$44,800 In Fees Requested, But Symbolic Victory Only Entitled A Nominal Fee Award—This Was Not A Federal Case; “Don’t Make A Federal Case Out Of That.”
An attorney got into an altercation at a police headquarters when attempting to serve a lawsuit. The police’s office for receipt for service was closed, and two officers refused to accept service, with one officer grabbing the attorney’s writing pen away from him as the attorney was attempting to write down the officer’s name and shield number—even though the officer had a relatively minor reprimand by a Civilian Complaint Review Board. The attorney also alleged that another officer threw the legal papers at the attorney, an allegation which was not proven later on. Believe it or not, the attorney filed a federal civil rights and state tort suit against the City of New York and various individual defendants, primarily law enforcement officers—mainly seeking compensatory and punitive damages.
After many of the claims were dismissed both pretrial and during trial (with the federal district judge signaling punitive damages were unwarranted), attorney eventually recovered a $1 jury verdict (no punitive damages) and then sought to recover $44,800 in fees as well as $862 in costs (only with respect to trial costs).
Chief U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon of the Southern District of New York federal court, in Rothman v. The City of New York, Case No. 19 Civ. 225 (CM) (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 30, 2020 Opinion and Order on Motion for Attorney’s Fees, Doc. No. 171), awarded attorney $1 in attorney’s fees and $862 in costs.
The main problem for the prevailing plaintiff attorney, although there is a federal civil rights fee-shifting statute, was that his victory was nominal and really symbolic in nature, not benefitting the public at large. The degree of success is a critical factor in the civil rights area, with plaintiff not achieving a meaningful victory. Although he argued that the other side would not settle, the district judge had to observe that his demands never went below five figures such that this argument was not persuasive because those demands could be prudently rejected.
Here is a great quote from this decision: “Once upon a time, we urged people not to make too much of real but petty grievances by saying, ‘Don’t make a federal case out of that.’ This lawsuit was a violation of that principle writ large.”
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