appears in the civil rights act that gave rise to title forty two section one hundred eighty eight is a very specific term of art and we know it's a very specific term of art because congress when they passed that statute in both the house and the senate hearings beforehand said that there were adopting the case law that came before and some of the case law that this supreme court had had over so we know that discretion was meant to be very specific in terms of the statute and what congress intended was that generally when you have a prevailing party in a section  cases we have here we have a classic prevailing party that absent extraordinary circumstances they're going to be entitled to their attorneys fees i mean height of the trees fees that are related to what caused them to be the prevailing party and as a result of that when the supreme court first passed on the statute and gave guidance to the lower courts in hensley versus hart they were drawn on that legislative history in inter bring the statue and they basically set up a two parts  two part task is to give guidance to the courts in what it said is that first you're going to look to see whether or not the causes of action that plaintive prevailed on that he succeeded on and the ones that he didn't succeed on prevail in all your cause of action but you have an obligation is an attorney to pursue all those related causes of action which is exactly what happened here now it's absolutely clear that pla from this case because he received twenty thousand dollars the entire lawsuit the entire core facts that he went to trial and involved the two hour detention that occurred in his clinic in what was his clinic in which he alleges that he was abused during those two hours and it's pretty clear that the jury agreed that he was abused otherwise they would have awarded twenty thousand dollars which by anybody's reckoning has to be considered a substantial award what the trial court is below and let me interrupt momentarily put off point no one but the amount of money that you're actually actually asking for this was like over three hundred thousand dollars and it was it was slightly under three hundred thousand dollars and there was a very good reason for that this was a very difficult case to prove and we could not prove what took place within that two hours without discussing what took place outside the court now i think even both sides admit it trial that the outside contacts what was going narrow the case and let me give you a very clear example plaintive submitted twenty motions in limine aim to try try to narrow the evidence in this case and this court decided not to rule on any of them which meant that plaintiff had to be prepared on all those issues which meant that we had to depose all those witnesses and all those witnesses that came in and some of those witnesses many of those witnesses were brought i defended it in the internet and the district court judge you won on the issue where there was in a related claim so you got at least partial compensation for those did you know we won on the first that yes that was an interactive related claim but then we only got partial instead of full compensation because on the second step he took it  is because you didn't win on the related claims now i'm going to cut your fees in half and that was unfair let me ask another question because it wasn't clear in my reading of this and it might be in there and i may have omitted it you got an offer of settlement under the federal rules at some point which as i understand it the other side said was of about thirty thousand dollars when did that offer of settlement come forth that i can't remember the specific date that offer came came forward at that point we've already gone through multiple motions we've gone up to the ninth circuit we've come back and done a number of depositions and the attorneys fees the amount of litigation at that point and overwhelmed what that i'm not was not that sell come early in the litigation it would have been welcome at that point but not at that point where you didn't cost at that point were overwhelming that offer and using the calculation to judge those to trial level gave you the full request of your hourly rate he reduced the hours that's right but he gave you the full request of your hourly rate that's right and the hours that were all to many reduced were not very great as i recall really we cut the hours and had only cut i'm sorry i miss in doing the calculation he disallowed some are saying these are duplicative or unnecessary right and i told them very great well every hour at three hundred dollars an hour i think is is real and substantial and district court issuing an order saying that basically he would only allow one tourney at each deposition we had already taken some depositions in santa barbara in which case there were on occasion when the plane it was the pows we only had one counselor i think we did everybody a service and were more efficient by doing it that way now after we did that the court came down with an order that sat morning i want to turn to each got this issue and we said yes but in this particular case  but in fairness to the general rule that you try to have one attorney at each deposition and the burden is really on counsel shoulda just read asian for two i run into this my past practice where as a mediator i'm the one working hardest and i have three hundred fifty dollar an hour associate in the three hundred fifteen over an hour partner sitting in the corner and i don't mean that it's not suggesting in any way in this case i'm just giving an example of what sometimes i viewed by judicial officers as a situation where cost might be cut a little bit differently in this case there isn't a generally understood that you would have one attorney except where needed and what you're saying is it was needed in  the way it's set up there so that's that's why that causes us concern obviously the fact that half the attorneys fees were caught causes us greater concern in the circumstances under which he caught it is what causes concern because in this are those claims are laid of course they're related is the fact that we got twenty thousand dollars on one and not the other substantial relief yes we prevailed we stablish that his rights have been violated what's the point of having a first  feelings about this case that are creeping in that are overriding that test once that test was done it was his burden to show that there are special circumstances in this case and he hasn't shown that there are special circumstances that make us unworthy because we were worthy and if if that point you've established the first part of the test and then you're going to undermine the first part of the past at the very least you should explain what the special circumstances are that make it so on usual that that now you're not going to follow what the you know what witness that the frantic call should we have not of deposed beforehand in order to prepare for this trial so and i think in this particular case it was very very important to the jury to know what was going on outside a clinic because if you just took what was going on at the clinic at face value you had defendants say why the dental examiners just coming up on a on a trip from paston to check the sign in the door and he invited him in and it was all pleasant and active and one of his political rivals was on the phone to both of the defendants in this case and was pushing hard for investigations there was a completely unreasonable malicious prosecution going on on the outside which they were using that inspection to walk around in look for the so called toilet seat up to form the basis of a grand theft prosecution mind you that there was a landlord tenant dispute that was never even pursued in civil court but it was  same on the defendant's