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CITY OF RIVERSIDE V. RIVERA, 477 U. S. 561 (1986) - US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE
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1. Under Hensley v. Eckerhart, supra, which announced certain guidelines for calculating a "reasonable" attorney's fee under § 1988, the "lodestar" figure, obtained by multiplying the number of hours reasonably chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
3. Although Congress did not intend that statutory fee awards produce "windfalls" to attorneys, neither did it intend that attorney's fees be proportionate to the amount of damages a civil rights plaintiff chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
BRENNAN, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which MARSHALL, BLACKMUN, and STEVENS, JJ., joined. POWELL, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, post, p. 477 U. S. 581. BURGER, C.J.,filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 477 U. S. 587. REHNQUIST, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which BURGER, C.J.,and WHITE and O'CONNOR, JJ., joined, post, p. 477 U. S. 588. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
On June 4, 1976, respondents sued the city of Riverside, its Chief of Police, and 30 individual police officers under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1983, 1985(3), and 1986 for allegedly violating their First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The complaint, which also alleged numerous state law claims, sought damages and declaratory and injunctive relief. On August 5, 1977, 23 of the individual police officers moved for summary judgment; the District Court granted summary judgment in favor of 17 of these officers. The case against the remaining defendants proceeded to trial in September, 1980. The jury returned a total of 37 individual verdicts in favor of the respondents and against the city and five individual officers, finding 11 violations of § 1983, 4 instances of false arrest and imprisonment, and 22 instances of negligence. Respondents were awarded $33,350 in compensatory and punitive chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Petitioners appealed only the attorney's fees award, which the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed. Rivera v. City of Riverside, 679 F.2d 795 (1982). Petitioners sought a writ of certiorari from this Court. We granted the writ, vacated the Court of Appeals' judgment, and remanded the case for reconsideration in light of Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U. S. 424 (1983). 461 U.S. 952 (1983). On remand, the District Court held two additional hearings, reviewed additional briefing, and reexamined the record as a whole. The court made extensive findings of fact and conclusions of law, and again concluded that respondents were entitled to an chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
763 F.2d 1582. Second, the Court of Appeals rejected the argument that the fee award was excessive because it exceeded the amount of damages awarded by the jury. Examining the legislative history of § 1988, the court found no support for the proposition that an award of attorney's fees may not exceed the amount of damages recovered by a prevailing plaintiff. Finally, the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
In Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. Wilderness Society, 421 U. S. 240 (1975), the Court reaffirmed the "American Rule" that, at least absent express statutory authorization to the contrary, each party to a lawsuit ordinarily shall bear its own attorney's fees. In response to Alyeska, Congress enacted the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act of 1976, 42 U.S.C. § 1988, which authorized the district courts to award reasonable attorney's fees to prevailing parties in specified civil rights litigation. While the statute itself does not explain what constitutes a reasonable fee, both the House and Senate Reports accompanying § 1988 expressly endorse the analysis set forth in Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, Inc., 488 F.2d 714 (CA5 1974). See S.Rep. No. 94-1011, p. 6 (1976) (hereafter Senate Report); H.R. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Hensley then discussed other considerations that might lead the district court to adjust the lodestar figure upward or downward, including the "important factor of the results obtained.'" 461 U.S. at 461 U. S. 434. The opinion noted that where a prevailing plaintiff has succeeded on only some of his claims, an award of fees for time expended on unsuccessful claims may not be appropriate. In these situations, the Court held that the judge should consider whether or not the plaintiff's unsuccessful claims were related to the claims on which he succeeded, and whether the plaintiff achieved a level of success that makes it appropriate to award attorney's fees for hours reasonably expended on unsuccessful claims: chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
App. 190. [Footnote 4] The court also determined that chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
counsel's excellent performances in this case entitled them to be compensated at prevailing market rates, even though they were relatively young when this litigation began. See Johnson, 488 F.2d 718-719 ("If a young attorney demonstrates the skill and ability, he should not be penalized for only recently being admitted to the bar").
