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Matched Legal Cases: ['art, 461', 'art, 461', '§ 1988', '§ 1988', '§ 1988', '§ 1988', '§ 1988', '§ 1988', '§ 1988', '§ 1988', '§ 1988', '§ 1988', '§ 1988', '§ 1988', '§ 1988', '§ 1988', '§ 1988', '§ 1988', '§ 2996', '§ 1988', '§ 1988', '§ 1988']

Hensley Vs Eckerhart - Citation 105479 - Court Judgment | LegalCrystal
Hensley Vs. Eckerhart - Court Judgment
LegalCrystal Citation legalcrystal.com/105479
Case Number 461 U.S. 424
Appellant Hensley
Respondent Eckerhart
hensley v. eckerhart - 461 u.s. 424 (1983) u.s. supreme court hensley v. eckerhart, 461 u.s. 424 (1983) hensley v. eckerhart no. 81-1244 argued november 3, 1982 decided may 16, 1983 461 u.s. 424 certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the eighth circuit syllabus respondents, on behalf of all persons involuntarily confined in the forensic unit of a missouri state hospital, brought suit in federal district court against petitioner hospital officials, challenging the constitutionality of treatment and conditions at the hospital. the district court, after a trial, found constitutional violations in five of the six general areas of treatment. subsequently, respondents filed a request for attorney's fees.....
Hensley v. Eckerhart - 461 U.S. 424 (1983)
U.S. Supreme Court Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424 (1983)
Held: The District Court did not properly consider the relationship between the extent of success and the amount of the attorney's fee award. The extent of a plaintiff's success is a crucial factor in determining the proper amount of an attorney's fee award under § 1988. Where the plaintiff failed to prevail on a claim unrelated to the successful claims, the hours spent on the unsuccessful claim should be excluded in considering the amount of a reasonable fee. Where a lawsuit consists of related claims, a plaintiff who has won substantial relief should not have his attorney's fee reduced simply because the district court did not adopt each contention raised. But where the plaintiff achieved only limited success, the court should award only that amount of fees that is reasonable in relation to the results obtained. Pp. 461 U. S. 429 -440.
POWELL, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BURGER, C.J., and WHITE, REHNQUIST and O'CONNOR, JJ., joined. BURGER, C.J., filed a concurring opinion, post, p. 461 U. S. 440 . BRENNAN, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which MARSHALL, BLACKMUN, and STEVENS, JJ., joined, post, p. 461 U. S. 441 .
In August, 1979, following a three-week trial, the District Court held that an involuntarily committed patient has a constitutional right to minimally adequate treatment. 476 F.Supp. 908, 915 (1979). The court then found constitutional violations in five of six general areas: physical environment; individual treatment plans; least restrictive environment; visitation, telephone, and mail privileges; and seclusion and restraint. [ Footnote 1 ] With respect to staffing, the sixth general area,
In Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. Wilderness Society, 421 U. S. 240 (1975), this Court reaffirmed the "American Rule" that each party in a lawsuit ordinarily shall bear its own attorney's fees unless there is express statutory authorization to the contrary. In response, Congress enacted the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act of 1976, 42 U.S.C. § 1988, authorizing the district courts to award a reasonable attorney's fee to prevailing parties in civil rights litigation. The purpose of § 1988 is to ensure "effective access to the judicial process" for persons with civil rights grievances. H.R.Rep. No. 94-1558, p. 1 (1976). Accordingly, a prevailing plaintiff " should ordinarily recover an attorney's fee unless special circumstances would render such an award unjust.'" S.Rep. No. 94-1011, p. 4 (1976) (quoting Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., 390 U. S. 400 , 390 U. S. 402 (1968)). [ Footnote 2 ]
way Express, Inc., 488 F.2d 714 (CA5 1974). [ Footnote 3 ] The Senate Report cites to Johnson as well, and also refers to three District Court decisions that "correctly applied" the 12 factors. [ Footnote 4 ] One of the factors in Johnson, "the amount involved and the results obtained," indicates that the level of a plaintiff's success is relevant to the amount of fees to be awarded. The importance of this relationship is confirmed in varying degrees by the other cases cited approvingly in the Senate Report.