recommendation who was working in the santa barbara district attorney's office for a grand theft and when that was dismissed on probable cause for probable cause going he turned around and opened the file to try to prosecute dr sundram for perjury at that hearing before they finally pulled the plug on that if you understand those things and you understand that that's what's going on in the background then you understand why two hours what happened  in that clinic may have been completely unreasonable and that's what the jury did in my closing argument i specifically said to the jury now we weren't in there and we have a he said they said regarding whether or not some racially charged things were was that but  this reasonable given everything that you know about the relationship between these parties is it reasonable that this person who supposedly recovering from cancer surgery is driving out for coston for a three hour trip just to check the sign on the door when you have a doctor who's working with him trying to get the clinic open just to see whether or not the dentist his name is on the door and all of a sudden he happens to be there with somebody from the santa barbara district attorney's office who just happens to be marriage thank you thank you very much morning the name is michael young all i'm a deputy county council with santa barbara county and with me news david indeed he is a deputy attorney general and we're going to do a split the argument so i will be taking have to answer is whether or not this was a proper exercise of judicial discretion to award one hundred and thirty thousand dollars approximately in attorney's fees when the pla recovered twenty thousand dollars in compensatory damages and as the trial judge found when he was looking at the facts after having sat through this trial that trial judge found that the plaintiff's case was virtually gutted so the question is under that scenario was it a proper exercise of discretion now we don't have a dispute in this case about what the standard that this court applies when it looks at a feel warm and determines whether or not there's been an abuse of discretion basically you look at it as a been a proper application of the law that the judge choose the right law this plaintiff what the outcome was versus what melissa clane at that point after having sat through the trial heard all the witnesses and made the pretrial rulings and the rulings that he made during the trial he made a discretionary call a discretionary call that this court under the all the case lives again it's unquestioned we're not talking about a legal dispute here really that this court should defer to now allegedly about conspiracy in the santa maria valley to in essence drive the plaintiff out of business not just that of his business but also out of his political activities and the reason supposedly that fortunately you know i was one of the trial lawyers they are so yes that was that definitely was found and that's why the judge refused and did up saying well hundred thirty thousand dollars on a twenty thousand pages seventy and seventy one there is the last of all the various ways there are others conspired against the plaintiff and there was effort and and when the plane to testify the trial his draft estimate the two thirds of it was spent on other people what was happening the political activities and even the opening brief to this court when looking at the statement of fact that five pages long one page five pages that was about what happened in that detention the rest of it was about political activities racial and messy cetera none of which ultimately the point of was successful prov at bottom as i said what this is about is an exercise of discretion and certainly one hundred thirty thousand dollars is fair compensation in a situation where the plaintiff is making a claim has actually demanded just short of three hundred thousand dollars as alleged a jury determine whether or not to be here was carefully tailored to its underlying justification as required by the fourth a what happened was that during closing argument the plaintiff's attorney made the following statement or investigator has the power to conduct an administrative search he can walk in any can conduct a search of the premises for items that are related to dental business the one thing he can do is he can bootstrap onto that and use those powers to go in and search for evidence of the crime for that you still need a search warrant and for a search warrant you go to a magistrate and you show and you show why you have a need to people that are against him that right that says that he doesn't have to consent to their entry who says the law the federal law this is a part of our blood and it part of our history says i can draw this line here and you have to that the law i mean that there are certain directions that the district courts needs to follow with respect to what is related and why what is not related and it's definitely not an abus prevail on this failure to properly identify themselves and it seems to me that no the only thing the plaintiffs need to do is bringing the testimony from the defendant and that's why we gave that rule the trial at the at the outside that's my best recollection when when the majority of the fees incurred in the case that would be before the will sixty eight offer was made because that was meeting in mediation conference and by that time all of the discovery had been completed so isn't it isn't there a fairly strong argument to say that that rule sixty eight offer is really sort of irrelevant for purposes of our discussion here given the fact that it didn't include an offer of attorney fees i mean at this point it's pretty obvious that there were obviously tens of thousands of dollars that have been incurred in preparation up to that point and you have a thirty thousand dollar offer on the table which apparently excludes from these point include speed but it my answer to that question is that if you hold that your claims are interrelated you're correct the only counts and dollars means absolutely nothing because by that time a lot of the expenses i really been incurred filed in august of one thousand nine hundred eighty eight the matter went up on appeal in january of two thousand and four and the trial was in august of two thousand and three that rule sixty eight after which was fifteen thousand is basically what we had is we had four causes of action after the appeal the four causes of action were this there was a fourth amendment claim regarding the two hours in the clinic the fourteenth amendment claim regarding the two hours in the clinic and then also a section  else is simply mechanically wrong it can't be justified in the record those four causes of the action are there is plain as day in fact the district court dismissed it made trial the two conspiracy causes that actually now i don't believe that he should have and i'll give you a clue why why we might have prevailed if that had been an issue in this case we had two defendants who went to trial on an equal protection fourteenth amendment claim they were working together you think that enough with survive basically arguing that if you win on anything you get everything when it comes to no i'm arguing that if we win we get all our fees on related claims not asking for anything more than that and that is what section nine hundred eighty eight gives us is it was on the example that was given in hensley versus our in this was a pre prison reform act case was they had six claims against the prison they were all conditions of confinement and they said if for example they only won on maybe the male issue male was improperly delivered under those cases you'd expect the court to go back and divide it up maybe ones sex you won't get all the policies but the if you read the language of