Id. at 188-189. [Footnote 5] The court paid particular attention to the fact that the case "presented complex and interrelated issues of fact and law," chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Based on our review of the record, we agree with the Court of Appeals that the District Court's findings were not clearly erroneous. We conclude that the District Court correctly applied the factors announced in Hensley in calculating respondents' fee award, and that the court did not abuse its chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Petitioners, joined by the United States as amicus curiae, maintain that Hensley's lodestar approach is inappropriate in civil rights cases where a plaintiff recovers only monetary damages. In these cases, so the argument goes, use of the lodestar may result in fees that exceed the amount of damages recovered, and that are therefore unreasonable. Likening such cases to private tort actions, petitioners and the United States submit that attorney's fees in such cases should be proportionate to the amount of damages a plaintiff recovers. Specifically, they suggest that fee awards in damages cases should be modeled upon the contingent fee arrangements commonly used in personal injury litigation. In this case, assuming a 33% contingency rate, this would entitle chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The amount of damages a plaintiff recovers is certainly relevant to the amount of attorney's fees to be awarded under § 1988. See Johnson, 488 F.2d 718. It is, however, only one of many factors that a court should consider in calculating an award of attorney's fees. We reject the proposition that fee awards under § 1988 should necessarily be proportionate to the amount of damages a civil rights plaintiff actually recovers.
Ibid. (quoting Van Davis chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
v. County of Los Angeles, 8 EPD ¦ 9444 (CD Cal.1974) (emphasis added)). The Senate Report specifically approves of the fee awards made in cases such as Stanford Daily v. Zurcher, 64 F.R.D. 680 (ND Cal.1974); Van Davis v. County of Los Angeles, supra; and Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 66 F.R.D. 483 (WDNC 1975). In each of these cases, counsel received substantial attorney's fees despite the fact the plaintiffs sought no monetary damages. Thus, Congress recognized that reasonable attorney's fees under § 1988 are not conditioned upon, and need not be proportionate to, an award of money damages. The lower courts have generally eschewed such a requirement. [Footnote 8]
A rule that limits attorney's fees in civil rights cases to a proportion of the damages awarded would seriously undermine Congress' purpose in enacting § 1988. Congress enacted § 1988 specifically because it found that the private market for legal services failed to provide many victims of civil rights violations with effective access to the judicial process. See House Report at 3. These victims ordinarily cannot afford to purchase legal services at the rates set by the private market. See id. at 1 ("Because a vast majority of the victims of civil rights violations cannot afford legal counsel, they are unable to present their cases to the courts"); Senate Report at 2 ("In many cases arising under our civil rights laws, the citizen who must sue to enforce the law has little or no money with which to hire a lawyer"); see chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
A rule of proportionality would make it difficult, if not impossible, for individuals with meritorious civil rights claims but relatively small potential damages to obtain redress from the courts. This is totally inconsistent with Congress' purpose in enacting § 1988. Congress recognized that private sector fee arrangements were inadequate to ensure sufficiently vigorous enforcement of civil rights. In order to ensure that lawyers would be willing to represent persons with legitimate civil rights grievances, Congress determined that it would be necessary to compensate lawyers for all time reasonably expended on a case. [Footnote 9] chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Id. at 190. Nevertheless, petitioners suggest that respondents' counsel should be compensated for only a small fraction of the actual time spent litigating the case. In light of the difficult nature of the issues presented by this lawsuit and the low pecuniary value of many of the rights respondents sought to vindicate, it is highly unlikely that the prospect of a fee equal to a fraction of the damages respondents might recover would have been sufficient to attract competent counsel. [Footnote 10] Moreover, since counsel might not have found it economically feasible to expend the amount of time respondents' counsel found necessary to litigate the case properly, it is even less likely that counsel would have achieved the excellent results that respondents' counsel obtained here. Thus, had respondents had to rely on private sector fee arrangements, they might well have been unable to obtain redress for their chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
We agree with petitioners that Congress intended that statutory fee awards be "adequate to attract competent counsel, but . . . not produce windfalls to attorneys." Senate Report at 6. However, we find no evidence that Congress intended that, in order to avoid "windfalls to attorneys," attorney's fees be proportionate to the amount of damages a civil rights plaintiff might recover. Rather, there already exists a wide range of safeguards designed to protect civil rights defendants against the possibility of excessive fee awards. Both the House and Senate Reports identify standards for courts to follow in awarding and calculating attorney's fees, see ibid.; House Report at 8; these standards are designed to ensure that attorneys are compensated only for time reasonably expended on a case. The district court has the discretion to deny fees to prevailing plaintiffs under special circumstances, see Hensley, 461 U.S. at 461 U. S. 429 (citing Senate Report at 4), and to award attorney's fees against plaintiffs who litigate frivolous or vexatious claims. See Christiansburg Garment Co. v. EEOC, 434 U. S. 412, 434 U. S. 416-417 (1978); Hughes v. Rowe, 449 U. S. 5, 449 U. S. 14-16 (1980) (per curiam); House Report at 6-7. Furthermore, we have held that a civil rights defendant is not liable for attorney's fees incurred after a pretrial settlement offer, where the judgment recovered by the plaintiff is less than the offer. Marek v. Chesny, 473 U. S. 1 (1985). [Footnote 11] We believe that chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
These factors are: (1) the time and labor required; (2) the novelty and difficulty of the questions; (3) the skill requisite to perform the legal service properly; (4) the preclusion of employment by the attorney due to acceptance of the case; (5) the customary fee; (6) whether the fee is fixed or contingent; (7) time limitations imposed by the client or the circumstances; (8) the amount involved and the results obtained; (9) the experience, reputation, and ability of the attorneys; (10) the "undesirability" of the case; (11) the nature and length of the professional relationship with the client; and (12) awards in similar cases. 488 F.2d 717-719.