In Davis v. County of Los Angeles, 8 E.P.D. Ĺš 9444 (CD Cal.1974), the plaintiffs won an important judgment requiring the Los Angeles County Fire Department to undertake an affirmative action program for hiring minorities. In awarding attorney's fees the District Court stated:
have adopted varying standards, however, for applying this principle in cases where the plaintiff did not succeed on all claims asserted. [ Footnote 5 ]
Brief for Petitioners 24. Respondents agree that a plaintiff's success is relevant, but propose a less stringent standard focusing on "whether the time spent prosecuting [an unsuccessful] claim in any way contributed to the ultimate results achieved." Brief for Respondents 46. Both parties acknowledge the discretion of the district court in this area. We take this opportunity to clarify the proper relationship of the results obtained to an award of attorney's fees. [ Footnote 6 ]
A plaintiff must be a "prevailing party" to recover an attorney's fee under § 1988. [ Footnote 7 ] The standard for making this threshold determination has been framed in various ways. A typical formulation is that
Nadeau v. Helgemoe, 581 F.2d 275, 278-279 (CA1 1978). [ Footnote 8 ] This is a generous formulation that brings the plaintiff only across the statutory threshold. It remains for the district court to determine what fee is "reasonable."
The product of reasonable hours times a reasonable rate does not end the inquiry. There remain other considerations that may lead the district court to adjust the fee upward or downward, including the important factor of the "results obtained." [ Footnote 9 ] This factor is particularly crucial where a plaintiff is deemed "prevailing" even though he succeeded on only some of his claims for relief. In this situation, two questions must be addressed. First, did the plaintiff fail to prevail on claims that were unrelated to the claims on which he succeeded? Second, did the plaintiff achieve a level of success that makes the hours reasonably expended a satisfactory basis for making a fee award?
claims are brought against the same defendants -- often an institution and its officers, as in this case -- counsel's work on one claim will be unrelated to his work on another claim. Accordingly, work on an unsuccessful claim cannot be deemed to have been "expended in pursuit of the ultimate result achieved." Davis v. County of Los Angeles, 8 E.P.D. at 5049. The congressional intent to limit awards to prevailing parties requires that these unrelated claims be treated as if they had been raised in separate lawsuits, and therefore no fee may be awarded for services on the unsuccessful claim. [ Footnote 10 ]
Where a plaintiff has obtained excellent results, his attorney should recover a fully compensatory fee. Normally this will encompass all hours reasonably expended on the litigation, and indeed, in some cases of exceptional success, an enhanced award may be justified. In these circumstances, the fee award should not be reduced simply because the plaintiff failed to prevail on every contention raised in the lawsuit. See Davis v. County of Los Angeles, supra, at 5049. Litigants in good faith may raise alternative legal grounds for a desired outcome, and the court's rejection of or failure to reach certain grounds is not a sufficient reason for reducing a fee. The result is what matters. [ Footnote 11 ]
A request for attorney's fees should not result in a second major litigation. Ideally, of course, litigants will settle the amount of a fee. Where settlement is not possible, the fee applicant bears the burden of establishing entitlement to an award and documenting the appropriate hours expended and hourly rates. The applicant should exercise "billing judgment" with respect to hours worked, see supra at 461 U. S. 434 , and should maintain billing time records in a manner that will enable a reviewing court to identify distinct claims. [ Footnote 12 ]
These findings represent a commendable effort to explain the fee award. Given the interrelated nature of the facts and legal theories in this case, the District Court did not err in refusing to apportion the fee award mechanically on the basis of respondents' success or failure on particular issues. [ Footnote 13 ] And given the findings with respect to the level of respondents' success, the District Court's award may be consistent with our holding today.
We are unable to affirm the decisions below, however, because the District Court's opinion did not properly consider the relationship between the extent of success and the amount of the fee award. [ Footnote 14 ] The court's finding that "the [significant]
extent of the relief clearly justifies the award of a reasonable attorney's fee" does not answer the question of what is "reasonable" in light of that level of success. [ Footnote 15 ] We
A prevailing defendant may recover an attorney's fee only where the suit was vexatious, frivolous, or brought to harass or embarrass the defendant. See H.R.Rep. No. 94-1558, p. 7 (1976); Christiansburg Garment Co. v. EEOC, 434 U. S. 412 , 434 U. S. 421 (1978) ("[A] district court may, in its discretion, award attorney's fees to a prevailing defendant in a Title VII case upon a finding that the plaintiff's action was frivolous, unreasonable, or without foundation, even though not brought in subjective bad faith").
