Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-12-05106/USCOURTS-caDC-12-05106-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 442
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Employment
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued January 23, 2013 Decided June 11, 2013 

_______

No. 12-5106

KEVIN D. WEST,

APPELLANT

v.

JOHN E. POTTER, POSTMASTER GENERAL, U.S. POSTAL 

SERVICE,

APPELLEE

_______

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:05-cv-01339)

_______

Teresa W. Murray argued the cause and filed the briefs 

for appellant.

Richard T. Seymour, Jonathan C. Puth, and Lenore C. 

Garon were on the brief of amici curiae Metropolitan 

Washington Employment Lawyers Association, et al. in 

support of appellant.

Rhonda C. Fields, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the 

cause for appellee. With her on the brief were Ronald C. 

Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney, and R. Craig Lawrence and Alan 

Burch, Assistant U.S. Attorneys.

USCA Case #12-5106 Document #1440665 Filed: 06/11/2013 Page 1 of 11
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Before: TATEL, Circuit Judge, WILLIAMS and SENTELLE, 

Senior Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge

SENTELLE.

Concurring opinion filed by Senior Circuit Judge

WILLIAMS.

SENTELLE, Senior Circuit Judge: This case comes before 

us on Appellant Kevin D. West’s appeal of the district court’s 

order refusing to award him any compensation for delayed 

payment of attorney’s fees after his successful Title VII 

lawsuit against his employer, the United States Postal Service. 

Although the district court had discretion not to compensate 

for delay, it applied the wrong legal standard in exercising 

that discretion. Accordingly, we vacate and remand for the 

district court to determine, under the correct legal standards, 

whether compensation for delay is appropriate and, if so, by 

what means.

I. BACKGROUND

West sued USPS, claiming racial discrimination, 

retaliation, and hostile work environment. On March 14, 

2008, a jury returned a verdict in West’s favor on some of the 

retaliation claims and awarded him $90,000 plus costs. 

West’s attorney presumably knew when she took his case on 

that she would likely not receive any attorney’s fees unless 

West eventually won, which meant that there would probably 

be a significant delay between the time she rendered legal 

services to West and the time that she finally received 

compensation for those services. Compensation received 

years after services are rendered is less valuable than the same 

dollar amount received promptly. Copeland v. Marshall, 641 

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F.2d 880, 893 (D.C. Cir. 1980) (en banc) (“[P]ayment today 

for services rendered long in the past deprives the eventual 

recipient of the value of the use of the money in the 

meantime, which use, particularly in an inflationary era, is 

valuable.”). To compensate for this lost value caused by 

delayed payment, West’s motion for attorney’s fees requested 

that the district court base his fee award on his attorney’s 

higher current rates instead of the rates she charged at the 

time legal services were rendered. 

The district court referred the attorney’s fees issue to a 

United States magistrate judge, who recommended that 

West’s attorney’s fees be calculated based on historic rates 

and that his recovery should be limited to 75% to reflect 

West’s partial success on the merits. West objected to the 

magistrate judge’s Report and Recommendation, but while it 

was pending, he also filed an emergency motion for interim 

attorney’s fees. Ten days later, the district court adopted the

magistrate judge’s Report and Recommendation. 

The district court granted West’s emergency motion for 

interim attorney’s fees in part. Although the parties still 

disputed the amount of fees due to West, the district court

awarded immediate payment of the undisputed amount—

$255,915 (later increased by $23,906 to correct a math 

error)—noting that under the circumstances, it was better to 

require “the payment of an amount that is not disputed as 

quickly as possible rather than to delay the resolution of the 

parties’ dispute regarding interim fees at this time.” It added 

that “there will be an opportunity to adjudicate the difference 

when a final attorneys’ fee award is made.” Order 1, n.1, Jan. 

13, 2010, ECF No. 132. 

On December 21, 2011, the parties filed a status report, 

which provided that “there are no outstanding issues which 

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need to be resolved by the Court.” The district court

responded with an order “GRANT[ING] in part and 

DEN[YING] in part as directed in previous orders on the 

docket” West’s motion for an award of attorney’s fees. The 

order stated that “the parties have informed the court that 

there are no outstanding issues to be resolved in this case.” 

Order, Jan. 1, 2012, ECF No. 176. 

West moved for reconsideration, requesting that the 

district court allow the parties more time to finalize a 

stipulated settlement agreement. After the parties filed their 

stipulated settlement agreement, the district court issued a 

revised supplemental judgment, which explained:

The court retained jurisdiction of the case to resolve 

post-judgment issues related to equitable remedies and 

attorney’s fees. On December 1, 2011, the court 

resolved the remaining equitable issues and directed 

the parties to confer regarding any pending disputes. 

Order [#169] at 15-16. The parties informed the court 

that there were no outstanding issues to be resolved in 

this case and the court entered a supplemental 

judgment on January 4, 2011 [Docket No. 176]. 

