documentary materials in response to
the subpoena. Id. Dr. Echeverry also bills for a “Conference Call Laureen Rogers
(Holland & Hart) Document Preparation and secure sharing link, Deposition
Details,” on which he expended 1.50 hours. Id.; see also September 2, 2025 email
from Laurie Rogers at Holland & Hart LLP to Ms. Saunders, ECF No. 74-2 at 1
(stating that “my office worked with Dr. Echeverry directly to obtain the documents
responsive to Safeway’s subpoena request to him,” and that “[a]ll of the documents
he produced to us were provided to you and the Union”).
• 	5.5 hours for deposition preparation: Dr. Echeverry describes his deposition
preparation as “Colorado Retail Food Establishment Rules and Regulations”;
“Colorado Retail Food Establishment Rules and Regulations, 2013 & 2024
versions”; “FDA 2022 Food Code”; and “Final Opinion.” ECF No. 76 at 2.
Although not clearly articulated, the court assumes that Dr. Echeverry means to
state that he prepared for his deposition by reviewing these materials, including the
report he generated in this case.
• 	.50 hours for a conference call with Ms. Saunders: Dr. Echeverry seeks $250 for
7 It is unclear to the court why the latter work was billed at a $250 hourly rate in one instance and
at a $500 hourly rate in other instances.
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a thirty-minute conference call with Ms. Saunders on August 1, 2025, regarding
“Deposition update, Document Delivery.” Id.
Examining the record here pursuant to a reasonableness standard, the court begins by
observing that Safeway has not contested the reasonableness of Dr. Echeverry’s rate of $500 per
hour, at least insofar as that is his fee for the time he actually spent in deposition; as to the
reasonableness of any fee for deposition preparation time, Safeway has not addressed the
question. See generally ECF No. 76. Safeway also has not disputed the reasonableness of the
foregoing breakdown of Dr. Echeverry’s pre-deposition activities. Even so, Ms. Saunders has
presented nothing that would allow the court to evaluate the reasonableness of the $500-per-hour
fee demanded by an expert in food safety—including any information about the rates of other
experts in this field, see generally ECF Nos. 74, 77, 84—and so the court may exercise its
discretion in determining a reasonable fee for Dr. Echeverry’s pre-deposition activities. See, e.g.,
Oakley v. MSG Networks, Inc., No. 17-CV-6903 (RJS) (RFT), 2025 WL 3041936, at *16-17
(S.D.N.Y. Oct. 31, 2025) (“Where parties do not provide sufficient evidence to support the
reasonableness of the rate requested, courts may use their discretion to determine a reasonable
fee or ‘simply apply an across-the-board reduction of expert’s fees.’”) (quoting Matteo v. Kohl’s
Dept. Stores, Inc., No. 09-CV-7830 (RJS), 2012 WL 5177491, at *5 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 19, 2012),
aff’d, 533 F. App’x 1 (2d Cir. 2013)); Addison v. Gordon, 338 F.R.D. 577, 579 (S.D.N.Y. 2021)
(“If the parties provide little evidence to support their interpretation of a reasonable rate, the
court may use its discretion to determine a reasonable fee.”) (quotation omitted); Kernke v.
Menninger Clinic, Inc., No. 00-cv-2263-GTV, 2002 WL 334901, at *1 (D. Kan. Feb. 26, 2002)
(same).
Start with the work that Dr. Echeverry did in response to Safeway’s subpoena, including
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pre-deposition communications with defense counsel. This is the type of work ordinarily deemed
to be compensable under Rule 26(b)(4)(E). See, e.g., Cash v. Laurens Cnty., No. 6:23-CV-1235-
DCC-TER, 2025 WL 509272, at *3 (D.S.C. Feb. 14, 2025) (“Because time spent preparing
documents requested in connection with a deposition is time preparing for a deposition, the
undersigned agrees with Defendant that it is compensable under Rule 26(b)(4)(E).”); Thorne v.
Union Pac. Corp., No. 1:15-CV-561-RP, 2018 WL 11422083, at *2 (W.D. Tex. Sept. 27, 2018)
(“Time an expert spends responding to a deposition subpoena is time spent preparing for that
deposition. The Court therefore finds that time spent responding to a deposition subpoena is
compensable under Rule 26(b)(4)(E)(i), so long as it is reasonable.”). Safeway does not address
this point, nor does it attempt to challenge the conclusion that Dr. Echeverry expended a
reasonable amount of time in doing it.
Nevertheless, it was Ms. Saunders’s burden to demonstrate that the amount she seeks for
Dr. Echeverry’s work was reasonable, and this she has failed to do. She did not place the
subpoena in the record, and the list of discovery materials Dr. Echeverry reviewed in preparing
his expert report just ten weeks prior to his scheduled deposition is limited and would have been
readily accessible to him. See ECF No. 96-2 at 5-6. And to the extent Dr. Echeverry was asked to
produce the seven documents contained within the “References” section of his report, see id. at
29-30, these are materials published by federal and state regulatory agencies to which an expert
in food safety presumably would have had ready access. Taking into account these
circumstances—and with no information concerning the exact length of time Dr. Echeverry
spoke by phone with defense counsel to accomplish the simple logistical tasks of disseminating
his responses to the subpoena and setting up his remote deposition—the court reduces the
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compensable hours for this category of work from 4.5 hours to two hours.
Next, as to Dr. Echeverry’s rate for this work, in his report, he stated that his rate for
“review of documents and materials” is $250 per hour, in contrast with his $500-per-hour rate for
the deposition itself. Id. at 6. In the absence of any information concerning “the prevailing rates
of other comparably respected available experts” or “fees traditionally charged by the expert on
related matters,” which Ms. Saunders did not provide,8 see Young, 2005 WL 1423594, at *1, the
court finds the $250-per-hour rate reasonable for the time Dr. Echeverry expended in responding
to Safeway’s subpoena and for his conversations with defense counsel. ECF No. 76 at 2; see
Oakley, 2025 WL 3041936, at *18 (concluding that “[t]he time spent on the work appears
reasonable, but because Defendant has not shown that [the expert’s] rates were reasonable, I
award Defendant half the fees requested in connection with [the expert’s] work”).
Accordingly, Safeway is ordered to pay Dr. Echeverry $500—for two hours of time
compensated at a rate of $250 per hour—for his work in responding to Safeway’s subpoena,
including his communications with defense counsel regarding the subpoena and deposition
logistics.
Turning next to the “Deposition Preparation” component of Dr. Echeverry’s bill, several
points bear emphasizing. First, the record suggests no particular complexity in the analysis
provided by Dr. Echeverry. See Young, 2005 WL 1423594, at *1. His June 16, 2025 report
hinges on two points: (1) his review of “photographic evidence,” i.e., photographs taken by Ms.
8 Although not obliged to do so, the court undertook its own research on this point, utilizing the
Westlaw database, and was unable to locate any information identifying rates for comparable
experts in the food safety arena.
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Saunders during her employment with Safeway, and (2) Safeway’s purported failure to maintain
certain records. See generally ECF No. 96-2 passim (repeated references to “lack of records,”
“lack of equipment logs,” “lack of temperature logs,” and “lack of product traceability and
supplier verification documentation”). Second, the finalization of Dr. Echeverry’s report
occurred just seven weeks before the first billing entry reflecting his deposition preparation on
August 6, 2025. See ECF No. 76 at 2.
Under these circumstances—where the subject of an expert’s deposition was a very
recently prepared, straightforward report focused on the alleged nonexistence of records—the
court does not find the deposition preparation time for which reimbursement is sought to be
reasonable. The court respectfully declines to countenance the idea that 5.5 hours of preparation
was required to prepare for a five-hour deposition. That said, it is reasonable for an expert
witness to spend some amount of time preparing for a deposition. See Sterisil, 2019 WL
1429280, at *2. Exercising its discretion to consider the close proximity between the finalization
of Dr. Echeverry’s report and his deposition, the straightforward nature of the opinions at issue,
and a record that reflects no significant complexity, the court finds that it is reasonable to
attribute 2.5 hours of Mr. Echeverry’s time as necessary to prepare for his deposition and to
award him fees for that time in the amount of $250 per hour—the hourly amount that he bills for
“review of documents and materials,” see ECF No. 96-2 at 6—for a total of $625 for his
deposition preparation work. See Hampton v. Utah Dep’t of Corr., No. 1:18-cv-00079-CMR,
2022 WL 22888394, at *4 (D. Utah Jan. 31, 2022) (“[T]he court is not persuaded that a $500
hourly rate for preparation time is reasonable given that this was the rate charged for attending
the deposition.”) (citing Boos, 212 F.R.D. at 580) (declining to apply the same hourly rate for
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preparation time and deposition time and finding $200 per hour to be a more reasonable rate for
preparation time than the $500 per hour claimed by expert)).
Finally, the court finds that it is not reasonable to award Dr. Echeverry $250 for a thirty-
minute conference call with Ms. Saunders on August 1, 2025, concerning “Deposition update,
Document Delivery.” ECF No. 96 at 2. Time that an expert spends conferring with a party (or,
more typically, a party’s attorney) in preparation for a deposition is generally not compensable.
See, e.g., Hampton, 2022 WL 22888394, at *2 (“[T]he court agrees with Defendant that the
opposing party ‘is not responsible to pay for the time that [the expert witness] spent meeting with
[the retaining] attorneys to review her preparation.’”) (quoting Conroy v. Schafer, No. 2:06-cv-
867, 2010 WL 11566118, at *1 n.13 (D. Utah Feb. 24, 2010) (citing Boos, 212 F.R.D. at 580;
Sinclair v. Hembree & Hodgson Constr., L.L.C., No. CIV-18-938-D, 2020 WL 6479782, at *4
(W.D. Okla. July 14, 2020) (“Although Rule 26(b)(4)(E) encompasses a reasonable fee for time
spent by an expert preparing for a deposition, it does not include compensation for time devoted
by the retaining attorney to defending the deposition.”)); Cricut, 2023 WL 8019047, at *2 (D.
Utah, Nov. 20, 2023) (“[T]ime spent consulting with counsel is commonly excluded—even by
courts holding that deposition preparation is generally compensable. The rationale for fee-
shifting under Rule 26(b)(4)(E) does not support requiring Defendants to pay for such
consultation, which may fairly be characterized as part of trial preparation.”).
The court discerns no justification for taking a different approach here and accordingly
awards no fees for conversations between Ms. Saunders and Dr. Echeverry.
* 	* 	*
Based on the relevant record and in accordance with the analysis set forth above, the
court respectfully orders that Safeway pay to Dr. Echeverry a total of $1,125 for 4.5 hours of his
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pre-deposition preparation work, at a rate of $250 per hour.
B. 	Other Motions (ECF Nos. 125, 126)
The court construes Ms. Saunders’s Third Motion for Costs (ECF No. 126) as a motion
for a ruling on the Motion for Costs docketed at ECF No. 74. Accordingly, the Motion at ECF
No. 126 is granted through the issuance of this Order.
With regard to Ms. Saunders’s motion to strike her former attorney’s notice of lien (ECF
No. 125), Ms. Saunders does not address why striking the notice of lien would be an appropriate
remedy to impose in response to the deficiencies alleged by Ms. Saunders. The court finds no
cause to strike the notice of lien, nor does the court find it necessary to address the validity of the
notice at this time. Accordingly, the motion to strike is denied.
C. 	Conclusion
Consistent with the foregoing analysis, it is respectfully
ORDERED that Plaintiff’s Motion for Costs (ECF No. 74) is GRANTED in part and
DENIED in part. Defendant Safeway Inc. is ordered to pay Dr. Echeverry $1,125 for his pre-
deposition preparation work as delineated above. It is further
ORDERED that Plaintiff’s motion seeking a ruling (ECF No. 126) is GRANTED. It is
further
ORDERED that Plaintiff’s motion to strike (ECF No. 125) is DENIED. 9
9 Rule 72 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides that within fourteen (14) days after
service of a Magistrate Judge’s order or recommendation, any party may serve and file written
objections with the Clerk of the United States District Court for the District of Colorado.
28 U.S.C. §§ 636(b)(1)(A), (B); Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(a), (b). Failure to make any such objection
will result in a waiver of the right to appeal the Magistrate Judge’s order or recommendation. See
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DATED: April 16, 2026 	BY THE COURT:
______________________________
Susan Prose
United States Magistrate Judge
Sinclair Wyo. Ref. Co. v. A & B Builders, Ltd., 989 F.3d 747, 783 (10th Cir. 2021) (firm waiver
rule applies to non-dispositive orders); but see Morales-Fernandez v. INS, 418 F.3d 1116, 1119,
1122 (10th Cir. 2005) (firm waiver rule does not apply when the interests of justice require
review, including when a “pro se litigant has not been informed of the time period for objecting
and the consequences of failing to object”).
Case No. 1:24-cv-00814-PAB-SBP Document 133 filed 04/16/26 USDC Colorado
pg 15 of 15