Opinion ID: 765608
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The size of the fee award

Text: 39 While the degree of a plaintiff's success in relation to the other goals of the lawsuit is not relevant to his eligibility for a fee award, it is a factor critical to the determination of the size of a reasonable fee. Garland, 489 U.S. at 790. The Colegio contends that the overall fee award should have been reduced because Schneider and Ramos achieved limited success when the litigation is viewed as a whole, and, in particular, plaintiffs failed to achieve the goal closest to [their] heart[s], overturning mandatory membership. Evaluating the extent of success for purposes of fees award reduction is assigned to the trial court's discretion and our review is appropriately deferential. See Hensley, 461 U.S. at 437 (court necessarily has discretion in making equitable judgment as to fees award reduction for limited success). 40 The Supreme Court has stated that 'the most critical factor' in determining the reasonableness of a fee award 'is the degree of success obtained.' Farrar, 506 U.S. at 114 (quoting Hensley, 461 U.S. at 436). Where a plaintiff recovers only nominal damages . . . the only reasonable fee is usually no fee at all. Farrar, 506 U.S. at 115. However, this principle applies only '[w]here recovery of private damages is the purpose of civil rights litigation.' Id. at 114 (quoting Riverside v. Rivera, 477 U.S. 561, 585 (1986) (Powell, J., Concurring)). Damages were never a significant issue to the plaintiffs in this litigation. 23 Rather, Schneider and Ramos sought and achieved far more than an award of individual money damages in this case. They sought primarily to vindicate their constitutional rights through injunctive relief. Although compulsory Colegio membership was ultimately held to be constitutional, this holding was subject to a significant qualification: the Colegio would no longer be allowed to use dues and stamp proceeds to support ideological purposes outside of the core purposes of a bar association, and it was forced to institute procedures to refund to Dissenting attorneys dues that were earmarked for such ideological purposes. As the district court put it: [T]he success of plaintiffs in winning an alteration of the method by which dues were assessed and collected by the Colegio was a victory of major proportions for the constitutional rights of Colegio members. . . . Its significance is not diminished by the fact that there were a good number of issues on which plaintiffs did not prevail. Schneider X, slip op. at 1. 41 The Supreme Court has stated that [w]here a lawsuit consists of related claims, a plaintiff who has won substantial relief should not have his attorney's fee reduced simply because the district court did not adopt each contention raised. Hensley, 461 U.S. at 440. Claims are related where they involve a common core of facts or [are] based on related legal theories, or where counsel's time is devoted generally to the litigation as a whole, making it difficult to divide the hours expended on a claim-by-claim basis. Id. at 435; see also Coutin v. Young & Rubicam Puerto Rico, Inc., 124 F.3d 331, 339 (1st Cir. 1997) (claims unrelated where they rest on different facts and legal theories (emphasis added)). Here the district court specifically found that [t]hose claims in which plaintiffs failed to prevail were reasonably related to the claim on which they succeeded. The [failed] claims were not distinct in all respects and therefore hours expended pursuing them were properly considered in assessing fees. Schneider IX, 947 F. Supp. at 42 (citing Hensley, 461 U.S. at 440). 42 The Colegio and Secretaries claim the district court abused its discretion in reaching this Conclusion. 24 However, the unsuccessful efforts of Schneider and Ramos to overturn mandatory membership and stamp use were closely related to their successful efforts to establish a dues reduction procedure and limits on the Colegio's use of stamp proceeds. Both remedies pursued by plaintiffs (voluntary membership/stamp use and dues reduction/limits on stamp revenue use) were means to the same end: vindicating the constitutional rights of Dissenters who did not wish to be forced to subsidize the Colegio's ideological activities. Plaintiffs' based their pursuit of both alternate remedies on an identical core of facts documenting the Colegio's ideological activities, and on related legal theories regarding the underlying constitutional right in question; either identity would be sufficient to establish the relatedness of the remedial claims under the disjunctive standard of Hensley and Coutin, above. Moreover, it would be nearly impossible to divide the hours expended on a claim-by-claim basis, Hensley, 461 U.S. at 435, even if the district court, in the exercise of its discretion, had determined that it was equitable to do so. I therefore conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to reduce the attorney's fees award because Schneider and Ramos did not prevail on every claim they raised or achieve all the relief they requested.
43 Under certain conditions, federal courts have held that hours expended in state court proceedings are compensable under § 1988. We have, for example, held that hours expended in state court proceedings are compensable where those state proceedings were initiated and pursued solely because of a federal court's Pullman abstention 25 subsequent to the initial filing of a federal claim in the federal forum. See Exeter-West Greenwich Reg'l Sch. Dist. v. Pontarelli, 788 F.2d 47 (1st Cir. 1986) (where § 1983 action halted under Pullman for certification of issue of Rhode Island law to state supreme court, and state court's resolution mooted § 1983 claim, attorney's fees properly awarded for hours spent on state court proceedings); see also Bartholomew v. Watson, 665 F.2d 910 (9th Cir. 1982) (state court action compensable where state proceedings initiated and pursued solely because of filing of federal claim and subsequent Pullman abstention by federal court). Clearly, therefore, all hours expended on proceedings before the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico subsequent to our 1984 abstention ruling and leading to its June 1986 opinion, and any subsequent Supreme Court of Puerto Rico proceedings, are eligible for compensation. Section 1983 was part of the litigation by then, and federal court abstention made the prosecution of the Commonwealth proceedings necessary to the advancement of the federal proceeding. 44 The Colegio argues that hours spent in the disciplinary proceeding in the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico from 1977 to plaintiff's 1982 disbarrment, prior to the filing of the federal claim, should not be compensable under § 1988 since the disciplinary proceeding preceded the filing of the federal claim but was not a legally necessary precursor 26 to the filing of that claim. On this line of argument, Schneider and Ramos should have raised their federal constitutional defenses to the disbarrment proceedings immediately (instead of reserving them) and should then have attempted to remove the case to federal court. Better yet, according to the logic of the Colegio, they might have preempted the disbarrment action by filing a complaint seeking declaratory relief in federal court under § 1983, instead of simply letting their dues payments lapse and waiting for the Colegio to commence disciplinary proceedings in the Commonwealth Court. However, they chose to allow the disciplinary proceedings to commence and then intentionally reserved their federal (§ 1983) defenses. The Colegio claims that this course of conduct left the 1977-1982 disciplinary proceedings essentially unrelated to the § 1983 action that eventually followed, and thus any hours expended on the disciplinary proceedings should not be compensable under § 1988. 45 In ordering more proceedings on the subject of attorney's fees in its October 1996 ruling, the district court stated that [a]bsent a showing that these hours[ claimed for work in Commonwealth Court proceedings], or any part of them, were either done for the benefit of this federal litigation or necessary to maintain or advance this litigation, or otherwise connected to or required by this litigation, such work is not covered by 42 U.S.C. § 1988. Schneider IX, 947 F. Supp. at 42 (citing Webb v. County Bd. of Educ., 471 U.S. 234 (1985)). Ultimately, however, the court justified its actual fees award not on Webb but rather on its Conclusion that the Commonwealth Court proceedings of 1977-1982 would have been part of any federal § 1983 action because of the inevitability of Pullman abstention on the facts of this case. Specifically, the district court stated that [c]lose scrutiny has been given to plaintiffs' claim for attorney[']s fees incurred in the Commonwealth court proceedings from November 1977 . . . to June 9, 1982 [the date of filing the federal action]. Schneider X, slip op. at 3. Noting that this litigation did not have the 'neat' history of an action in which the federal court immediately abstained in order to allow a state action to proceed, the court nevertheless concluded that the conduct and Conclusion of the Commonwealth proceeding was eventually recognized as a necessary prerequisite and adjunct to the federal action. Id. at 4. 46 I cannot agree with this rationale, grounded as it is on the inevitability of the 1977-1982 Commonwealth proceedings even if Schneider and Ramos had filed their federal claims in federal court prior to the commencement of the disciplinary proceedings in 1977. Pullman abstention is a discretionary practice of federal courts, premised on both prudential and federalism/comity concerns, see Pullman, 312 U.S. at 500-01, and it is therefore impossible to say with certainty that a federal court would have ordered abstention on a given set of facts. See Baggett v. Bullitt, 377 U.S. 360, 375 (1964) (The abstention doctrine is not an automatic rule applied whenever a federal court is faced with a doubtful issue of state law; it rather involves a discretionary exercise of a court's equity powers.); Erwin Chemerinsky, Federal Jurisdiction 742 (3d ed. 1999) (abstention doctrines are derived from the discretion inherent to courts of equity (citing Quackenbush v. Allstate Insurance Co., 517 U.S. 706, 722-26 (1996)); id. at 747-48 (acknowledging contradictory precedent but stating [t]he preferable approach is to treat abstention as discretionary). 47 It is true that we have awarded fees for hours spent defending state court proceedings that were not the product of a federal court's abstention. In Stathos v. Bowden, 728 F.2d 15 (1st Cir. 1984), an employer, anticipating a § 1983 suit by two employees, brought an action seeking a declaratory judgment under Massachusetts' sex discrimination statute in state court prior to the filing of a federal claim by the employees. The employees promptly brought a federal § 1983 claim in federal court, and then immediately sought to dismiss the preemptive state action brought by the employer by citing the pending federal case. The state action was then stayed pending resolution of the federal case. See Municipal Lighting Commission of Peabody v. Stathos, 433 N.E.2d 95, 96 (Mass. App. Ct. 1982) (detailing chronology). We held that the hours spent by the employees in defending the state declaratory judgment action were a necessary part of [the employees'] efforts to achieve their § 1983 goal (and thus compensable under § 1988) since the issues in the state suit were virtually the same as in the federal case and the employees were forced to defend [the state case] lest they lose their § 1983 claim in the federal courts through collateral estoppel. 728 F.2d at 22. 48 While the Colegio's attempt to disbar Schneider and Ramos might seem analogous to the preemptive action taken by the employer in Stathos, the situations are distinguishable. Schneider and Ramos did not move to cut short the state proceedings by instituting a separate § 1983 action in district court and then moving to halt the Puerto Rico Supreme Court proceedings pending action in the federal court (as did the employee-plaintiffs in Stathos), nor did they raise federal defenses in the Commonwealth proceedings and seek removal to the district court. Here, unlike the employees in Stathos, Schneider and Ramos were not at risk of losing their claims through collateral estoppel or res judicata (issue or claim preclusion, respectively) predicated on the Puerto Rico Supreme Court's resolution of the issues before it. See Schneider I, 546 F. Supp. at 1268-74 (pre-1982 state proceedings not res judicata as to federal proceedings; collateral estoppel also not applicable); Schneider VI, 670 F. Supp. at 1104 (same). Rather, they attempted to prevail on Commonwealth law grounds in the Puerto Rico Supreme Court while reservingall federal/§ 1983 claims. They therefore have no claim to hours expended on the disciplinary proceedings under Stathos. 49 The Supreme Court has stated in Webb v. Board of Education of Dyer County, Tennessee, 471 U.S. 234, 243 (1985), that even hours spent pursuing procedurally-optional proceedings prior to the commencement of the federal litigation may be compensable where the work done in those optional proceedings was both useful and of a type ordinarily necessary to advance a later federal claim. There the Supreme Court held that because exhaustion of administrative remedies was not a prerequisite to a § 1983 claim, 27 plaintiff Webb was not entitled to attorney's fees for all work done in (optional) administrative proceedings he chose to pursue before his federal § 1983 action was filed. 28 The court held the prevailing plaintiff to his contention (which he argued consistently in the courts below) that all of the hours spent by his attorney in the optional administrative proceeding were reasonably expended to enforce rights under § 1983. Id. at 242 (emphasis added). The question argued below was whether the time spent on the administrative work during the years before [the filing of the § 1983 claim in] August 1979 should be included in its entirety or excluded in its entirety. On this record, the District Court correctly held that all of the administrative work was not compensable. Id. at 243 (emphasis added). The petitioner made no suggestion below that any discrete portion of the work product from the administrative proceedings was work that was both useful and of a type ordinarily necessary to advance the § 1983 claim. Id. (emphasis added). Whether or not facts like those in Webb might ordinarily support a partial fee award, 29 the all-or-nothing nature of the plaintiff's fee claims in Webb precluded such a result. 30 50 In the case before us, we have no indication that Schneider and Ramos made claims in any way distinguishable from those made by Webb. Webb's attorney's fees claims in the district court contained an itemized description of the time spent in the ancillary administrative proceedings. Id. at 238. Schneider's and Ramos' application did the same, detailing specific tasks and hours spent thereon in the disciplinary proceedings. However, in Webb this approach was found to be insufficient, given that Webb presented only evidence that the administrative work in its entirety was 'useful' and 'necessary' to the outcome of the litigation. Id. at 257 (Brennan, J., Dissenting in part and Concurring in part) (emphasis added). Schneider and Ramos argued below that the total hours expended in the 1977-1982 disciplinary proceedings were compensable, on the theory that litigation in the Puerto Rico Supreme Court of the 1977 case Colegio v. Schneider et al[.,] was a necessary and indispensable condition precedent to and part of this case. Motion for Attorneys Fees, Dkt. 257 (Sep. 28, 1988), at 6. Later, after the Schneider IX decision, they argued that a prior ruling by the highest State [sic] Court on the Constitutionality of said laws under the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico was a prerequisite to the federal claim, irrespective of whether said ruling was prior to or after the institution of the suit in the Federal [sic] Court [sic] challenging the constitutionality of said laws under the U.S. Constitution. Motion in Compliance with October 30, 1996 Order, Dkt. 382 (Feb. 7, 1997), at 3. Both statements present all-or-nothing claims similar to those rejected in Webb. The statements also mirror the inevitability theory put forward by the district court, a theory I have rejected, above. In fact, Schneider and Ramos did not articulate below (or on appeal) any viable theory for why some discrete portion of the hours spent in the disciplinary proceedings should be compensable as useful and . . . ordinarily necessary under Webb. 51 I therefore concur in the Conclusion that we must reject the claim of Schneider and Ramos for attorney's fees for hours spent prior to June 3, 1982 on Commonwealth Court proceedings, and must adjust the district court's award, eliminating those amounts owing to hours expended prior to June 3, 1982 on Commonwealth Court proceedings. In total these hours accounted for $13,872.20 of the district court's fees award, 31 and this deduction results in a reduced award of $230,975.92, plus costs 32 and with interest from September 22, 1988 as per the district court's order. 52
53 The Colegio contends that the court should have adjusted the fee award downwards for work on losing claims advanced by plaintiffs. I have already considered and rejected these partial success fee reduction arguments in my Discussion of the degree of success issue, above. The Colegio also objects to the court's failure to reduce the fee award for hours spent on motions by plaintiffs that were dismissed, for allegedly excessive hours claimed for individual tasks, and for clerical tasks allegedly inappropriately performed by lawyers. The district court gave these claims careful consideration in rejecting the majority of them, 33 see Schneider X, slip op. at 5-6, and we have properly refrained from disturbing its exercise of discretion here. 54 Citing no authority, see Appellant's Br. at 34-37, the Colegio and Secretaries challenge the district court's refusal to discount the fees award for time spent by plaintiffs pursuing unsuccessful or partially successful appeals to this court. The Schneider II proceeding, for instance, resulted in the grant of a writ of mandamus to the defendant/petitioner Justices, reducing them to nominal parties; our decision in the Schneider V appeal vacated the district court's decision in favor of plaintiffs and ordered abstention; and our Schneider VIII decision temporarily stayed an injunction granting relief sought by plaintiffs. However, the prevalent approach to determining whether a plaintiff is a prevailing party on appeal[] is to inquire whether the plaintiff has prevailed in the litigation as a whole. John E. Kirklin, Section 1983 Litigation: Statutory Attorney's Fees 29 (3d. ed. 1997); see also Cabrales v. County of Los Angeles, 935 F.2d 1050, 1053 (9th Cir. 1991) (a plaintiff who is unsuccessful at a stage of litigation that was a necessary step to her ultimate victory is entitled to attorney's fees even for the unsuccessful stage); Buffington v. Baltimore County, 913 F.2d 113, 128 n.12 (4th Cir. 1990) (district court need not revisit fees award for first trial, which ended in mistrial, where plaintiff prevailed in subsequent trial); Alizadeh v. Safeway Stores, Inc., 910 F.2d 234, 237-38 (5th Cir. 1990) (fees awarded for work on appeal which resulted in reversal of summary judgment in favor of Safeway, which then prevailed at trial; ultimate success on merits made award of fees for the entire course of the litigation reasonable exercise of district court's discretion); Ustrak v. Fairman, 851 F.2d 983, 990 (7th Cir. 1988) (plaintiff had prima facie entitlement to entire fees in this court on appeal (from fees award) where fee award was affirmed but reduced by a third); Dougherty v. Barry, 820 F. Supp. 20, 25 (D.D.C. 1993) (rejecting attempt to bifurcate failure on appeal from success at trial; reasonable fees would be determined by examination of the entire case). 55 Here, Schneider and Ramos ultimately succeeded in achieving a significant portion of the relief sought, despite a number of backwards steps along the convoluted pathway this litigation took through the courts (including this court of appeals). I have no difficulty concluding that the district court was within its discretion in refusing to discount hours spent in unsuccessfully defending appeals, especially where the appellate setbacks suffered by plaintiffs were largely procedural in nature (here, reducing the Justices from defendants to nominal defendants, postponing (temporarily, as it turned out) the exercise of federal jurisdiction, and temporarily postponing the effectiveness of an injunction). Cf. Jaffee v. Redmond, 142 F.3d 409, 414 (7th Cir. 1998) (an unsuccessful but reasonable argument in support of a successful claim may be compensable.). The result might be different were the unsuccessful appeals initiated by the plaintiffs, but that was not the case for the three appeals to this court mentioned above. See Ustrak, 851 F.2d at 990 (for purposes of determining whether unsuccessful appeal is sufficiently related to plaintiff's success, a distinction should be made between an appellant and an appellee; where defendant appeals and plaintiff incurs expenses in defending against the appeal that are reasonable even though they are not crowned by complete success, plaintiff/appellee should be awarded fees since he had no choice but to incur them or forfeit his victory in the district court.). 34