Civil Rights, Multipliers, Reasonableness Of Fees: Ninth Circuit Confirms Significant Haircut To Serial ADA Plaintiff’s Attorney’s Fees And Costs Award

No Abuse Of Discretion In District’s Reduction Of Fees And Costs Award To $9,851 From The Requested $34,899 Where Work Was Routine And Boilerplate, There Was A Lack Of Opposition, And Much Of The Motion Practice Was Unnecessary.

            In Shayler v. 1310 PCH, LLC, Case No. 21-56130 (9^th Cir. October 24, 2022) (published), serial Americans with Disabilities Act plaintiff sued defendant  for failure to comply with regulatory requirements for accessible parking spaces.  Eight months later, plaintiff moved for summary judgment, to which defendant filed a notice of non-opposition.  Plaintiff nonetheless filed a reply brief, and – after being granted summary judgment – moved for $31,714 in attorneys’ fees and $3,185 in costs.

            Explaining that it found the hourly rates and time spent by plaintiff’s attorneys unreasonable – where two partner-level attorneys performed tasks that could have been performed by low level associates or paralegals, given the straightforward boilerplate filings in the case that did not involve complex legal issues or difficult factual discovery, and spent 17 hours on an unopposed motion for summary judgment, including 7 hours on the reply brief, the district court adopted a blended hourly rate of $300 used in similar cases and applied a 65% downward multiplier – resulting in a fees award of $7,896.  Additionally, the district court awarded reduced costs of $1,955 after taxing plaintiff’s request for reimbursement for a site inspector for which plaintiff provided no invoice and no reasonable explanation as to the inspector’s importance to the case.

            On appeal, plaintiff argued that the district court failed to provide an adequate explanation for the blended billing rate and downward multiplier.  Although the Ninth Circuit found the argument reasonable given case law on this issue (Chaudhry v. City of Los Angeles, 751 F.3d 1096, 1111 (9^th Cir. 2014) [fee award vacated for district court’s failure to explain its use of a blended billing rate]; Van Gerwen v. Guarantee Mut. Life Co., 214 F.3d 1041, 1045 (9th Cir. 2000) [upward and downward multipliers must be justified]), it found that the district court provided a “concise but clear explanation” of the grounds for its decision – with a “concise but clear” explanation requiring only enough reasoning to enable meaningful appellate review. (Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 437 (1983); Jankey v. Poop Deck, 537 F.3d 1122, 1133 (9th Cir. 2008) [discussed in our August 13, 2008 post]; Gates v. Deukmejian, 987 F.2d 1392, 1398 (9th Cir. 1992).)  Concluding that the district court’s explanations for the blended billing rate and downward multiplier sufficiently supported its reduced fee award, the Ninth Circuit found no abuse of discretion and affirmed.