Because the history of the case is relevant to my views, I summarize it. City police officers, without warrants, forcibly entered a private residence where respondents were attending a party and arrested four of them. Criminal charges were lodged against those arrested, but later were dismissed. Respondents instituted this action on June 4, 1976, against petitioners city of Riverside, its Chief of Police, and chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The District Court approved in full the requested amount. [Footnote 2/1] On appeal, petitioners challenged only the fee award, and the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed. Rivera v. City of Riverside, 679 F.2d 795 (1982). On May 31, 1983, we granted certiorari, vacated the Court of Appeals' judgment, and remanded the case for reconsideration in light of Hensley chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Id. at 2-6 to 2-10. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
461 U.S. at 461 U. S. 440. Here, the District Judge who presided throughout this protracted litigation found that the claims of respondents rested on a "common core of facts," and involved related legal theories. Since the suit was premised on one episode, the only significant variation in the facts supporting the claims against the several defendants concerned the extent of the participation by the various chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Petitioners argue for a rule of proportionality between the fee awarded and the damages recovered in a civil rights case. Neither the decisions of this Court nor the legislative history of § 1988 support such a "rule." The facts and circumstances of litigation are infinitely variable. Under Hensley, of course, "the most critical factor [in the final determination of fee awards] is the degree of success obtained." 461 U.S. at 461 U. S. 436. Where recovery of private damages is the purpose of a civil rights litigation, a district court, in fixing fees, is obligated to give primary consideration to the amount of damages awarded as compared to the amount sought. In some civil rights cases, however, the court may consider the vindication of constitutional rights in addition to the amount of damages recovered. In this case, for example, the District Court made an explicit finding that the "public interest" had been served by the jury's verdict that the warrantless entry chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
In sum, despite serious doubts as to the fairness of the fees awarded in this case, I cannot conclude that the detailed findings made by the District Court, and accepted by the Court of Appeals, were clearly erroneous, or that the District Court abused its discretion in making this fee award. [Footnote 2/4] chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Can anyone doubt that no private party would ever have dreamed of paying these two novice attorneys $125 per hour in 1975, which, considering inflation, would represent perhaps something more nearly a $250 per hour rate today? For example, as JUSTICE REHNQUIST points out, post at 477 U. S. 590, would any private litigant be willing to pay a total of $17,875 simply for preparation of a pretrial order? chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Ante at 477 U. S. 569, n. 4 (emphasis in original). I see no escape from the conclusion that the District Court's finding that respondents' attorneys "reasonably" spent 1,946.75 hours to recover a money judgment of $33,350 is clearly erroneous, and that therefore the District Court's award of $245,456.25 in attorney's fees to respondents should be reversed. The Court's affirmance of the fee award emasculates the principles laid down in Hensley, and turns § 1988 into a relief Act for lawyers. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Respondents then filed a request for $495,713.51 in attorney's fees, representing approximately 15 times the amount of the underlying money judgment. In April, 1981, the District Court made its initial fee award of $245,456.25, declining to apply respondents' requested "multiplier," but awarding, to the penny, the entire "lodestar" claimed by respondents and their attorneys. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, Rivera v. City of Riverside, 679 F.2d 795 (1982). We granted certiorari, vacated, and remanded, 461 U.S. 952 (1983), in light of Hensley, supra. On remand, the District Court convened a hearing, at which the court promptly announced: "I tell you now that I will not change the award. I will simply go back and be more specific about it." App. 230. The court ultimately chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
It is obvious to me that the District Court viewed Hensley not as a constraint on its discretion, but instead as a blueprint for justifying, in an after-the-fact fashion, a fee award it had already decided to enter solely on the basis of the "lodestar." In fact, the District Court failed at almost every turn to apply any kind of "billing judgment," or to seriously consider the "results obtained," which we described in Hensley as "the important factor" in determining a "reasonable" fee award. 