Opinion ID: 516472
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Attorney and Expert Witness Fees.

Text: 35 In a civil rights action or proceeding, the court, in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party, other than the United States, a reasonable attorney's fee as part of the costs. 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1988 (1982). We review the district court's assessment of attorneys' fees, in this case $152,284.75 representing a 25% reduction for plaintiff's limited success, for an abuse of discretion. Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 437, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 1941, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983); Jordan v. Multnomah County, 815 F.2d 1258, 1261 (9th Cir.1987). The appellee/cross-appellant contends that the district court abused its discretion by reducing the lodestar figure by 25%. The appellants/cross-appellees, on the other hand, contend that the district court abused its discretion by failing to reduce the lodestar figure by an additional 25%. We reject both contentions, and hold that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by awarding plaintiff $152,284.75 for her attorneys' fees. 36 The most useful starting point for determining the amount of a reasonable fee is the number of hours reasonably expended on the litigation multiplied by a reasonable hourly rate. Hensley, 461 U.S. at 433, 103 S.Ct. at 1939. This presumptively reasonable fee, known as the lodestar figure, may then in rare and exceptional cases be adjusted on the basis of other considerations. Pennsylvania v. Delaware Valley Citizens' Council for Clean Air, 478 U.S. 546, 564-65, 106 S.Ct. 3088, 3098-99, 92 L.Ed.2d 439 (1985) (quoting in part Blum v. Stenson, 465 U.S. 886, 104 S.Ct. 1541, 79 L.Ed.2d 891 (1984)). InHensley, the Supreme Court noted that, while these other considerations included factors previously used in assessing the overall reasonableness of fees, see Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, Inc., 488 F.2d 714, 717-19 (5th Cir.1974); accord Kerr v. Screen Extras Guild, Inc., 526 F.2d 67, 70 (9th Cir.1975), cert. denied, 425 U.S. 951, 96 S.Ct. 1726, 48 L.Ed.2d 195 (1976), 9 many of these same factors are now subsumed within the initial calculation of hours reasonably expended at a reasonable hourly rate, 461 U.S. at 434 n. 9, 103 S.Ct. 1940 n. 9. It is now clear that among these factors that cannot serve as independent bases for adjusting fee awards are: (1) the novelty and complexity of the issues, (2) the special skill and experience of counsel, (3) the quality of representation, and (4) the results obtained. Jordan, 815 F.2d at 1262 n. 6 (citing Blum, 465 U.S. at 898-900, 104 S.Ct. at 1548-1549). Presumably each of these factors are taken into account in either the reasonable hours component or the reasonable rate component of the lodestar calculation. We note, however, that the district court here adjusted the lodestar calculation of $200,500 downward by 25% to account for the results obtained. 37 Only recently this court reversed a downward adjustment of a lodestar figure because in that case the district court had accounted for lack of success twice--once in calculating the lodestar itself and again in assessing a downward adjustment. See Cunningham v. County of Los Angeles, 859 F.2d 705, 712 (9th Cir.1988). Here, by contrast, the district court made only one reduction for lack of success, albeit incorrectly as an adjustment to the lodestar. Mathematically, it is inconsequential whether the lodestar figure itself is adjusted for lack of success or whether the reasonable hours component of the lodestar is adjusted for lack of success. 10 What matters is that the district court did not count for lack of success twice. We therefore hold that the district court's reduction of the lodestar, if warranted, constitutes a harmless error. 38 This brings us to the parties' main contention: Did the district court abuse its discretion in determining that a 25% reduction for lack of success was warranted under the circumstances? In cases in which a plaintiff's success is limited, we have instructed the district court to apply a two-part analysis: 39 First, the court asks whether the claims upon which the plaintiff failed to prevail were related to the plaintiff's successful claims. If unrelated, the final fee award may not include time expended on the unsuccessful claims. If the unsuccessful and successful claims are related, then the court must apply the second part of the analysis, in which the court evaluates the significance of the overall relief obtained by the plaintiff in relation to the hours reasonably expended. If the plaintiff obtained excellent results, full compensation may be appropriate, but if only partial or limited success was obtained, full compensation may be excessive. 40 Thorne v. City of El Segundo, 802 F.2d 1131, 1141 (9th Cir.1986)(quoting Hensley, 461 U.S. at 435, 103 S.Ct. at 1940); see also Greater Los Angeles Council on Deafness v. Community Television of S. Cal., 813 F.2d 217, 222 (9th Cir.1987) (Supreme Court offers two different approaches for setting reasonable fees where a plaintiff's success is limited). 41 Although the test for relatedness of claims is not precise, Thorne, 802 F.2d at 1141, it is clear that related claims involve a common core of facts or are based on related legal theories, Hensley, 461 U.S. at 435, 103 S.Ct. at 1940. The district court here determined that plaintiff's unsuccessful claims ... against the twenty or so individual officers ... all arose out of a common core of facts and were based on related legal theories. Obviously plaintiff's claims against the individual defendants were premised on the same set of circumstances governing plaintiff's claims against the County and Black: the inadequate psychiatric care leading to her son's suicide. We therefore hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion in ruling that plaintiff's claims were related. Cf. City of Riverside v. Rivera, 477 U.S. 561, 577, 106 S.Ct. 2686, 2695, 91 L.Ed.2d 466 (1986) (trial court correctly ruled that civil rights claims asserted among various individuals and city were related), aff'g 763 F.2d 1580 (9th Cir.1985); Hensley, 461 U.S. at 435, 103 S.Ct. at 1940 (Many civil rights cases will present only a single claim.); Toussaint v. McCarthy, 826 F.2d 901, 905 (9th Cir.1987) (claims challenging the constitutionality of conditions of confinement and procedures for placing prisoners in administrative segregation involve a common core of facts and legal theories); Thorne, 802 F.2d at 1142 (although the district court did not analyze the issue, it reasonably may have concluded that the Title VII claim and the section 1983 claim arose in part out of a 'common core of facts' and that evidence that was material to one claim was material to the other). 42 After deciding that the claims were related, the district court then determined that full compensation would exaggerate plaintiff's overall success because she ultimately prevailed only on her Monell claim that the County, through its policymaker Black, maintained a policy or custom of deliberate indifference to the psychiatric and medical needs of pre-trial detainees and the decedent. At the same time, Black was found liable only as the relevant policymaker responsible for the psychiatric understaffing and other conditions at the jail that led to the decedent's suicide. The individual defendants, on the other hand, could have been found individually liable to the plaintiff for their own deliberate indifference to the decedent's medical and psychiatric needs, yet the various claims against them were dismissed either prior to trial or on a motion for directed verdict made during trial. Like the district court, we believe that the plaintiff's overall relief was materially diminished by her failure to make out these claims against the individual defendants. 11 Therefore, we find that the district court did not abuse its discretion by reducing the attorneys' fee award by 25% to reflect this limited success. Neither do we find that the district court abused its discretion by not reducing the fees by an additional 25% as requested by the defendants. 43
44 The plaintiff also claims error in the trial court's denial of her application for $33,000 in expert witness fees. The trial court held that the plaintiff had failed to provide a declaration as required by a local court rule that the costs were accurate, necessary and actually incurred. Also, the court found that the plaintiff had failed to provide adequate documentation to assess the reasonableness of the claimed amounts. We hold that the court's denial of these fees on these grounds was not an abuse of discretion. 45