Civil Rights/Lodestar/Multiplier/Substantiation Of Reasonableness Of Fees: 88% Court Ordered Reduction In Civil Rights Fee Request Reversed

 

Remanded To Decide If Multiplier Appropriate Upon Reversal of State Claim Giving Rise To Positive Enhancement.

     The Ninth Circuit in Chaudhry v. Interfaith Communities United For Justice and Peace, Case No. 11-55820 (9^th Cir. May 19, 2014) (published) is an interesting decision involving federal civil rights/attendant state law (CA Civil Code section 52.1) claims arising out of Los Angeles’ delay in notifying a Muslim family about the death of a family member so he could be buried in accordance with religious beliefs.

     After the appellate court reversed a damage limitation order on the civil rights claim and a dismissal of the state court excessive force claim, it had to address the district judge’s award of only $73,125 in attorney’s fees under the federal civil rights fee-shifting statute out of a requested $1,007,849.25—an 88% reduction of the requested fees. It vacated the fee award.

     The first problem was the district judge’s decision to award only a “blended” hourly rate of $325 per hour given the involvement of attorneys with different experience and different hourly rates. Plaintiff did submit attorney affidavits to meet the initial burden of proof, shifting the burden of the rebuttal on the defense. The district judge did not explain why $325 was the prevailing rate in the community for all of the variant attorneys involved.

     The second problem was that the 88% reduction, a big one, was not adequately explained by generalized district court conclusions of duplication/overstaffing. After all, Plaintiff had voluntarily reduced the request by 10%, and City defendants only asked for a 20% reduction. The district court also reduced the lodestar another 25% for limited success, but this had to be revisited because of the reversal of the dismissal of some of the claims.

     The third issue was that the state law claim dismissal was reversed, which carried a possible upside of a multiplier under California state law—with a remand being in order. (Mangold v. Cal. PUC, 67 F.3d 1470, 1478-1479 (9^th Cir. 1995).)

     Fee fix “re-do” ordered in this one.