Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-2_03-cv-02402/USCOURTS-caed-2_03-cv-02402-1/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 42:12101 Americans with Disabilities Act

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

----oo0oo----

SHERIE WHITE,

NO. CIV. S 03-2402 MCE KJM

Plaintiff,

v. MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

SAVE MART SUPERMARKETS dba

FOOD MAXX; WRI GOLDEN STATE,

LLC; and DOES 1 through 10,

Defendants.

----oo0oo----

Through the present motion, Plaintiff Sherie White

(“Plaintiff”) seeks attorney’s fees and litigation expenses,

pursuant to both state law and 42 U.S.C. § 12205 of the Americans

with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), following her settlement with

Defendant SaveMart Supermarkets dba Food Maxx (“SaveMart”) for

violations of Title III of the ADA pertaining to SaveMart’s

facility located at 1330 Churn Creek Road in Redding, California.

Plaintiff requests $11,211.25 for fees incurred by various

attorneys and paralegals, and $5,927.64 in costs and litigation

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expenses, for a total of $17,138.89. Save Mart opposes

Plaintiff’s motion, claiming that the fees and expenses sought

are unwarranted, unreasonable and/or excessive.

BACKGROUND

This dispute arises from Plaintiff’s claim that she

encountered various architectural barriers when attempting to

visit SaveMart’s Redding facility. Plaintiff is a quadriplegic

unable to walk, stand or use her arms. Plaintiff must use an

electronic wheelchair when traveling about in public.

Plaintiff filed her complaint against Save Mart on November

18, 2003. Thereafter, her counsel conducted site assessments of

the Save Mart facility and had a report prepared which listed

some thirty-nine (39) separate ADA violations within that

facility. In August of 2005, Plaintiff and SaveMart entered into

a settlement agreement pursuant to which SaveMart agreed to pay

Plaintiff damages in the amount of $4,000 and to remedy certain

of the claimed ADA violations. Prior to settling the case,

Plaintiff dropped her demands pertaining to many of the alleged

violations identified in the site report prepared by her expert. 

Specifically, Plaintiff did not pursue some eighteen (18) claims

pertaining to deficiencies involving the men’s restroom.

Since the parties also agreed that the Court would retain

jurisdiction to hear Plaintiff’s request for fees and expenses,

the present motion was filed on September 14, 2005.

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STANDARD

Plaintiff’s complaint alleged violations of federal and

California law. Plaintiff’s federal claim arose under the ADA,

while her state law claims arose under the California’s Unruh

Act, Cal. Civ. Code § 51, California Health & Safety Code §

19953, and the California Disabled Persons Act, Cal. Civ. Code §

54-55. 

Section 12205 of the ADA authorizes a court, in its

discretion, to “allow the prevailing party, other than the United

States, a reasonable attorney’s fee, including litigation

expenses, and costs . . . .” 42 U.S.C. § 12205. A prevailing

plaintiff under a statute so worded “should ordinarily recover an

attorney’s fee unless special circumstances would render such an

award unjust.” Barrios v. Cal. Interscholastic Fed’n, 277 F.3d

1128, 1134 (9 Cir. 2002), quoting Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 th

U.S. 424, 429 (1983). A plaintiff who enters a legally

enforceable settlement agreement is considered a prevailing

party. Id.

Section 55 of the California Disabled Persons Act provides

that “the prevailing party in the action shall be entitled to

recover reasonable attorney’s fees.” Cal. Civ. Code § 55. Also,

under California Health & Safety Code § 19953, “[a]ny person who

is aggrieved or potentially aggrieved by a violation of this part

. . . may bring an action to enjoin the violation. The

prevailing party in the action shall be entitled to recover

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reasonable attorney’s fees.” 

ANALYSIS

SaveMart does not dispute that this Court has discretion to

award Plaintiff, as the prevailing party in this litigation, both

attorneys’ fees, as well as litigation expenses and costs, in

pursuing her case. Rite Aid nonetheless asserts that the Court

should exercise its discretion in determining that, under the

circumstances present, those fees and expenses should either be

disallowed in their entirety or significantly reduced.

