NOT FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

BYRON CHAPMAN,

Plaintiff

- Appellant,

v. MARK C. JACOBS,

Defendant

- Appellee. No. 19

- 16901

D.C. No. 2:17

- cv
- 01745

- WBS

- CKD

MEMORANDUM *

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California William B. Shubb, District Judge, Presiding
Submitted February 9, 2021 * * San Francisco, California
Before: HURWITZ and BRESS, Circuit Judges, and CORKER, ** * District Judge.
Byron Chapman sued his patent attorney for disability access violations under
the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12101, et seq. , and the Unruh Civil

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36

- 3.

** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).

*** The Honorable Clifton L. Corker, United States District Judge for the Eastern Dis trict of Tennessee, sitting by designation. 

# FILED

FEB 18 2021

MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS2

Rights Act, Cal. Civ. Code § 51, et seq

. The parties settled and agreed the district

court could award fees and costs to Chapman

. Although Chapman sought $60,050

in att orney’s fees , the district court award ed only $14,850. It also awarded only $498 of Chapm a

n’s requested $11,498 in costs. Reviewing the award for abuse of
discretion, but reviewing the legal determinations underlying it de novo, see Vogel

v. Harbor Plaza Ctr

. , LLC , 893 F.3d 1152, 1157 (9th Cir. 2018), we affirm.

1. The district court did not abuse its discretion in calculating a “ lodestar ”
of the “hours reasonably expended on the litigation multiplied by a reasonable hourly

rate

. ” Hensley v. Eckerhart , 461 U.S. 424, 433 (1983)

. Chapman concedes that the
district court properly calculated the hours component, but he contends that the

distr ict court erred in reducing the requested hourly rate s for his two attorneys from $750 to $350 (for a law partner with decades of experience) and from $350 to $150
(for a n experienced associate).

The district court ’s task was to “compensate counsel at the prevailing rate in
the community for similar work; no more, no less. ” Moreno v. City of Sacramento , 534 F.3d 1106, 1111 (9 th Cir. 2008)

. The factors appropriately considered in that
analysis include “the novelty and difficulty of the issues, the skill required to try the

case .

. . the experience held by counsel and fee awards in similar cases.” Id . at 1114.
Here, the district court noted the statement by Chapman’s counsel that the case
“involved a straightforward application of the law and did not .

. . [require] a high3

level of skill or specialization,” and found that the same two lawyers had recently been awarded fees of $300 and $175 per hour, respectively, in similar cases in the
Eastern District of California, which they had “reduced to a kind of routine.”
Making adjustments to the attorneys’ requested rates to fit the circumstances in this
case, the district court accomplished its required task

. Fox v. Vice , 563 U.S. 826,
838 (2011).

The district court therefore did not commit the error s identified in Moreno , in

which the district court “speculated” about how different firms might have staffed a case, provided “insufficient” explanation for its “somewhat arbitrary” and
“summary” cuts to the lodestar rate, and adhered to a “de facto policy” of awarding
no more than a historic cap on fees in civil rights cases. Moreno , 534 F.3d at 111 3

–
1 5. Although a district court may not simply “hold the line” on fees where
“[n]othing else supports .

. . the reduction,” id. at 1115, Chapman fails to show the

district court did so in t his case . Nor did the district court abuse its discretion in
declining to rely on a

n expert’s “regression analysis” or a rubric for calculating fees

know n as the “Laffey Matrix,” because it reasonably concluded that either would
lead to an award significantly higher than the “prevailing rate in the community.”

Id . at 1111.

2. Chapman’s opening brief makes only two cursory references to the
costs award and p resents no argument for why it should be disturbed

. He has4

therefore waived any challenge to the district court’s refusal to award $11,000 for
the cost of the regression analysis , which it deemed unnecessary and unhelpful

. See

Nat’l Fam. Farm Coal. v. US EPA , 966 F.3d 893, 916 (9th Cir. 2020) ( stating that an
issue “not discussed in the body of the opening brief is deemed waived”).

AFFIRMED

. 1

1 Appellee’s request for judicial notice, Docket Entry No. 32, is granted

. Appellant’s requests for judicial notice, Docket Entry Nos. 27, 49, are denied

.