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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

WESTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS

AUSTIN DIVISION

LYNDON MIJOSEPH PIERRE,

Plaintiff

v.

SHEILA VASQUEZ, IN HER 

OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS 

MANAGER OF THE TEXAS 

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC 

SAFETY-SEX OFFENDER 

REGISTRATION BUREAU; AND 

STEVEN MCCRAW, IN HIS 

OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS 

DIRECTOR OF THE TEXAS 

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC 

SAFETY;

Defendants

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 No. 1:20-CV-00224-LY

REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION

OF THE UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

TO: THE HONORABLE LEE YEAKEL

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Before the Court is Plaintiff Lyndon Pierre’s Opposed Motion for Award of 

Costs of Court, Attorney’s Fees and Expenses, Dkt. 77. The District Court referred 

the motion to the undersigned for report and recommendation. Dkt. 84. Having 

considered the motion and all related filings, the undersigned recommends that the 

District Court grant Pierre’s motion.

I. BACKGROUND

Pierre sued Defendants Sheila Vazquez, Manager of the Texas Department of 

Public Safety’s Sex Offender Registration Bureau, and Steven McCraw, Director of 

Case 1:20-cv-00224-LY Document 85 Filed 12/19/22 Page 1 of 8
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the Texas Department of Public Safety, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief in 

connection with his claim that Defendants violated federal and state law when they 

notified Pierre and his supervision officer that he was an extrajurisdictional sexoffender registrant without providing notice of an opportunity to dispute his sexoffender determination. See Dkt. 75, at 3. Pierre initially sued Defendants in state 

court, see Dkt. 4, at 2-12; and Defendants removed the case to federal court, Dkt. 1. 

Defendants moved to dismiss Pierre’s claims. Dkts. 2, 3. The District Court 

converted the motions to motions for summary judgment, Dkt. 35, and after providing 

the parties an opportunity to file supplemental materials, granted the motion for 

summary judgment, Dkt. 36, and entered a final judgment in favor of Defendants, 

remanding his claim for declaratory relief to the state court and denying his request 

for injunctive relief, Dkt. 37. Pierre appealed the decision, and the Fifth Circuit 

reversed the judgment in part, remanding the case with instructions to consider the 

merits of Pierre’s procedural due process claim. Pierre v. Vasquez, No. 20-51032, 2022 

WL 68970, at *3 (5th Cir. Jan. 6, 2022). On remand, the District Court again denied 

Pierre’s request for injunctive relief but granted his request for declaratory relief and 

entered a judgment declaring that Defendants “violate[d] Pierre’s constitutional right 

to procedural due process under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States 

Constitution when they fail[ed] to afford Pierre notice and an opportunity to be heard 

prior to subjecting him to an official sex-offender determination.” Dkt. 75, at 3. Pierre 

subsequently filed the present motion seeking his attorney’s fees and costs, which the 

District Court referred to the undersigned. Dkts. 77, 84.

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II. LEGAL STANDARD

An award of attorney’s fees is entrusted to the “sound discretion” of the district 

court. Tex. Commerce Bank Nat’l Ass’n v. Capital Bancshares, Inc., 907 F.2d 1571, 

1575 (5th Cir. 1990). Nevertheless, “[i]t remains important ... for the district court to 

provide a concise but clear explanation of its reasons for the fee award.” La. Power & 

Light Co. v. Kellstrom, 50 F.3d 319, 329 (5th Cir. 1995) (emphasis omitted).

In a civil rights case like Pierre’s, “the court, in its discretion, may allow the 

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

§ 1988(b). The Fifth Circuit uses a two-step process to calculate recoverable attorney’s 

fees. Heidtman v. Cnty. of El Paso, 171 F.3d 1038, 1043 (5th Cir. 1999). First, courts 

use the lodestar method to calculate an appropriate fee award by multiplying the 

number of hours reasonably spent on the case by an appropriate hourly rate in the 

community for such work. Saizan v. Delta Concrete Prods. Co., 448 F.3d 795, 799 (5th 

Cir. 2006). The party seeking fees is “charged with the burden of showing the 

reasonableness of the hours billed and, therefore, [is] also charged with proving that 

[its attorney(s)] exercised billing judgment.” Id. “The court should exclude all time 

that is excessive, duplicative, or inadequately documented [and] [t]he hours surviving 

this vetting process are those reasonably expended in litigation.” Watkins v. Fordice, 

7 F.3d 453, 457 (5th Cir. 1993). While plaintiff’s counsel is not required to record in 

great detail how each minute of his time was expended, he should identify the general 

subject matter of his time expenditures. Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 437 n.12

(1983).

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After calculating the lodestar, the court may decrease or enhance the amount 

based on the relative weights of the twelve factors set forth in Johnson v. Ga. 

Highway Express, Inc., 488 F.2d 714 (5th Cir. 1974), abrogated on other grounds by 

Blanchard v. Bergeron, 489 U.S. 87 (1989). The Fifth Circuit has instructed that “of 

the Johnson factors, the court should give special heed to the time and labor involved, 

the customary fee, the amount involved and the result obtained, and the experience,

reputation and ability of counsel.” Migis v. Pearle Vision, Inc., 135 F.3d 1041, 1047 

(5th Cir. 1998).

