Opinion ID: 387362
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Need for Additional Guidelines for the District Court

Text: 292 As witness this case, the application of the existing standards led to a claim of $206,000 by a responsible law firm and an intelligent, experienced judge fixing a fee of $160,000 on a $31,345 monetary benefit to all members of the class. To state the matter this baldly is to make out at least a prima facie case that something is wrong with the previously constructed standards-when applied to fix a fee award in a Title VII case against the Government. 293 Previous Title VII attorney's fees cases before this court have involved private party defendants. While the statute provides that the United States shall be liable for costs the same as a private person, it is rather likely that awards of attorney's fees against a private company, found guilty of race or sex discrimination, have contained a certain amount of a punitive element and have been scrutinized less sharply than awards against the Government (all taxpayers) should be. Hence, the panel of this court believed that it should give careful scrutiny not only to this particular award but to the standards which were to be followed subsequently in attorney's fees cases against the Government. 294 In this opinion, Part I, we examined at some length the unique factors affecting attorney's fees in Title VII litigation against the Government, an analysis which is an elaboration and development of thoughts set forth in our first panel opinion. At that time it was readily apparent that something was needed as a substitute for the commercial fee basis; hence, the court's original opinion suggested that actual cost plus a reasonable and controllable profit be substituted instead of the market value rate as the initial starting point for the district court's calculation.