"It is intended that the amount of fees awarded . . . be governed by the same standards which prevail in other types of equally complex Federal litigation, such as antitrust cases[,] and not be reduced because the rights involved may be nonpecuniary in nature. The appropriate standards, see Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, 488 F.2d 714 (5th Cir.1974), are correctly applied in such cases as Stanford Daily v. Zurcher, 64 F.R.D. 680 (ND Cal.1974); Davis v. County of Los Angeles, 8 E.P.D. Ĺš 9444 (CD Cal.1974); and Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 66 F.R.D. 483 (WDNC 1975). These cases have resulted in fees which are adequate to attract competent counsel, but which do not produce windfalls to attorneys. In computing the fee, counsel for prevailing parties should be paid, as is traditional with attorneys compensated by a fee-paying client, 'for all time reasonably expended on a matter.' Davis, supra; Stanford Daily, supra, at 684."
As we noted in Hanrahan v. Hampton, 446 U. S. 754 , 446 U. S. 758 , n. 4 (1980) (per curiam),
Our holding today differs at least in emphasis from that of the Eighth Circuit in Brown. We hold that the extent of a plaintiff's success is a crucial factor that the district courts should consider carefully in determining the amount of fees to be awarded. In Brown, the plaintiff had lost on the major issue of reinstatement. The District Court found that she had " obtained only a minor part of the relief she sought.'" Id. at 636. In remanding, the Eighth Circuit implied that the District Court should not withhold fees for work on unsuccessful claims unless those claims were frivolous. Today we hold otherwise. It certainly was well within the Brown District Court's discretion to make a limited fee award in light of the "minor" relief obtained.
The dissent errs in suggesting that the District Court's opinion would have been acceptable if merely a single word had been changed. See post at 461 U. S. 451 . We note, for example, that the District Court did not determine whether petitioners' unilateral increase in staff levels was a result of the litigation. Petitioners asserted that 70-80% of the attorney time in the case was spent on the question of staffing levels at the Forensic Unit. Memorandum in Opposition to Plaintiffs' Request for an Award of Attorneys' Fees, Expenses and Costs 30. If this is true, and if respondents' lawsuit was not a catalyst for the staffing increases, then respondents' failure to prevail on their challenge to the staffing levels would be material in determining whether an award based on over 2,500 hours expended was justifiable in light of respondents' actual success. The District Court's failure to consider this issue would not have been obviated by a mere conclusory statement that this fee was reasonable in light of the success obtained.
A claim for legal services presented by the prevailing party to the losing party pursuant to § 1988 presents quite a different situation from a bill that a lawyer presents to his own client. In the latter case, the attorney and client have presumably built up a relationship of mutual trust and respect; the client has confidence that his lawyer has exercised the appropriate "billing judgment," ante at 461 U. S. 434 , and unless challenged by the client, the billing does not need the kind of extensive documentation necessary for a payment under § 1988. That statute requires the losing party in a civil rights action to bear the cost of his adversary's attorney, and there is, of course, no relationship of trust and confidence between the adverse parties. As a result, the party who seeks payment must keep records in sufficient detail that a neutral judge can make a fair evaluation of the time expended, the nature and need for the service, and the reasonable fees to be allowed.
The Court today holds that "the extent of a plaintiff's success is a crucial factor in determining the proper amount of an award of attorney's fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1988." Ante at 461 U. S. 440 . I agree with the Court's carefully worded statement because it is fully consistent with the purpose of § 1988 as well as the interpretation of that statute reached by the Courts of Appeals. I also agree that plaintiffs may receive attorney's fees for cases in which " they succeed on any significant issue in litigation which achieves some of the benefit the parties sought in bringing suit,'" ante at 461 U. S. 433 , quoting Nadeau v. Helgemoe, 581 F.2d 275, 278-279 (CA1 1978), and that plaintiffs may receive fees for all hours reasonably spent litigating
a case even if they do not prevail on every claim or legal theory, see ante at 461 U. S. 434 -435.
Furthermore, whether one considers all the relevant factors or merely the relationship of fees to results obtained, the District Court in this case awarded a fee that was well within the court's zone of discretion under § 1988, and it explained the amount of the fee meticulously. The Court admits as much. See ante at 461 U. S. 438 . Vacating a fee award such as this and remanding for further explanation can serve only as an invitation to losing defendants to engage in what must be one of the least socially productive types of litigation imaginable: appeals from awards of attorney's fees, after the merits of a case have been concluded, when the appeals are not likely to affect the amount of the final fee. Such appeals, which greatly increase the costs to plaintiffs of vindicating their rights, frustrate the purposes of § 1988. Where, as here, a district court has awarded a fee that comes within the range of possible fees that the facts, history, and results of the case permit, the appellate court has a duty to affirm the award promptly.
In Alyeska Pipeline Co. v. Wilderness Society, 421 U. S. 240 , 421 U. S. 269 (1975), this Court held that it was beyond the competence of judges to "pick and choose among plaintiffs and the statutes under which they sue and to award fees in some cases but not in others." Congress, however, has full authority to make such decisions, and it responded to the challenge
of Alyeska by doing the "picking and choosing" itself. Its legislative solution legitimates the federal common law of attorney's fees that had developed in the years before Alyeska [ Footnote 2/1 ] by specifying when and to whom fees are to be available. [ Footnote 2/2 ] Section 1988 manifests a finely balanced congressional
purpose to provide plaintiffs asserting specified federal rights with "fees which are adequate to attract competent counsel, but which do not produce windfalls to attorneys." S.Rep. No. 94-1011, p. 6 (1976) (hereinafter Senate Report); cf. H.R.Rep. No. 94-1558, p. 9 (1976) (hereinafter House Report). [ Footnote 2/3 ] The Court today emphasizes those aspects of judicial discretion necessary to prevent "windfalls," but lower courts must not forget the need to ensure that civil rights plaintiffs with bona fide claims are able to find lawyers to represent them.
In enacting § 1988, Congress rejected the traditional assumption that private choices whether to litigate, compromise, or forgo a potential claim will yield a socially desirable level of enforcement as far as the enumerated civil rights statutes are concerned. [ Footnote 2/4 ]
Senate Report 2. See House Report 1-3. [ Footnote 2/5 ] Congress could, of course, have provided public funds or Government attorneys for litigating private civil rights claims, but it chose to "limi[t] the growth of the enforcement bureaucracy," Senate Report 4, by continuing
to rely on the private bar [ Footnote 2/6 ] and by making defendants bear the full burden of paying for enforcement of their civil rights obligations. [ Footnote 2/7 ]
Yet Congress also took steps to ensure that § 1988 did not become a "relief fund for lawyers." 122 Cong.Rec. 33314 (1976) (remarks of Sen. Kennedy). First, it limited fee awards to "prevailing" plaintiffs, rather than allowing fees for anyone who litigated a bona fide claim in good faith, see House Report 6-8, and it expressly reaffirmed the common law doctrine that attorney's fees could be awarded against plaintiffs who litigated frivolous or vexatious claims, see id. at 6-7; Christiansburg Garment Co. v. EEOC, 434 U. S. 412 , 434 U. S. 416 -417 (1978). It also left district courts with discretion to set the precise award in individual cases and to deny fees entirely in "special circumstances" when an award would be "unjust," even if the plaintiff prevailed, see Senate Report 4; House Report 6; Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., 390 U. S. 400 , 390 U. S. 402 (1968) (per curiam).
At the same time, however, courts should recognize that reasonable counsel in a civil rights case, as in much litigation, must often advance a number of related legal claims in order to give plaintiffs the best possible chance of obtaining significant relief. As the Court admits, "[s]uch a lawsuit cannot be viewed as a series of discrete claims." Ante at 461 U. S. 435 . And even where two claims apparently share no "common core of facts" or related legal concepts, see ibid., the actual work performed by lawyers to develop the facts of both claims may be closely intertwined. For instance, in taking a deposition of a state official, plaintiffs' counsel may find it necessary to cover a range of territory that includes both the successful and the unsuccessful claims. It is sometimes virtually impossible to determine how much time was devoted to one category or the other, and the incremental time required to pursue both claims, rather than just one, is likely to be small.
Therefore, district courts should not end their fee inquiries when they have multiplied a customary hourly rate times the reasonable number of hours expended, and then checked the product against the results obtained. They should also consider both delays in payment and the prelitigation likelihood that the claims which did in fact prevail would prevail. [ Footnote 2/8 ] Copeland v. Marshall, supra, at 402-403, 641 F.2d at 892-893; Northcross v. Board of Education of Memphis City Schools, 611 F.2d 624, 638 (CA6 1979); Lindy Bros. Builders, Inc. v. American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp., 540 F.2d 102, 117 (CA3 1976). These factors are potentially relevant in every case. Even if the results obtained do not justify awarding fees for all the hours spent on a particular case, no fee is reasonable unless it would be adequate to induce other attorneys to represent similarly situated clients seeking relief comparable to that obtained in the case at hand.
The Court admits that the District Court made a "commendable effort" to explain the fee award, and that the award "may be consistent" with today's opinion. Ante at 461 U. S. 438 . It professes to be "unable to affirm" solely because the District Court's finding that "[t]he extent of this relief clearly justifies the award of a reasonable attorney's fee," App. to Pet. for Cert. A-16, is not accompanied by a further finding as to "what is reasonable' in light of that level of success." Ante at 461 U. S. 438 -439.
App. to Pet. for Cert. A-11. The District Court also addressed each of the factors mentioned in Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, Inc., 488 F.2d 714 (CA5 1974), discussed by the Court ante at 461 U. S. 429 -430, under the general rubric "Reasonableness of the Fee." App. to Pet. for Cert. A A-18. It explained why it was not enhancing respondents' fee to account for the uncertainty factor, id. at A-15 - A-16, and it discounted one attorney's hours by 30% to yield "a reasonable claim of time," id. at
No more significant legal error requires today's judgment. The Court notes that the District Court relied on Brown v. Bathke, 588 F.2d 634 (CA8 1978), an opinion the "emphasis" of which the Court regards as misplaced. See ante at 461 U. S. 438 -439, n. 14. What the Court finds suspicious in Brown is the implication that a district court must award attorney's fees for all work "reasonably calculated to advance a client's interest," i.e., all nonfrivolous claims, whenever the client satisfies the "prevailing party" test. See 588 F.2d at 637-638. The District Court did not, however, refer to the language criticized by the Court. Rather, it cited a footnote in Brown for the proposition that "mechanical division of claimed hours . . . ignores the interrelated nature of many prevailing and non-prevailing claims." App. to Pet. for Cert. A-7, citing 588 F.2d at 637, n. 5. The remainder of the Brown footnote
makes clear that the court was concerned with related legal theories, only one of which ultimately becomes the basis for relief. To that extent, Brown is perfectly consistent with today's opinion. See ante at 461 U. S. 434 -436, and n. 11. The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in its brief, unpublished memorandum affirming the District Court, did not cite Brown at all. App. to Pet. for Cert. A-1 - A-2.