461 U.S. at 461 U. S. 434. A few examples should suffice: (1) The court approved almost 209 hours of "prelitigation time," for a total of $26,118.75. (2) The court approved some 197 hours of time spent in conversations between respondents' two attorneys, for a total of $24,626. (3) The court approved 143 hours for preparation of a pretrial order, for a total of $17,875. (4) Perhaps most egregiously, the court approved 45.50 hours of "stand-by time," or time spent by one of respondents' attorneys, who was then based in San Diego, to wait in a Los Angeles hotel room for a jury verdict to be rendered in Los Angeles, where his co-counsel was then employed by the U.C.L.A. School of Law, less than 40 minutes' driving time from the courthouse. The award for "stand-by time" totaled $5,687.50. I find it hard to understand how any attorney can be said to have exercised "billing judgment" in spending such huge amounts of time on a case ultimately worth only $33,350. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The analysis of whether the extraordinary number of hours put in by respondents' attorneys in this case was "reasonable" must be made in light of both the traditional billing practices in the profession and the fundamental principle that the award of a "reasonable" attorney's fee under § 1980 means a fee that would have been deemed reasonable if billed to affluent plaintiffs by their own attorneys. This latter principle was stressed in the legislative history of § 1988, see chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Suppose that A offers to sell Blackacre to B for $10,000. It is commonly known and accepted that Blackacre has a fair market value of $10,000. B consults an attorney and requests a determination whether A can convey good title to Blackacre. The attorney writes an elaborate memorandum concluding that A's title to Blackacre is defective, and submits a bill to B for $25,000. B refuses to pay the bill, the attorney sues, and the parties stipulate that the attorney spent 200 hours researching the title issue because of an extraordinarily complex legal and factual situation, and that chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Obviously the billing situation in a typical litigated case is more complex than in this bedrock example of a defective title claim, but some of the same principles are surely applicable. If A has a claim for contract damages in the amount of $10,000 against B, and retains an attorney to prosecute the claim, it would be both extraordinary and unjustifiable, in the absence of any special arrangement, for the attorney to put in 200 hours on the case and send the client a bill for $25,000. Such a bill would be "unreasonable," regardless of whether A obtained a judgment against B for $10,000 or obtained a take-nothing judgment. And in such a case, where the prospective recovery is limited, it is exactly this "billing judgment" which enables the parties to achieve a settlement; any competent attorney, whether prosecuting or defending a contract action for $10,000, would realize that the case simply cannot justify a fee in excess of the potential recovery on the part of either the plaintiff's or the defendant's attorney. All of these examples illuminate the point made in Hensley that "the important factor" in determining a "reasonable" fee is the "results obtained." 461 U.S. at 461 U. S. 434. The very "reasonableness" of the hours expended on a case by a plaintiff's attorney necessarily will depend, to a large extent, on the amount that may reasonably be expected to be recovered if the plaintiff prevails. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
In the context of § 1988, there would obviously be some exceptions to the general rules of "billing judgment" which I have been discussing, but none of these exceptions are applicable here. If the litigation is unnecessarily prolonged by the bad-faith conduct of the defendants, or if the litigation produces significant, identifiable benefits for persons other than the plaintiffs, then the purpose of Congress in authorizing attorney's fees under § 1988 should allow a larger award of attorney's fees than would be "reasonable" where the only relief is the recovery of monetary damages by individual plaintiffs. Nor do we deal here with a case such as Carey v. Piphus, 435 U. S. 247, 435 U. S. 266 (1978), in which the deprivation of a constitutional right necessarily results in only nominal pecuniary damages. See S.Rep. No. 94-1011, supra, at 6 (fee awards under § 1988 should "not be reduced because the rights involved may be nonpecuniary in nature"). Here, respondents chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Ante at 477 U. S. 574. I agree with the plurality that the importation of the contingent fee model to govern fee awards under § 1988 is not warranted by the terms and legislative history of the statute. But I do not agree with the plurality if it means to reject the kind of "proportionality" that I have previously described. Nearly 2,000 attorney-hours spent on a case in which the total recovery was only $33,000, in which only $13,300 of that amount was recovered for the federal claims, and in which the District Court expressed the view that, in such cases, juries typically were reluctant to award substantial damages against police officers, is simply not a "reasonable" expenditure of time. The snippets of legislative history which the plurality relies upon to dismiss any relationship between the amount of time put in on a case and the amount of damages awarded are wholly unconvincing. One may agree with all of the glowing rhetoric contained in the plurality's opinion about Congress' noble purpose in authorizing attorney's fees under § 1988 without concluding that Congress intended to turn attorneys loose to spend as many hours as possible to prepare and try a case that could reasonably be expected to result only in a relatively minor award of monetary damages. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary