Opinion ID: 2638074
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: I. The Lodestar Figure

Text: ¶ 32 Washington's Law Against Discrimination (WLAD), chapter 49.60 RCW, entitles prevailing plaintiffs to reasonable attorneys' fees. RCW 49.60.030(2). To encourage private enforcement of WLAD, the reasonable attorney fee remedy must be construed liberally. Martinez v. City of Tacoma, 81 Wash.App. 228, 235, 914 P.2d 86 (1996). To calculate the fee award, the trial court must apply the approach developed by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Lindy Brothers Builders, Inc. v. American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp., 487 F.2d 161 (3d Cir. 1973). Under this approach the court first determines a lodestar fee by multiplying a reasonable hourly rate by the number of hours reasonably expended. Bowers v. Transamerica Title Ins. Co., 100 Wash.2d 581, 593-94, 675 P.2d 193 (1983) (citing Miles v. Sampson, 675 F.2d 5, 8 (1st Cir.1982)). However the court may limit the lodestar to hours reasonably expended, and should therefore discount hours spent on unsuccessful claims, duplicated effort, or otherwise unproductive time. Id. at 597, 675 P.2d 193. The important contours of this limitation are at issue here. ¶ 33 Supposedly applying this approach, the trial court refused to compensate Chuong Van Pham and Heliodoro Lara approximately $50,000 of their requested lodestar attorney fees. [1] Specifically, the court disallowed (1) $10,000 for 40 hours spent on the injunctive relief claim; [2] (2) $14,375 for 57.5 hours spent on a cross-motion for summary judgment in United States District Court, motion on the merits, motion to file a second amended complaint (never filed), and media contacts; [3] (3) $4,139 for preparation of appeal; [4] (4) $3,750 spent on researching the effects of plaintiffs' death on the judgment and injunctive relief; [5] (5) $8,750 for the unsuccessful multiplier claim; and (6) $1,075 for settlement discussions. [6] ¶ 34 Where the decision or order of the trial court is a matter of discretion, it will not be disturbed on review except on a clear showing of abuse of discretion, that is, discretion manifestly unreasonable, or exercised on untenable grounds, or for untenable reasons. State ex rel. Carroll v. Junker, 79 Wash.2d 12, 27, 482 P.2d 775 (1971). Here the trial court's reduction of hours spent on injunctive relief, settlement issues, and the multiplier claim was based on the theory these efforts were ultimately unsuccessful, not because the attorney hours were spent on unsuccessful claims, duplicated effort, or otherwise unproductive time. Bowers, 100 Wash.2d at 597, 675 P.2d 193. As such, these reductions are based on untenable reasons and constitute an abuse of discretion. ¶ 35 The trial court's reduction of the hours spent by plaintiffs' counsel on a cross-motion for summary judgment in United States District Court, a motion on the merits, and a motion to file a second amended complaint rests on similarly flawed reasoning. The trial court concluded these efforts [were] not reasonably related to, nor did [they] cumulatively result in plaintiffs' favorable resolution. Clerk's Papers (CP) at 651. This is incorrect. Pham and Lara's cross-motion for summary judgment sought judgment as a matter of law on their race and national origin discrimination claim, the very claim on which they ultimately prevailed at trial. The simple fact that a particular motion did not cumulatively result in favorable resolution does not justify the disallowance of associated fees. Chuong Van Pham v. Seattle City Light, 124 Wash.App. 716, 726, 103 P.3d 827 (2004) (citing Martinez, 81 Wash. App. at 243, 914 P.2d 86). ¶ 36 The motion on the merits and the motion to file a second amended complaint also concerned the race and national origin claim, and thus must be included in the lodestar figure because, as correctly observed by the Court of Appeals, these efforts were related to the discrimination claims on which [Pham and Lara] ultimately achieved substantial relief. Id. The Court of Appeals found the trial court improperly focused on the short term failure of certain components of the litigation, when the focus should have been on the long term success of the litigation as a whole. Id. The Court of Appeals correctly reasoned: [w]here the plaintiffs' claims involve a common core of facts and related legal theories, a plaintiff who has won `substantial relief' should not have the fee reduced simply because the trial court did not adopt each contention raised. Id. at 726, 103 P.3d 827 (citing Martinez, 81 Wash. App. at 243, 914 P.2d 86). ¶ 37 Picking through the record to determine the success of each individual motion misses the point of a lodestar fee, which is to award reasonable attorney fees to plaintiffs who prevail in litigation as a whole. Courts have rejected the theory that plaintiffs should be denied compensation for time spent pursuing certain issues that ultimately did not become litigated . . . or upon which plaintiffs ultimately did not prevail. Davis v. County of Los Angeles, 8 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) ¶ 9444, at 5049 (C.D.Cal.1974), quoted in Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 431, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983). Instead, under the lodestar method, plaintiffs' counsel are entitled to an award of fees for all time reasonably expended in pursuit of the ultimate result achieved in the same manner that an attorney traditionally compensated by a fee-paying client for all time reasonably expended on a matter. Id. (emphasis added). See also Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bd. of Educ., 66 F.R.D. 483, 484 (W.D.N.C.1975) (prevailing plaintiffs awarded fees after court determined the obtained results were excellent and constituted the total accomplishment of the aims of the suit notwithstanding plaintiffs' losses on certain minor contentions). ¶ 38 As Taylor v. Sterrett, 640 F.2d 663, 669 (5th Cir.1981) explains, [T]he proper focus is whether the plaintiff has been successful on the central issue as exhibited by the fact that he has acquired the primary relief sought. And the United States Supreme Court in Hensley properly notes that in many cases [m]uch 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. Hensley, 461 U.S. at 435, 103 S.Ct. 1933. In Hensley the Supreme Court agreed with the Missouri District Court's finding that [Petitioners'] suggested method of calculating fees is based strictly on a mathematical approach comparing the total number of issues in the case with those actually prevailed upon. Under this method no consideration is given for the relative importance of various issues, the interrelation of the issues, the difficulty in identifying issues, or the extent to which a party may prevail on various issues. Id. (alteration in original) (quoting Record 220). [7] ¶ 39 Justice William J. Brennan's dissent in Hensley refers to the calculation of attorney fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 as a task Congress has entrusted to the courts, a task Justice Brennan views as crucial to the vindication of individuals' rights in a society where access to justice so often requires the services of a lawyer. Hensley, 461 U.S. at 442, 103 S.Ct. 1933 (Brennan, J., concurring in part, dissenting in part). In response to the Hensley Court's emphasis on the necessity of prevent[ing] `windfalls' (id. at 444, 103 S.Ct. 1933), Justice Brennan cautions: 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. Id. He continues: the legislative history of § 1988 reveals Congress' basic goal that attorneys . . . view civil rights cases as essentially equivalent to other types of work they could do, even though the monetary recoveries in civil rights cases . . . would seldom be equivalent to recoveries in most private-law litigation. Id. at 447, 103 S.Ct. 1933 (Brennan, J., concurring in part, dissenting in part). And 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. Id. at 449, 103 S.Ct. 1933. ¶ 40 Because I agree with the Court of Appeals' contention that the trial court failed to focus on the long term success of the litigation as a whole when calculating the lodestar, I would hold the trial court's reduction of plaintiffs' fees constitutes an obvious abuse of discretion.