The law in other Circuits is substantially identical. Federal Courts of Appeals have adopted a two-stage analysis, whereby plaintiffs who obtain any significant relief are considered "prevailing parties," and District Courts are directed to take into consideration the overall degree of a plaintiff's success, and the extent to which work on claims on which no relief was obtained contributed to that success, in setting the exact amount of the award due. The mere fact that plaintiffs do not prevail on every claim does not preclude an award of fees for all work reasonably performed, [ Footnote 2/9 ]but it is rarely an
most appropriately a task for the district court that heard and decided the case, subject to appellate review for abuse of discretion. As the Court implicitly recognizes, the case before us manifests no clear abuse of discretion. Although plaintiffs obtained only part of the specific injunctive relief they requested, the District Court's opinion on the merits both confirmed the existence of the constitutional right to minimally adequate treatment they claimed, App. 173-179, and established strict standards for staffing, treatment plans, and environment, against which the future conduct of defendants and other state mental health authorities will be measured, id. at 188-195. To a large extent, the District Court's opinion fixed plaintiffs' entitlement to improvements instituted by defendants during the course of litigation. See id. at 192-193 (treatment plans), 190-191 (staff); compare Deposition of H. Bratkowski 12-13, 39, reprinted in Brief in Opposition 8, n. 10, 12, with App. 106-114, 120-121 (increase in staff during litigation). It is thus entirely understandable that the District Court considered respondents to have prevailed to an extent justifying fees for all hours reasonably spent, subject to one substantial reduction of over 300 hours for wasteful litigation practices, see ante at 461 U. S. 438 , n. 13.
one's civil rights, and exacerbates the myriad problems of crowded appellate dockets. [ Footnote 2/10 ]
If a district court has articulated a fair explanation for its fee award in a given case, the court of appeals should not reverse or remand the judgment unless the award is so low as to provide clearly inadequate compensation to the attorneys on the case or so high as to constitute an unmistakable windfall. See, e.g., Gurule v. Wilson, supra, at 792; Furtado v. Bishop, 635 F.2d 915, 923, n. 16 (CA1 1980). Any award that falls between those rough poles substantially accomplishes Congress' objectives. [ Footnote 2/11 ] More exacting review, for which there is no clear mandate in the statute or its legislative history, frustrates, rather than advances, the policies of § 1988.
See cases cited 421 U.S. at 421 U. S. 284 -285 (MARSHALL, J., dissenting). See also S.Rep. No. 94-1011, p. 6 (1976) ("This bill creates no startling new remedy -- it only meets the technical requirements that the Supreme Court has laid down if the Federal courts are to continue the practice of awarding attorneys' fees which had been going on for years prior to the Court's . . . decision").
Because of this selectivity, statutory attorney's fee remedies such as those created by § 1988 and its analogues bear little resemblance to either common law attorney's fee rule: the "American Rule," under which the parties bear their own attorney's fees no matter what the outcome of a case, or the "English Rule," under which the losing party, whether plaintiff or defendant, pays the winner's fees. They are far more like new causes of action tied to specific rights than like background procedural rules governing any and all litigation. This fundamental distinction has often been ignored. See ante at 461 U. S. 429 ; Alyeska Pipeline Co. v. Wilderness Society, 421 U.S. at 421 U. S. 247 .
For certain rights selected by Congress, § 1988 facilitates litigation by plaintiffs and encourages them to reject half-measure compromises, see New York Gaslight Club v. Carey, 447 U. S. 54 , 447 U. S. 63 (1980); Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., 390 U. S. 400 , 390 U. S. 402 (1968) (per curiam), while at the same time it gives defendants strong incentives to avoid arguable civil rights violations in the first place and to make concessions in hope of an early settlement, see Copeland v. Marshall, 205 U.S.App.D.C. 390, 407, 641 F.2d 880, 897 (1980) (en banc); Dennis v. Chang, 611 F.2d 1302, 1307 (CA9 1980). Civil rights plaintiffs with meritorious claims "appear before the court cloaked in a mantle of public interest." H.R.Rep. No. 94-1558, p. 6 (1976) (citing United States Steel Corp. v. United States, 519 F.2d 359, 364 (CA3 1975)). Congress has granted them a statutory right to attorney's fees in addition to any rights they have under fees rules of general applicability. Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, supra, at 390 U. S. 402 , n. 4; see Christiansburg Garment Co. v. EEOC, 434 U. S. 412 , 434 U. S. 416 -417 (1978). Both of the traditional rules reflect the assumption that plaintiff and defendant approach litigation on a more or less equal basis. They leave the parties to private, essentially symmetrical calculations as to whether litigation -- including the attorney's fees it entails -- represents a better investment than compromise and settlement or simply acceding to the opposing party's demands. Of course, the parties approach those calculations with different risk preferences and financial positions, and the principal difference between the two rules is that the English Rule, by enhancing the cost of losing after litigation, gives the party with superior ability to undertake risk more of a tactical advantage than does the American Rule. But -- in theory, at least -- neither common law rule systematically favors plaintiffs over defendants, or vice versa.
Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act of 1976, 90 Stat. 2641. Section 1988 was drafted based on Congress' experience with over 50 fee-shifting provisions in other statutes, dating back to Reconstruction-era civil rights statutes, see Senate Report 3-4; Alyeska Pipeline Co. v. Wilderness Society, supra, at 421 U. S. 260 , n. 33.
Congress had other reasons as well to believe that civil rights plaintiffs would often be unable to pay for the desirable level of law enforcement themselves. Civil rights remedies often benefit a large number of persons, many of them not involved in the litigation, making it difficult both to evaluate what a particular lawsuit is really worth to those who stand to gain from it and to spread the costs of obtaining relief among them. Cf. Hall v. Cole, 412 U. S. 1 , 412 U. S. 5 -7 (1973); Mills v. Electric Auto-Lite Co., 396 U. S. 375 , 396 U. S. 396 (1970) (finding nonstatutory awards under traditional "common fund" exception to the American Rule appropriate for this reason). This problem is compounded by the facts that monetary damages are often not an important part of the recovery sought under the statutes enumerated in § 1988, cf. Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., supra, at 390 U. S. 402 , and that doctrines of official immunity often limit the availability of damages against governmental defendants, see House Report 9, and n. 17.
This case reflects the fact that Congress has provided public funding to some limited extent through a number of programs such as the Legal Services Corporation: respondents' attorneys are associated with Legal Services of Eastern Missouri, Inc. They may not, however, use the money they receive from the Federal Government for cases in which fees are available. See 42 U.S.C. § 2996f(b)(1). For purposes of § 1988, such attorneys should be paid as if they were in private practice, in order both to avoid windfalls to defendants and to free public resources for other types of law enforcement. See New York Gaslight Club, Inc. v. Carey, 447 U.S. at 447 U. S. 70 , n. 9; Copeland v. Marshall, 205 U.S.App.D.C. at 409-410, 641 F.2d at 899-900; Rodriguez v. Taylor, 569 F.2d 1231, 1248 (CA3 1977).
Congress' imposition of liability for attorney's fees under § 1988 also represents a decision to abrogate the sovereign immunity of the States in order to accomplish the purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment. See Senate Report 5; Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427 U. S. 445 (1976); Maher v. Gagne, 448 U. S. 122 , 448 U. S. 128 -129 (1980).
Thus, the Court's opinion should not be read to imply that "exceptional success" provides the only basis for awarding a fee higher than the reasonable rate times the reasonable number of hours. See ante at 461 U. S. 435 . To the contrary, the Court expressly approves consideration of the full range of Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, Inc., 488 F.2d 714 (CA5 1974), factors. See infra, at 461 U. S. 450 -451. If the rate used in calculating the fee does not already include some factor for risk or the time-value of money, it ought to be enhanced by some percentage figure. By the same token, attorneys need not obtain "excellent" results to merit a fully compensatory fee, see ante at 461 U. S. 435 ; merely prevailing to some significant extent entitles them to full compensation for the work reasonably required to obtain relief. See infra at 461 U. S. 452 , and n. 9.
Both the Senate and House Reports make clear Congress' conclusion that success on every claim is not necessary. See ante at 461 U. S. 430 -431, and n. 4. In addition, in its discussion of awards before final judgment, the Senate Report states:
"In appropriate circumstances, counsel fees under [§ 1988] may be awarded pendente lite. See Bradley v. School Board of the City of Richmond, 416 U. S. 696 (1974). Such awards are especially appropriate where a party has prevailed on an important matter in the course of litigation, even when he ultimately does not prevail on all issues. "
Congress having delegated responsibility for setting a "reasonable" attorney's fee to the court that tried the case, reviewing courts, as a matter of good judicial policy, should not disturb the trial court's solution to the problem of balancing the many factors involved unless the end product falls outside of a rough "zone of reasonableness," or unless the explanation articulated is patently inadequate. Cf. Permian Basin Area Rate Cases, 390 U. S. 747 , 390 U. S. 767 (1968).