Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-94-02254/USCOURTS-ca10-94-02254-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Espanola Mercantile Company, Inc.
Appellant
New Mexico Citizens for Clean Air and Water
Appellee
Pueblo of San Juan
Appellee

Document Text:

PUBLISH 

UNITED STATES.COURT OF APPEALS 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

NEW MEXICO CITIZENS FOR CLEAN AIR 

AND WATER; PUEBLO OF SAN JUAN, 

Plaintiffs-Appellees, 

JAN 0 2 1996 

PATRICK FISHER 

Clerk 

v. 

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No. 94-2254 

ESPANOLA MERCANTILE COMPANY, INC., 

doing business as Espanola Transit 

Mix Co., 

Defendant-Appellant. 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW MEXICO 

(D.C. No. CIV-92-1413 JC/RWM) 

Submitted on the briefs: 

Grove T. Burnett and Eric Ames, Western Environmental Law Center, 

Santa Fe, New Mexico, for Plaintiffs-Appellees. 

Holly A. Hart of Scheuer, Yost & Patterson, P.C., Santa Fe, New 

Mexico, for Defendant-Appellant. 

Before MOORE, BARRETT, and WEIS,* Circuit Judges. 

*Honorable Joseph F. Weis, 

states court of Appeals 

designation. 

Jr., Senior Circuit Judge, United 

for the Third Circuit, sitting by 

Appellate Case: 94-2254 Document: 01019279840 Date Filed: 01/02/1996 Page: 1 
WEIS, Circuit Judge. 

In this appeall, we conclude that one plaintiff's 

compliance with the pre-suit notice requirements of the Clean 

Water Act, 33 u.s.c. § 1365(b), does not satisfy the duty of 

another plaintiff to give notice on its own behalf. Therefore, 

the non-complying plaintiff cannot be a prevailing party entitled 

to counsel fees. We also decide that an award of counsel fees 

must take into account the degree of success attained by the 

prevailing plaintiff. Because the district court did not 

articulate such an apportionment, we will reverse and remand. 

This is an action to enforce the Clean Water Act against 

defendant for unpermitted discharges and other violations at the 

Espanola Transit Mix Facility in Espanola, New Mexico. Plaintiff 

New Mexico Citizens for Clean Air and Water is an environmental 

group and plaintiff Pueblo of San Juan is an Indian tribe that 

owns the affected land. The citizens' group gave the sixty-day 

notice required by 33 u.s.c. § 1365(b) before filing the 

complaint, but the Pueblo did not. 

Not long after the suit was commenced, the parties 

entered into settlement negotiations, culminating in their 

submission of four issues to the magistrate judge for binding 

arbitration. Plaintiffs prevailed on two of the issues and 

1 After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel 

has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially 

assist the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 

34(a); lOth Cir. R. 34.1.9. The case is therefore ordered 

submitted without oral argument. 

2 

Appellate Case: 94-2254 Document: 01019279840 Date Filed: 01/02/1996 Page: 2 
defendant prevailed on the other two. Thereafter, the parties 

entered into a consent decree. 

The consent decree provided that, in settlement of the 

plaintiffs' claim for civil penalties, defendant would carry out 

and pay the costs of the treatment plan that was attached. 

Defendant also agreed not to discharge -any pollutants except as 

authorized by a permit and to implement any mitigation or 

restoration requirements imposed by the permitting agency as a 

condition of receiving the permit. 

The consent decree further provided in pertinent part: 

"Defendant stipulates that it is not entitled to an award of 

attorneys fees. Plaintiffs shall submit their petition for 

attorneys fees within twenty (20) days after entry of this Consent 

Decree. Defendant agrees to pay attorney fees awarded to 

Plaintiffs by the Court." 

After both plaintiffs submitted requests, the district 

court awarded $46,003.69 in fees and costs. Defendant appeals the 

award. 

I. 

Defendant contends that plaintiffs are not entitled to 

fees because they were not prevailing parties and the attorney fee 

language in the consent decree was not a stipulation conceding 

that status. A review of the brief it filed in the district court 

reveals that defendant never made this particular argument. 

Therefore, we will not consider this point on appeal. See Farmers 

Ins. Co. v. Hubbard, 869 F.2d 565, 570 (lOth Cir. 1989) (except 

3 

Appellate Case: 94-2254 Document: 01019279840 Date Filed: 01/02/1996 Page: 3 
for jurisdictional issues, this Court will not consider arguments 

raised for the first time on appeal). 

II. 

Defendant argues, on a separate ground, that the Pueblo 

is not entitled to attorney fees because it failed to give the 

notice required under the Clean Water Act before commencing suit. 

Section 1365(a) (1) authorizes citizen suits against any person who 

is alleged to be in violation of an effluent standard or 

limitation under the Act or of an administrative order. Section 

1365(b) (1) (A) provides that "[n]o action may be commenced ... 

I 

under subsection (a) (1) of this section . prior to sixty days 

after the plaintiff has given notice of the alleged violation (i) 

to the Administrator, (ii) to the State in which the alleged 

violation occurs, and (iii) to any alleged violator of the 

standard, limitation, or order." Pursuant to 40 C.F.R. § 135.3, 

the notice must include the name and address of the person giving 

notice. 

In the district court, the Pueblo conceded that it did 

not comply with the Act, but argued that the notice given by 

Citizens was adequate for § 1365 purposes. Defendant agreed that 

the Citizens notice was proper, but, relying on Hallstrom v. 

Tillamook County, 493 U.S. 20 (1989), argued that the Pueblo had 

to give its own notice to be a party to the suit. 

In Hallstrom, the Supreme Court addressed a similar 

sixty-day notice provision in the Resource Conservation and 

Recovery Act and stated that, "[u]nder a literal reading of the 

statute, compliance with the 60-day notice provision is a 

4 

Appellate Case: 94-2254 Document: 01019279840 Date Filed: 01/02/1996 Page: 4 
mandatory, not optional, condition precedent for suit." Id. at 

26. The Court then considered whether the statute should be given 

a strict or a flexible construction, a matter on which the Courts 

of Appeals were divided. 

Noting that the plaintiff in a Resource Act [RCRA] 

action has "full control" over the timing of the suit, and 

therefore, over its ability to comply with the notice 

requirements, the Court decided that "[t]he equities do not weigh 

in favor of modifying statutory requirements when the procedural 

default is caused by petitioners' 'failure to take the minimal 

steps necessary' to preserve their claims." Id. at 27 (quoting 

Johnson v. Railway Express Agency. Inc., 421 u.s. 454, 466 

(1975)). The Court held, therefore, that "the notice and 60-day 

delay requirements are mandatory conditions precedent to 

commencing suit under the RCRA citizen suit provision; a district 

court may not disregard these requirements at its discretion." 

Id. at 31. 

Although the parties had framed the issue in terms of 

whether the notice provision was jurisdictional or procedural, the 

Court concluded: 

In light of our literal interpretation of the 

statutory requirement, we need not determine 

whether (42 U.S.C.] § 6972(b) [the 60-day 

notice provision of the Resource Act] is 

jurisdictional in the strict sense of the 

term. See Fair Assessment in Real Estate 

Assn .. Inc. v. McNary, 454 U.S. 100, 137 

5 

Appellate Case: 94-2254 Document: 01019279840 Date Filed: 01/02/1996 Page: 5 
(1981) (Brennan, J., concurring in judgment) 

("In 1937 the requirement of exhaustion of 

state administrative remedies was certainly a 

mandatory precondition to suit, and in that 

sense a 'jurisdictional prerequisite"'). 

Id. Because the plaintiff had failed to notify either the state 

or the EPA sixty days before bringing suit, the Court decided that 

"the district court must dismiss the action as barred by the terms 

of the statute." Id. at 33. 

Since Hallstrom, several Courts of Appeals have held 

that compliance with the sixty-day notice requirements in the 

Clean Water Act is also a mandatory precondition to suit. See 

Public Interest Research Group of New Jersey, Inc. v. Windall, 51 

F.3d 1179, 1189 n.15 (3d Cir. 1995); Washington Trout v. McCain 

Foods, Inc., 45 F.3d 1351, 1354 (9th Cir. 1995); Greene v. Reilly, 

956 F.2d 593, 594 (6th Cir. 1992); National Envtl. Found. v. ABC 

Rail Corp., 926 F.2d 1096, 1097 (11th Cir. 1991). We agree with 

these holdings. The question, therefore, becomes whether each 

plaintiff must comply with the sixty-day notice requirements to be 

a proper party to a citizen suit. 

In Washington Trout, an attorney gave a sixty-day notice 

on behalf of a union "among perhaps others." 45 F.3d at 1352. 

When suit was filed, two other parties, the Audubon Society and 

Washington Trout, joined the union as plaintiffs. After the union 

had been dismissed from the case, the defendant moved to dismiss 

the other two plaintiffs as well. The district court granted the 

motion and the Court of Appeals affirmed, citing Hallstrom's 

6 

Appellate Case: 94-2254 Document: 01019279840 Date Filed: 01/02/1996 Page: 6 
admonition that the notice requirement was to be strictly 

construed. The Court of Appeals explained that the purpose of 

pre-suit notice is to allow the parties time to "resolve their 

conflicts in a nonadversarial time period." Id. at 1354. In 

addition, the notice alerts the appropriate agency so that 

"administrative action may initially provide" relief before a 

court becomes involved. Id. If the defendant and the agencies do 

not know the parties involved, effective negotiation is not 

possible. 

We find ourselves in agreement with the holding and 

reasoning of the Washington Trout Court. Although some district 

courts have adopted a pragmatic view that notice by one plaintiff 

acts as notice by all, see, ~, Environmental Defense Fund v. 

Tidwell, 837 F. Supp. 1344, 1352-53 (E.D.N.C. 1992), we think that 

approach is inconsistent with Hallstrom. As the Supreme Court 

remarked in that case: "'[I]n the long run, experience teaches 

that strict adherence to the procedural requirements specified by 

the legislature is the best guarantee of evenhanded administration 

of the law.'" 493 u.s. at 31 (quoting Mohasco Corp. v. Silver, 

447 u.s. 807, 826 (1980)). 

Therefore, because of its failure to give proper notice 

before bringing suit under the Clean Water Act, the Pueblo was not 

a proper party to the action. It follows that the district court 

should not have awarded the Pueblo any attorney fees for its 

participation as a party in the action.2 Because the Clean Water 

2 In the district court, plaintiffs argued that the defendant's 

agreement to pay attorney fees in the consent decree essentially 

(continued on next page) 

7 

Appellate Case: 94-2254 Document: 01019279840 Date Filed: 01/02/1996 Page: 7 
Act violations at issue affected land owned by the Pueblo, we 

recognize, however, that counsel for Citizens might have billed 

for services in connection with the tribe's concerns even if it 

had not been a party to the action. Therefore, on remand, the 

district court should differentiate between those fees that 

resulted from the Pueblo's participation as a party and those fees 

involving the Pueblo that citizens would have incurred in any 

event. 

III. 

"[T]he district court has discretion in determining the 

amount of a fee award." Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 u.s. 424, 437 

(1983). "It remains important, however, for the district court to 

provide a concise but clear explanation of its reasons for the fee 

award." Id. District courts should sufficiently "articulate 

specific reasons for fee awards to give us an adequate basis for 

review." Ramos v. Lamm, 713 F.2d 546, 552 (lOth Cir. 1983). The 

district court need not, however, "identify and justify each 

disallowed hour" or "announce what hours are permitted for each 

legal task." Mares v. Credit Bureau of Raton, 801 F.2d 1197, 1202 

(lOth Cir. 1986). 

(continued from previous page) 

waived the Pueblo's noncompliance with the notice requirements. 

Plaintiffs have abandoned this argument on appeal and we do not 

address it. See Dixon v. City of Lawton, 898 F.2d 1443, 1449 n.7 

(lOth Cir. 1990). Therefore, we need not decide the intriguing 

issue so carefully left open by Hallstrom -- whether a mandatory 

precondition to suit is a component of non-waivable "subject 

matter jurisdiction." Cf. Windall, 51 F.3d at 1189 n.15 (3d Cir. 

1995) (notice provision is "jurisdictional prerequisite''); 

washington Trout, 45 F.3d at 1354-55 (lack of notice deprived 

court of "subject matter" jurisdiction); ABC Rail Corp., 926 F.2d 

at 1097-98 (notice is mandatory precondition to suit). 

8 

Appellate Case: 94-2254 Document: 01019279840 Date Filed: 01/02/1996 Page: 8 
The Defendant's first challenge to the amount of fees 

awarded concerns the district court's failure to consider whether 

any modification of the lodestar figure should be made based on 

Citizens' limited success in the action. In the district court, 

defendant argued that plaintiffs were not as successful as they 

had portrayed themselves to be in their fee petition. In its 

order, the district court commented that it was "unable to discern 

that this lawsuit accomplished everything that the plaintiffs 

believe it did." The court then stated that it did not have to 

determine whether plaintiffs qualified as prevailing parties, 

because defendant had agreed to pay reasonable attorney fees. The 

court did not thereafter mention the plaintiffs' degree of success 

in the action. 

We recently noted in Jane L. v. Bangerter, 61 F.3d 1505, 

1511, (lOth Cir. 1995), that "Hensley contemplates adjustments to 

the lodestar to reflect plaintiffs' overall success." In making 

such adjustment, we held that "the district court must make a 

qualitative assessment to determine what less-than-perfect results 

are 'excellent,' justifying full recovery, or to what extent 

plaintiffs' 'limited success' should effect a reduction in the 

lodestar." Id. (citing Hensley, 461 U.S. at 436). Here, the 

district court's order does not reflect that it made any 

qualitative assessment. 

Citizens contends that the district court properly 

forwent any consideration of its degree of success because "[i]f a 

party agrees to pay all reasonable attorneys' fees -- that is, the 

lodestar figure -- there is no need for the district court to 

9 

Appellate Case: 94-2254 Document: 01019279840 Date Filed: 01/02/1996 Page: 9 
reach the Hensley factors." However, citizens cites no legal 

authority for this contention, which is contrary to Hensley 

itself. 

Hensley describes calculation of the lodestar amount as 

"[t]he most useful starting point for determining the amount of a 

reasonable fee," 461 u.s. at 433, and also states that "[t]he 

product of reasonable hours times a reasonable rate does not end 

the inquiry," id. at 434. Likewise, our opinion in Ramos 

demonstrates that calculation of the lodestar figure is just the 

beginning, 713 F.2d at 552-555, and that other factors, such as 

the plaintiff's degree of success, also must be considered in 

arriving at a reasonable fee award, id. at 556-59. 

"When an adjustment is requested on the basis of either 

the exceptional or limited nature of the relief obtained by the 

plaintiff, the district court should make clear that it has 

considered the relationship between the amount of the fee awarded 

and the results obtained." Hensley, 461 u.s. at 437. In the 

absence of such finding in the record here, we must remand for the 

district court to consider to what extent the fee award should be 

adjusted based on Citizens' degree of success. 

Defendant raises numerous other challenges to the amount 

of fees awarded, some of which were not specifically raised in the 

district court. Only three of these other objections merit 

consideration by the district court on remand. 

The first is the defendant's contention that attorney 

Eric Ames improperly billed attorney rates for tasks that either 

could have been performed by someone other than an attorney or 

10 

Appellate Case: 94-2254 Document: 01019279840 Date Filed: 01/02/1996 Page: 10 
that are not properly compensable at any rate. Specifically, 

defendant objects to paying attorney rates for time spent 

investigating the factual basis for Citizens' claims and time 

spent performing what defendant characterizes as secretarial 

duties, ~, copying documents, faxing documents, and filing 

documents. 

"[W]hen a lawyer spends time on tasks that are easily 

delegable to non-professional assistance, legal service rates are 

not applicable." Halderman ex rel. Halderman v. Pennhurst State 

Sch. & Hasp., 49 F.3d 939, 942 (3d Cir. 1995); see also Ursie v 

Bethlehem Mines, 719 F.2d 670, 677 (3d Cir. 1983) (''Nor do we 

approve the wasteful use of highly skilled and highly priced 

talent for matters easily delegable to non-professionals or less 

experienced associates • . . . A Michelangelo should not charge 

Sistine Chapel rates for painting a farmer's barn."); Mares, 801 

F.2d at 1204 (criticizing fees for messenger services). 

Although commenting that Ames was not entitled to 

compensation for at least one secretarial task -- organizing files 

-- the district court's opinion does not reflect whether it 

carefully scrutinized some of the other seemingly secretarial work 

Ames performed. Further, the opinion does not reflect 

consideration of the defendant's argument that a paralegal or 

investigator could have performed much, if not all, of the factual 

investigation of Citizens' claims. We express no opinion as to 

whether any of the challenged time is properly compensable at 

attorney rates, but commend the matter to the district court's 

attention on remand. 

11 

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The second matter the district court should consider is 

the potential duplication of effort. Defendant contends that the 

attendance of two attorneys for Citizens at various meetings was 

not necessary, and that only one attorney's time should be 

billed.3 While we have "decline(d] to require an automatic 

reduction of reported hours to adjust for multiple 

representation," we have advised district courts to "give 

particular attention to the possibility of duplication." Ramos, 

713 F.2d at 554. 

Here, the district court did consider whether the two 

attorneys properly billed for conferences with each other, but 

the opinion does not disclose whether the judge also considered 

potential duplication of effort by the attorneys when meeting with 

others, such as the plaintiffs, defense counsel, or the court. On 

remand, the district court should give attention to the 

possibility of duplication in these meetings as well. 

Finally, defendant contends, and Citizens concedes, that 

the district court failed to eliminate all the time billed by 

counsel for communications with the press. The district court 

stated its intention to eliminate all time spent on press-related 

matters, except time spent in preparing a post-settlement press 

release, but the court .overlooked some press-related billing 

entries in its reduction of counsel's fees. See Halderman, 49 

F.3d at 942 ("[T]he proper forum for litigation is the courtroom, 

3 Defendant also contends that counsel should not be able to 

bill any fee for their attendance at a second settlement 

conference before the magistrate judge. Because defendant did not 

raise this challenge in the district court, we need not consider 

it on appeal. See Farmers Ins. Co., 869 F.2d at 570. 

12 

Appellate Case: 94-2254 Document: 01019279840 Date Filed: 01/02/1996 Page: 12 
not the media."). on remand, the court should reduce the fee 

award accordingly. 

The judgment of the United States District Court for the 

District of New Mexico is REVERSED, and the matter is REMANDED for 

further proceedings consistent with this Opinion. 

Each party to bear its own costs. 

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