III. DISCUSSION

Pierre correctly notes in his reply that Defendants do not meaningfully 

challenge Pierre’s status as a prevailing party,1 and Defendants offer no challenge 

whatsoever to his attorney’s $375/hour billing rate nor his out-of-court expenses and 

taxable court costs. Accordingly, under the circumstances presented here, and in the 

absence of any substantive argument to the contrary, the undersigned concludes

(1) that Pierre is properly considered a prevailing party and thus eligible for an award 

of attorneys’ fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1988; (2) his attorney’s $375/hour rate is 

reasonable; and (3) the out-of-pocket expenses and court costs Pierre seeks are 

reasonable and recoverable. Accordingly, the sole remaining issue for the Court to 

determine whether the hours for which Pierre seeks fees were reasonably expended.2

1 Defendants appear to doubt Pierre’s status as a “prevailing party”—see Dkt. 79, at 3 (stating 

“if the Court should conclude Plaintiff is the prevailing party ...”)—but offer no argument to 

explain why he should not be considered the prevailing party in this litigation.

2 Both parties mention the Johnson factors in their pleadings, but neither party applies them, 

nor does either side argue that the lodestar amount should be adjusted upward or downward 

in light of them. Accordingly, the undersigned does not address them here.

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Saizan, 448 F.3d at 799. In this connection, Defendants complain (1) that several of

Pierre’s attorney’s time entries are too vague; (2) the amount of time billed for certain 

tasks was excessive; and (3) that because Pierre’s motion for summary judgment was 

granted in part and denied in part, the Court should not award fees for time expended 

on the denied portion of his claim.

As for Defendants’ vagueness complaint, while Pierre’s attorneys could have 

included more detail in the challenged time entries, the undersigned does not 

conclude that the entries are so vague as to prevent a “meaningful review” of the 

necessity of counsel’s tasks. La. Power & Light Co., 50 F.3d at 326 (“The district court 

may properly reduce or eliminate hours when the supporting documentation is too 

vague to permit meaningful review.”). The challenged entries record counsel’s work 

on (1) an application for a temporary restraining order; (2) revisions to the complaint 

filed in federal court; (3) trial briefing; (4) a motion for new trial; (5) a reply brief filed 

in the court of appeals; and (6) preparation for oral argument in the court of appeals. 

Dkt. 79, at 4-5. These entries afford the undersigned enough detail to determine if 

these tasks were unnecessary or overbilled, and thus the undersigned declines to 

reject them for vagueness.

Defendants challenge the amount of time expended on several of these same 

entries as excessive for the task billed or duplicative of other tasks. Dkt. 79, at 5-7. 

Having reviewed the entries and pleadings, however, the undersigned disagrees. See

Dkt. 86, at 6 (providing docket entries for each of the pleadings challenged as being 

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excessively billed). Accordingly, the undersigned does not recommend rejecting 

Pierre’s claims for these fees as excessively or unnecessarily billed.

Finally, Defendants argue that the Court should reject at least a portion of the 

time Pierre’s counsel spent on summary judgment briefing because the Court only 

granted the motion in part. Dkt. 79, at 7. Defendants do not, however, suggest any 

specific manner to account for this. Id. The Supreme Court has recognized that in 

cases like these, “plaintiff’s claims for relief will involve a common core of facts or will 

be based on related legal theories. Much of counsel’s time will be devoted generally 

to the litigation as a whole, making it difficult to divide the hours expended on a 

claim-by-claim basis. Such a lawsuit cannot be viewed as a series of discrete claims.” 

Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 435 (1983). For this reason, the Supreme Court 

advises district courts to “focus on the significance of the overall relief obtained by 

the plaintiff in relation to the hours reasonably expended on the litigation,” and 

“[w]here a plaintiff has obtained excellent results, his attorney should recover a fully 

compensatory fee.” Id. Here, while the Court denied Pierre’s request for an injunction, 

the Court concluded that Defendants’ conduct did violate his procedural due process 

rights and granted Pierre a declaratory judgment to that effect, enabling Pierre to 

obtain the notice and hearing he argued he was entitled to. In light of the overall 

object of Pierre’s suit against Defendants, the undersigned concludes that Pierre’s 

counsel should recover fees for the full amount of time expended on the motion for 

summary judgment, irrespective of the fact that the motion was granted in part and 

denied in part.

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IV. RECOMMENDATION

In accordance with the foregoing discussion, the undersigned 

RECOMMENDS that the District Court GRANT Pierre’s Opposed Motion for 

Award of Costs of Court, Attorney’s Fees and Expenses, Dkt. 77, in full. The 

undersigned recommends that the District Court enter an order awarding Pierre 

$85,156.25 in attorney’s fees, $2,042.68 in expenses incurred in connection with the 

litigation, and $958.00 in taxable court costs. The referral to the undersigned is 

CANCELED.

V. WARNINGS

The parties may file objections to this Report and Recommendation. A party 

filing objections must specifically identify those findings or recommendations to 

which objections are being made. The District Court need not consider frivolous, 

conclusive, or general objections. See Battle v. United States Parole Comm’n, 834 F.2d 

419, 421 (5th Cir. 1987). A party’s failure to file written objections to the proposed 

findings and recommendations contained in this Report within fourteen days after 

the party is served with a copy of the Report shall bar that party from de novo review 

by the District Court of the proposed findings and recommendations in the Report 

and, except upon grounds of plain error, shall bar the party from appellate review of 

unobjected-to proposed factual findings and legal conclusions accepted by the District 

Court. See 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(C); Thomas v. Arn, 474 U.S. 140, 150-53 (1985); 

Douglass v. United Servs. Auto. Ass’n, 79 F.3d 1415, 1428-29 (5th Cir. 1996) (en banc).

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SIGNED December 19, 2022.

DUSTIN M. HOWELL

UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

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