Although there does not appear to have been any 

impediment to timely filing a notice of appeal related 

to any pre-judgment attorney’s fees issues, Plaintiff 

moved to vacate the supplemental judgment pending 

the filing of the present agreement regarding postjudgment attorney’s fees issues [Docket No. 177; 

Filed January 20, 2012]. While this revised 

supplemental judgment is arguably unnecessary, IT IS 

HEREBY ORDERED as follows: (1) Plaintiff’s 

Motion for Reconsideration [Docket No. 177] is 

GRANTED. (2) Plaintiff’s Motion for an Award of 

Attorney’s Fees [Docket No. 66] is GRANTED in part 

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and DENIED in part as directed in previous orders on 

the docket. Any remaining portion of the Motion is 

DENIED as moot pursuant to the parties’ agreement 

[Docket No. 178]. . . . This case shall remain closed.

Revised Supplemental J. 1, Feb. 10, 2012, ECF No. 179. 

West appealed.

II. DISCUSSION

A.

As always, before proceeding to the merits of this case, 

we must assure ourselves that we have jurisdiction to consider 

them. The Postmaster argues that we lack jurisdiction 

because the district court has not yet set a final amount of 

attorney’s fees to be awarded. See Gilda Marx, Inc. v. 

Wildwood Exercise, Inc., 85 F.3d 675, 677 (D.C. Cir. 1996) 

(holding that a decision awarding attorney’s fees is not 

reviewable until the district court has set the amount to be 

awarded). The district court specified that its interim 

attorney’s fees award was non-final, and it never awarded any 

other amount of fees. Therefore, the argument goes, no final 

amount of attorney’s fees was ever set in the court below. 

While appellee’s argument is certainly not frivolous, we 

ultimately disagree.

Before issuing its revised supplemental judgment, the 

district court asked both parties whether any issues remained 

to be resolved, and both responded that none remained. In its 

revised supplemental judgment, the district court reentered the

interim attorney’s fees award as a final award of fees. It even 

added a sentence denying any remaining portion of West’s 

motion for attorney’s fees as moot and declared the case 

closed. Accordingly, the interim attorney’s fees award 

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became final after the district court issued its revised 

supplemental judgment, and we have jurisdiction to hear this 

case. 

Given West’s representation to the district court that the 

interim fees award resolved all outstanding issues pertaining 

to attorney’s fees, West may well have waived any argument 

regarding the proper computation of fees at historic rates, an 

issue arguably left open by the interim fees award. See Order 

1, n.1, Jan. 13, 2010, ECF No. 132 (noting that “there will be 

an opportunity to adjudicate the difference” in the requested 

fee awards “when a final attorneys’ fee award is made”). But 

West’s challenge on appeal is instead to the use of historic 

rather than current rates to calculate the attorney’s fee award, 

an issue resolved by the district court’s adoption of the 

magistrate judge’s Report and Recommendation and not 

reopened by the interim fees award.

B.

Proceeding to the merits, West argues that the district 

court was required to award him attorney’s fees calculated at 

current rates to compensate him for delayed payment. The 

Postmaster argues that the district court did not abuse its 

discretion by refusing to award the current rates because West

failed to meet his burden to show that his request resulted in a 

reasonable attorney’s fees award. We review attorney’s fees

awards for abuse of discretion, Covington v. District of 

Columbia, 57 F.3d 1101, 1110 (D.C. Cir. 1995), but we 

review questions of law decided in the process of determining 

an award de novo, Almerfedi v. Obama, 654 F.3d 1, 5 (D.C. 

Cir. 2011).

The reasoning supporting the district court’s decision to 

use historic rates and to provide no compensation for delayed 

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payment is found in the magistrate judge’s Report and 

Recommendation that the district court accepted before 

entering the interim fee award. The magistrate judge refused

to compensate for delay not because he believed current rates 

to be an inappropriate means of compensation and the only 

one West requested. Instead, he concluded that because the 

delay was neither “unusually long” for a Title VII case nor 

occasioned by “dilatory or stalling conduct” on the part of the 

defendant, no compensation for delay was appropriate. 

Report and Recommendation 16, Oct. 13, 2009, ECF No. 110. 

In so concluding, the magistrate judge applied the wrong 

standard for evaluating whether compensation for delayed 

payment of attorney’s fees is necessary.

Title VII provides that prevailing parties may recover a 

“reasonable attorney’s fee as part of the costs.” 42 U.S.C. 

§ 2000e-5(k). A reasonable fee is one that is “adequate to 

attract competent counsel, but that does not produce windfalls 

to attorneys.” Blum v. Stenson, 465 U.S. 886, 897 (1984). 

The Supreme Court has held that there is a strong 

presumption that the fee yielded by the now-ubiquitous 

“lodestar” method, which bases fees on the prevailing market 

rates in the relevant community, is reasonable. Perdue v. 

Kenny A. ex rel. Winn, 130 S. Ct. 1662, 1672 (2010) (quoting 

City of Burlington v. Dague, 505 U.S. 557, 562 (1992)). But 

in Title VII cases like this one, attorneys are often not paid 

until long after services are rendered, and “payment today for 

services rendered long in the past deprives the eventual 

recipient of the value of the use of the money in the 

meantime, which use, particularly in an inflationary era, is 

valuable.”1

 Copeland, 641 F.2d at 893. Accordingly, the 

 1 We recognize that the language of prior decisions referring to the 

“inflationary era” is no longer applicable, which may affect the trial 

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Supreme Court has held that “an enhancement for delay in 

payment is, where appropriate, part of a reasonable attorney’s 

fee.” Missouri v. Jenkins, 491 U.S. 274, 282 (1989) (internal 

quotation marks omitted). If compensation for delay is 

necessary to provide a reasonable fee, it may be made “either 

by basing the award on current rates or by adjusting the fee 

based on historical rates to reflect its present value.” Perdue, 

130 S. Ct. at 1675 (internal quotation marks omitted). For 

example, instead of using current rates, courts may also 

compensate for delay by adding interest to the historic rate so 

that the amount paid today reflects the approximate value of 

the historical rates charged at the time services were rendered. 

Cf. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-16(d) (making interest available in 

Title VII litigation). 

As noted above, the magistrate judge recited as factors in 

his refusal to provide compensation for delay in payment that 

the delay was neither unusually long nor attributable to the 

defendant’s dilatory or stalling conduct. While these may be 

appropriate factors to consider in whether to award an 

adjustment for delay, neither we nor the Supreme Court have 

deemed them exclusive. See Action on Smoking and Health v. 

Civil Aeronautics Bd., 724 F.2d 211, 219 (D.C. Cir. 1988) 

(compensating for delayed payment of fees where a 

significant part of the four-year delay was attributable to “the 

[defendant’s] six requests for stays”). It appears that the 

magistrate judge may have thought them necessary rather than 

sufficient. We are not suggesting that they are inappropriate 

factors, but we are returning the question to the district court 

for resolution of an appropriate adjustment, if any, based on 

the delay without the apparent assumption that none could be 

made in the absence of the enumerated factors.

 

court’s determination on remand of the appropriateness or the 

appropriate level of compensation for the delay in payment.

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We do not hold that compensation for delay is always

necessary in Title VII cases. The magistrate judge may have

had discretion not to compensate for delay at all. By way of

example, and not exhaustion, if he determined that West’s 

counsel had anticipated the delayed payment and built 

compensation for that delay into the lodestar figure, he might 

have held no further compensation necessary. See Copeland, 

641 F.2d at 893 n.23. Or a brief delay in payment might not 

warrant any adjustment for the lost value of money. Rulings 

such as these we would review for abuse of discretion. But 

the magistrate judge appears to have treated the two factors 

discussed above as necessary to time delay enhancement 

when they were at most relevant factors.

III. CONCLUSION

Accordingly, we vacate and remand for the district court 

to determine, under the correct legal standards, whether 

compensation for delay is appropriate and, if so, by what 

means.

So ordered.

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 WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge, concurring: I concur 

fully in the court’s opinion, and write separately only to note 

problems with the assumption that an award of current rates is 

a suitable means for compensating counsel for delay in the 

payment of fees. 

A number of variables are relevant. Three simple 

examples will illustrate some basic problems. In two, use of 

current rates may undercompensate; in the third, it may 

overcompensate. 

First, suppose that over the relevant period there has been 

zero general price inflation, no price inflation has been 

expected,1

 and lawyers’ compensation has, along with average 

prices, been flat. In such a case current rates will simply be 

the same as the historic rates. On these facts, use of current 

rates will not in fact compensate for delay in payment. 

Second, assume now there has been general price 

inflation and that lawyers’ compensation has moved exactly in 

tandem with the CPI. While use of current rates would 

compensate for inflation, it would not compensate for the 

delay in payment. In economic substance, the results are the 

same as in the first case. 

 Third, assume the existence of general price inflation (in 

line with expected inflation) and a considerably higher rate of 

increase in lawyers’ compensation. This in fact appears to 

have been the case in the 25 years from 1987 to 2012, with an 

increase in lawyers’ remuneration roughly twice the increase 

 1

 Long-run nominal interest rates are a function of real interest 

rates and expected inflation. Of course expected inflation may 

differ from realized inflation. I’m telescoping the two for 

simplicity’s sake. 

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in prices generally. See http://metricmash.com/349k (last 

visited May 29, 2013). In such a case, obviously, use of 

current rates may well overcompensate the lawyer, giving him 

high pay for work performed in a period of (relatively) modest 

compensation. 

Further complication is added if the individual lawyer in 

question is able in the later period to command higher rates 

than before, in line with growing experience and reputation. 

Of course the lawyer’s work will often be spread over several 

years, and thus command varying rates over the periods 

performed. Compensation at current rates for the entire 

period would compensate a relatively junior attorney at more 

than he or she would have commanded in the earlier period(s). 

 Accordingly, although one can certainly construct a case 

where use of current rates would yield a figure giving roughly 

correct compensation for delay, there is no general principle 

supporting such use. Given the complications in assessing the 

suitability of using current rates, plus the improvements in 

ability to secure interest rate data and to make the 

computations necessary for straightforward addition of 

interest, I suspect it will in most and perhaps all cases be 

easier and more accurate for courts, when they believe that it 

is suitable to compensate for delay, to do so simply by 

awarding interest at the nominal rate(s) prevailing over the 

period(s) of delay. 

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