Opinion ID: 163658
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Award of Attorney’s Fees to Dill

Text: Based on the fact that he recovered nominal damages on his procedural due process claim during the first round of litigation before the district court, Dill initially requested an award of approximately $130,000 in attorney’s fees as the prevailing party on the claim. In analyzing his request, the district court acknowledged that, “while he personally may have recovered little, a greater interest was served because [Dill’s] victory sends a message that important due process rights cannot be ignored.” Aplt. App. at 239. But the court also noted that Dill’s “meritorious claims were but one small part of a much larger crusade against defendants.” Id. As a result, the court concluded that Dill’s fee request had to be significantly reduced “based on the fact that [Dill’s] ultimate success was modest in comparison with his larger pursuit for damages against the defendants.” Id. at 241. The court further determined that additional reductions were required because Dill’s counsel had spent an excessive amount of time pursuing irrelevant matters and the hourly rates charged by his counsel were excessive. Based on these reductions, the court made an across-the-board reduction to Dill’s fee request in the approximate amount of eighty percent and determined that he was only entitled to recover $23,500 in attorney’s fees. After we remanded Dill’s claim for compensatory damages back to the district court and the court entered judgment against the City for $2,000 on Dill’s -6- procedural due process claim, Dill submitted a second request for attorney’s fees to the district court, arguing that he was entitled to a fee award in excess of $160,000 for all of the work his attorneys performed on the case, both before and after the appeals to this court. The district court rejected Dill’s request and refused to award Dill any attorney’s fees above its initial award of $23,500. “The Civil Rights Attorney’s Fees Awards Act allows a prevailing party in a civil rights case . . . to seek reimbursement for his attorney’s fees, to the extent the fees are reasonable.” Robinson v. City of Edmond , 160 F.3d 1275, 1280 (10th Cir. 1998) (citing 42 U.S.C. § 1988(b)). We accord great weight to a district court’s calculation of attorney’s fees, Sussman v. Patterson , 108 F.3d 1206, 1209 (10th Cir. 1997), and we review the amount of an award of attorney’s fees only for an abuse of discretion, Robinson , 160 F.3d at 1280. The only question here is whether the amount of attorney’s fees requested by Dill was reasonable. To determine the reasonableness of a fee request, a court must begin by calculating the so-called “lodestar amount” of a fee, and a claimant is entitled to the presumption that this lodestar amount reflects a “reasonable” fee. The lodestar calculation is the product of the number of attorney hours “reasonably expended” and a “reasonable hourly rate.” Id. at 1281 (citations omitted). The reasonableness determination ultimately turns on whether the work performed by the attorney was necessary under the circumstances. Id. “The prevailing party must make a good-faith effort to -7- exclude from a fee request hours that are excessive, redundant, or otherwise unnecessary.” Id. (quotation omitted). In addition, “[t]here is no doubt that a district court may reduce a lodestar calculation on the grounds that a prevailing [plaintiff] has achieved only partial success.” Id. at 1283. But the evaluation of a plaintiff’s overall success involves more than a mere tallying of the wins and loses incurred by the plaintiff. Instead, the district court must make a qualitative assessment of the relative importance of the plaintiff’s successes and failures. Jane L. v. Bangerter , 61 F.3d 1505, 1511 (10th Cir. 1995). Thus, the critical factor is whether the plaintiff achieved the principal goals of the lawsuit, see Robinson , 160 F.3d at 1283-84, and the fact that a plaintiff failed “on some interrelated claims is not nearly as important a factor as the ‘overall relief’ obtained by the plaintiff,” id. at 1283. Conversely, if a plaintiff does not achieve the principal goals of the lawsuit, “[t]here is no doubt that . . . a fee request may be reduced when some of a plaintiff’s interrelated claims are unsuccessful.” Id. Dill is not challenging the district court’s reductions to his fee request for unnecessary work and excessive hourly rates, and he has therefore waived any objections to those reductions. Further, although Dill’s claims were to a large degree related, and while he vindicated an important constitutional right with respect to his procedural due process claim, see Koopman v. Water Dist. No. 1 of -8- Johnson County, Kan. , 41 F.3d 1417, 1421 (10th Cir. 1994) (holding that public employee’s victory on procedural due process claim “had significant implications in establishing basic rights for public employees holding a similar property interest”), Dill’s overall success was quite limited. He failed on his First Amendment claim versus all of the defendants; he failed on his procedural due process claim versus all of the defendants except for the City; he failed on his state-law claims except for the breach of contract claim against the City; and he failed to recover any damages above his compensatory damages. Thus, this is not a case where it can be said that Dill achieved the principal goals of his lawsuit. Accordingly, we hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion in awarding Dill only $23,500 in attorney’s fees.