SaveMart first asks the Court to follow the Central

District’s recent decision in Doran v. Del Taco, Inc., 373 F.

Supp. 2d 1028 (C.D. Cal. 2005), which denied attorneys’ fees in

an ADA case where the plaintiff had neither provided prelitigation notice of his intent to sue nor afforded the

defendant, prior to suit, a reasonable opportunity to cure any

alleged violations. As even the Doran court recognized,

however, there is no Ninth Circuit precedent requiring an ADA

plaintiff to provide notice before filing suit. Id. at 1031. 

Indeed, in Botosan v. Paul McNally Realty, 216 F.3d 827, 832 (9th

Cir. 2000), the Ninth Circuit held squarely to the contrary. 

Moreover, as Doran further concedes, repeated efforts by Congress

to amend the ADA to provide pre-suit notice have uniformly

failed. Id. Consequently, even assuming Plaintiff failed to

provide SaveMart with adequate notice of its ADA shortcomings

before instituting this lawsuit, the Court declines to rely on

the reasoning of Doran in altogether denying Plaintiff’s instant

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request for fees/expenses.

This Court must therefore determine the extent to which

attorneys’ fees and litigation expenses are recoverable. In

making that assessment, the Court must identify the applicable

“lodestar” for calculating attorneys’ fees. Under the lodestar

method, a court multiplies the number of hours the prevailing

attorney reasonably expended on the litigation by a reasonable

hourly rate. See Hensley, 461 U.S. at 433; see also Ketchum v.

Moses, 24 Cal. 4th 1122, 1132 (2001) (expressly approving the use

of prevailing hourly rates as a basis for the lodestar). Courts

may then adjust the lodestar to reflect other aspects of the

case. See Kerr v. Screen Extras Guild, Inc., 526 F.2d 67, 70

(9th Cir. 1975); see also Serrano v. Priest, 20 Cal. 3d 25

(1977). That adjustment can go either upwards or downwards

depending on the circumstances present. Van Gerwen v. Guar. Mut.

Life Co., 214 F.3d 1041, 1045 (9 Cir. 2000). th

Turning first to the number of hours reasonably billed, the

Court finds that the amounts claimed by Plaintiff for certain

tasks are unreasonable and must be adjusted accordingly. As

SaveMart points out, Plaintiff’s counsel has filed literally

hundreds of ADA lawsuits similar to this one. Those cases share

similar pleadings, discovery requests and motions. Certain of

the documents generated in this matter are almost identical to

those generated in other cases, and the reasonable fee claimed by

Plaintiff’s counsel in performing those tasks must therefore be

reduced. After analyzing the billing entries generated by

Plaintiff’s counsel, along with evidence submitted by SaveMart,

the Court finds that a total of 4.55 hours billed by attorney

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Save Mart does argue that certain paralegal costs should be 1

disallowed because they were “clerical/secretarial” in nature. 

The Court declines, however, to parse the paralegal tasks

performed that closely and will permit reimbursement of the

amounts claimed by Plaintiff for paralegal services

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Lynn Hubbard at $250/hour are not reasonable, and that a further

3.0 hours of paralegal time at $75/hour is also not reasonable. 

Consequently $1,137.50 will be deducted from the total attorneys’

fees sought on behalf of Plaintiff.

While SaveMart also claims that hours expended by paralegals

in this matter are not legally compensable, and hence are

unreasonable, that is incorrect. Paralegal time has been

consistently deemed compensable by federal courts if the local

practice is to separately bill clients for paralegal services. 

See, e.g., Missouri v. Jenkins, 491 U.S. 274, 285-87 (1989);

United Steelworkers of America v. Phelps Dodge Corp. 896 F.2d

403, 407-08 (9 Cir. 1990). The defense has not disputed that th

paralegal services are so billed, and accordingly the hours spent

are deemed reasonable.1

The above analysis all pertains to the reasonableness

of the number of hours for which compensation is sought. The

second step of the lodestar analysis requires that the rate

sought to be charged per hour also be reasonable. Courts

generally calculate reasonable hourly rates according to the

prevailing market rates in the relevant legal community. Blum v.

Stenson, 465 U.S. 886, 895 (1984). The general rule is that

courts use the rates of attorneys practicing in the forum

district, in this case, the Eastern District of California. 

Gates v. Deukmejian, 987 F.2d 1392,1405 (1993); Davis v. Mason

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County, 927 F.2d 1473, 1488 (9th Cir. 1991), cert. denied 502

U.S. 899 (1991). 

The burden is on the fee applicant to produce satisfactory

evidence that the requested rates are “in line with those

prevailing in the community for similar services by lawyers of

reasonably comparable skill, experience and reputation.” Blum,

465 U.S. at 895 n.11. A court will normally deem a rate

determined this way to be reasonable. Id.

While the Court agrees with Plaintiff that the both the

$250/hour rate sought on behalf of attorney Lynn Hubbard is

reasonable, and further concurs that the rate of $75/hour claimed

for paralegal services is also reasonable, it does not agree that

$175/hour, as sought for associate attorney Scott Hubbard’s time,

is reasonable. Courts in this district have generally limited

associate attorney compensation to $150 per hour in cases of this

nature. See, e.g., Loskot v. USA Gas Corporation, CIV. S-01-2125

WBS KJM (E.D. Cal. April 26, 2004); Pickern v. Marino’s Pizza &

Italian Rest., CIV. S-01-1096 WBS GGH (E.D. Cal. April 9, 2003);

Loskot v. Pine Street Sch. Off. Bldg., CIV. S-00-2405 DFL JFM

(E.D. Cal. Nov. 7, 2002). Consequently, the 7.85 hours sought

for Scott Hubbard’s services should be reduced from $1,373.75 to

$1,177.50, for a total net reduction of $196.25 from the

attorneys’ fees claimed herein.

As outlined above, after deducting time not deemed by the

Court to have been reasonably expended in this matter

($1,137.50), and after adjusting the hours claimed to a

reasonable hourly rate (for an additional deduction of $196.25

from the originally claimed total of $11,211.25 in attorney and

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paralegal fees), a lodestar figure for professional fees in this

matter is calculated to be $9,877.50. SaveMart claims this

figure should also be reduced to reflect the fact that Plaintiff

ultimately abandoned many of the ADA compliance demands she

initially made in connection with this case. Specifically, of

some thirty-nine (39) different claimed violations identified in

Plaintiff’s expert report as constituting disability access

violations, Plaintiff dropped eighteen (18) before deciding to

settle this case. Those eighteen (18) alleged violations all

pertained to claimed inadequacies involving the men’s restroom,

claims that as a woman Plaintiff lacked standing to pursue under

the ADA. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-61

(1992).

In assessing whether the lodestar figure should be adjusted,

the Court must consider the extent to which Plaintiff prevailed

on the demands presented, especially if she did not succeed on

such demands in their entirety. Schwarz v. Sec’y of Health &

Human Servs., 73 F.3d 895, 901 (9 Cir. 1995). In cases th

achieving partial success, courts must follow a two-part analysis

in deciding whether to reduce an attorneys’ fee award: 

First, the court asks whether the claims upon which the

plaintiff failed to prevail were related to the plaintiff’s

successful claims. If unrelated, the final fee award may

not include time expended on the unsuccessful claims. If

the unsuccessful and successful claims are related, then the

court must apply the second part of the analysis, in which

the court evaluates the ‘significance of the overall relief

obtained by the plaintiff in relation to the hours

reasonably expended on the litigation.’ If the plaintiff

obtained ‘excellent results,’ full compensation may be

appropriate, but if only partial or limited success’ was

obtained, full compensation may be excessive. Such

decisions are within the district court’s discretion.

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Id. at 901-02. In determining whether the unsuccessful and

successful claims are related,

...the test is whether relief sought on the unsuccessful

claim is intended to remedy a course of conduct entirely

distinct and separate from the course of conduct that gave

rise to the injury on which the relief granted is premised. 

Thus, the focus is to be on whether the unsuccessful and

successful claims arose out of the same course of conduct.

Id. at 903, quoting Thorne v. City of El Segundo, 802 F.2d 1131, 

1141 (9 Cir. 1986). If a court finds the unsuccessful claims th

to be unrelated to the successful claims, it may either attempt

to identify specific hours that should be eliminated or simply

reduce the award to account for the limited success. Id. at 904.

In the present matter, the Court finds it appropriate to

reduce the lodestar figure based on Plaintiff’s limited success,

as demonstrated by the fact that she ultimately prevailed by way

of settlement on just more than half of ADA violations she

originally identified. Each of violations claimed by Plaintiff

represent different and unrelated claims that are premised on

different sections of the ADA Accessibility Guidelines to

determine liability. Claims pertaining to the accessibility of

plastic bags in the produce department, for example, are

completely separate from claims relating to checkstand height, or

to claims involving restroom access. Consequently, Plaintiff’s

claims relating to the men’s bathroom, with respect to which she

failed to prevail, are both unrelated and distinct. Because it

is impossible to apportion attorneys’ fees between these

unsuccessful claims from the claims upon which Plaintiff did

prevail with any degree of certainty, the Court reduces

Plaintiff’s award of attorneys’ fees by twenty percent to account

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While SaveMart also claims that a total of $1,523.75 for 2

draftsman services contained within Mr. Card’s invoice is not

factually supported, the Card report contains architectural

drawings pertaining to many of the claimed violations that appear

to be the product of those services.

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for her limited success. Twenty percent of the $9,877.50

lodestar is $1,975.50. Total fees awarded for Plaintiff’s

claimed attorney/paralegal fees will thus be $7,902.00. 

Lastly, Plaintiff may recover, as part of the award of her

fees in this matter, litigation expenses pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §

2205. The term “litigation expenses” in Section 12205 has been

interpreted to include “the same out-of-pocket expenses that are

recoverable under 42 U.S.C. § 1988.” Robbins v. Scholastic Book

Fairs, 928 F. Supp. 1027, 1037 (D. Or. 1996). Under Section

1988, Plaintiff recover those out-of-pocket expenses that “would

normally be charged to a fee paying client.” Harris v.

Marhoefer, 24 F.3d 16, 19 (9th Cir. 1994).

As stated above, Plaintiff seeks a total of $5,927.64 in

litigation expenses. Of that amount, SaveMart has contested only

the $4,401.25 sought for expert fees and costs submitted by

Plaintiff’s expert, Joe Card. SaveMart claims that Mr. Card’s 

invoices should be rejected in their entirety because they do not

provide enough detail for the Court to discern whether the

requested amount is reasonable. Plaintiff has submitted,

however, two invoices from Mr. Card which furnish seven different

time entries showing the tasks performed and the hourly rate. 

Plaintiff has also submitted Mr. Card’s opinion and report which

detail the accessibility violations he identified. Hence Mr. 2

Card’s invoices are sufficiently detailed and are properly

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Because oral argument would not be of material assistance, 3

this matter was deemed suitable for decision without oral

argument. E.D. Local Rule 78-230(h).

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subject to reimbursement. 

CONCLUSION

Based on the foregoing, Plaintiff is entitled to reasonable

attorneys’ fees in the amount of $7,902.00 and reasonable

litigation expenses in the amount of $5,927.64, for a total of

$13,829.64. Plaintiff will accordingly be awarded that amount.3

IT IS SO ORDERED.

DATED: October 20, 2005

_____________________________

MORRISON C. ENGLAND, JR

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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