Opinion ID: 1207601
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Level of Success

Text: The City claims the amount of attorney's fees awarded to McCown was disproportionate to the amount he received on his one successful claim. Specifically, the City argued that because McCown only prevailed on one of his nine original claims, receiving a fraction of what he originally requested in his settlement demands, his attorney's fees and costs should be reduced to a similar fraction. The district court indicated that it was unsure whether the fact that eight of McCown's nine claims were dismissed at summary judgment figures into the calculation of attorney's fees. We conclude that it does. Although we can understand why our able district court colleague may have found the case law on this issue to be inscrutable, we hold that attorney's fees awarded under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 must be adjusted downward where the plaintiff has obtained limited success on his pleaded claims, and the result does not confer a meaningful public benefit. [2] This conclusion follows largely from Hensley itself, where the Supreme Court noted that [a] reduced fee award is appropriate if the relief, however significant, is limited in comparison to the scope of the litigation as a whole. 461 U.S. at 440, 103 S.Ct. 1933. [3] Although the Supreme Court has disavowed a test of strict proportionality, it also suggested that a comparison of damages awarded to damages sought is required. City of Riverside v. Rivera, 477 U.S. 561, 576, 585, 106 S.Ct. 2686, 91 L.Ed.2d 466 (1986) (Powell, J., concurring). A rule of proportionality is inappropriate, as the Court found, because it fails to recognize the nature of many, if not most, civil rights cases, in which damages may be limited by law, regardless of the importance of the civil rights at issue. Id. at 576-78, 106 S.Ct. 2686. Indeed, it was because counsel in civil rights cases might not have found it economically feasible to provide services to low-income clients without a fee-shifting provision that Congress enacted § 1988. Id. at 579, 106 S.Ct. 2686. For this reason, the district court must consider the excellence of the overall result, not merely the amount of damages won. However, the Court also clarified that, in judging the plaintiff's level of success and the reasonableness of hours spent achieving that success, a district court should give primary consideration to the amount of damages awarded as compared to the amount sought. Id. at 586, 106 S.Ct. 2686 (Powell, J. concurring). Case law in this circuit provides additional guidance in how to measure a plaintiff's level of success when the plaintiff has prevailed on some, but not all his claims. For example, in McGinnis v. Kentucky Fried Chicken, this court echoed the holding in Rivera that a pro rata distribution of fees to claims makes no practical sense, but noted that [t]he district court must reduce the attorneys fee award so that it is commensurate with the extent of the plaintiff's success. 51 F.3d 805, 808, 810 (9th Cir.1994). In McGinnis, the plaintiff successfully sued his employer on the issue of disability discrimination, winning $234,000 inclusive of punitive damages, and $148,000 in attorney's fees. After a finding that punitive damages were not allowed, the plaintiff's award was reduced to $34,000, but the district court did not reduce the attorney's fees. We vacated the district court's decision on the basis that [l]awyers might reasonably spend $148,000 worth of time to win $234,000[, b]ut no reasonable person would pay lawyers $148,000 to win $34,000. Id. at 810. In McGinnis, the district court abused its discretion by expressly refusing to relate the extent of success to the amount of the fee award. Id. In this case, McCown received $20,000 in damages as part of a settlement agreement for his single remaining claim, and no other relief. The amount he received was roughly one-fourth of the damages in excess of $75,000 that he pled in his complaint, and less than one-tenth of the $251,000 he requested in settlement, which, however, included attorney's fees and costs. [4] McCown's victory clearly fell far short of his goal; therefore, it is unreasonable to grant his attorneys more than a comparable portion of the fees and costs they requested. Although the district court need not be so mechanical as to divide the amount of fees and costs requested by the number of claims, and therefore grant one-ninth of the fees and costs, the district court should take into account McCown's limited success when determining a reasonable award.