Big Lots Consumer’s Lawyer Fails in Frivolous Suit Fees Appeal

Spencer Sheehan of Sheehan & Associates PC, who regularly represents consumers in food mislabeling cases, couldn’t convince the Eleventh Circuit that a lower court excessively fined him for filing a frivolous lawsuit.

The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on Wednesday affirmed an award to Big Lots Inc. for $144,047 in attorneys’ fees. The lower court determined the award was necessary to deter Sheehan from filing the suit again in another state after multiple courts had already warned him to stop filing frivolous suits.

The fees arose out of a proposed class action over Big Lots’ labeling of its Fresh Finds label coffee. Sheehan, on behalf of his client Peggy Durant, sued the retailer in Florida and alleged 24-ounce canisters of the coffee had mislabeled how many servings the product could brew. Sheehan had previously filed a similar case in New York that had been rejected.

After the Florida court dismissed the suit against Big Lots, the retailer moved to collect attorneys’ fees from Sheehan and another attorney working on the case.

The court awarded fees to Big Lots after it found Sheehan had acted in bad faith and “perpetrated a fraud on the court” by not moving for pro hac vice admission in more than 20 cases he’d filed in that district.

Pro hac vice status allows a lawyer to work on a case in a jurisdiction in which they’re not licensed to practice. The district court said that Sheehan’s failure was part of a “concerted effort to facilitate his improper maintenance of a regular practice of law in Florida.”

The lower court also said that the mislabeling claims “were very unlikely to succeed when Sheehan filed them in New York the first time, and they were patently implausible” when he tried his luck again in Florida, and that the fine would deter him from trying again in other states.

On appeal, Sheehan argued the award was too high because the court attributed too many hours to Big Lots’ attorneys. The court based its calculation on about 182 hours of work to defend against Sheehan’s suit.

Sheehan said that number was too high because Big Lots’ attorneys were familiar with the dispute based on the work they also performed in the New York case.

“Certainly, the attorneys’ familiarity with the dispute and Sheehan’s litigation tactics saved them some time in responding to the motion to dismiss,” the Eleventh Circuit said in its per curiam opinion. “But they still had to prepare the motion and address the multiple causes of action arising under Florida law that Sheehan chose to raise in this lawsuit.”

Sheehan also argued that the award violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on excessive fines.

But he “forfeited this argument by failing to raise it in the district court,” the Eleventh Circuit said.

Judges Jill A. Pryor, Elizabeth L. Branch, and R. Lanier Anderson III comprised the panel.

Sheehan was represented by Kaufman Dolowich & Voluck LLP.

Big Lots was represented by Davis Wright Tremaine LLP.

The case is Sheehan v. Big Lots Inc., 11th Cir., No. 24-13354, unpublished 8/27/25.