Opinion ID: 2330512
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Limited Success

Text: The trial court further reduced the attorney's fees by 25% because, as the judge explained, Ms. Lively was ultimately successful on only one of the four claims submitted to the jury, that is, the Hostile Work Environment claim. Ms. Lively argues that this 25% reduction was improper because all of her claims revolved around a common core of facts. Indeed, citing Goos v. Nat'l Ass'n of Realtors, 314 U.S.App. D.C. 329, 68 F.3d 1380 (1995), she asserts that the trial court had no discretion to reduce her award of attorneys' fees on the grounds of her limited success, because the claims on which she did not prevail were related to her successful claim. We first address Ms. Lively's reliance on Goos. In Goos, a divided panel of the District of Columbia Circuit at least appeared to suggest that failure to succeed on related claims is not a sufficient reason to reduce attorneys' fees. The subsequent history of that case, however, squarely undermines the principle for which Ms. Lively has cited it. In denying a petition for rehearing or rehearing en banc, the court clarified its holding and explained that it had merely required the trial court to consider the overall degree of success of the litigation before reducing the requested fees because of a loss on one claim. Goos v. Nat'l Ass'n of Realtors, 315 U.S.App. D.C. 397, 74 F.3d 300 (1996). It is therefore clear that Ms. Lively's interpretation of Goos is no longer binding even in the District of Columbia Circuit, and in any event we decline to adopt such a rigid rule in this court. Rather we conclude that this is a matter to be decided on a case-by-case basis. Thus, we turn to the issue of whether a reduction was improper because all of Ms. Lively's claims revolved around a common core of facts, as she asserts. While we acknowledge that all of Ms. Lively's claims arose from her employment with FPA, it is not clear how much they actually overlapped. Indeed, Ms. Lively concedes that the Equal Pay Act claim did not overlap with the others, and represents that hours billed to that claim were redacted. The fact that a certain number of hours could clearly be linked solely to the Equal Pay Act claim, however, does not by itself sufficiently link the remaining hours to the Hostile Work Environment claim, and Ms. Lively provides us little explanation for why that would necessarily be. [11] Moreover, her inability to demonstrate that there was sufficient evidence to overcome a JNOV after jury verdicts in her favor on all of the three claims other than the Hostile Work Environment claim is clearly troubling. We easily conclude that Ms. Lively's success on only one of the four counts sent to the juryor 25% of her claims does not in itself require a reduction in her attorneys' fees by 75%, nor did the trial court do so. As the Supreme Court stated in Hensley: We agree with the District Court's rejection of a mathematical approach comparing the total number of issues in the case with those actually prevailed upon. Such a ratio provides little aid in determining what is a reasonable fee in light of all the relevant factors. Nor is it necessarily significant that a prevailing plaintiff did not receive all the relief requested. For example, a plaintiff who failed to recover damages but obtained injunctive relief, or vice versa, may recover a fee award based on all hours reasonably expended if the relief obtained justified that expenditure of attorney time. Hensley, supra, 461 U.S. at 435 n. 11, 103 S.Ct. 1933 (citation omitted). Hensley acknowledged, however, that if a plaintiff has achieved only partial or limited success, the product of hours reasonably expended on the litigation as a whole times a reasonable hourly rate may be an excessive amount. Id. at 436, 103 S.Ct. 1933; see also Shore v. Groom Law Group, 877 A.2d 86, 92-93 (D.C.2005) (affirming denial of attorneys' fees to plaintiff who succeeded in one out of eight claims). We are in agreement with that analysis. Ms. Lively further argues that the trial court reached the 25% figure without examination of the billing records she submitted in support of her fee petition. She presumes that no examination occurred because the trial court stated in its order that [i]t is almost impossible to review in any kind of principled manner the voluminous time records submitted by plaintiff. Leaving aside the question of whether the trial court reviewed the records, however, we note that the Supreme Court has recognized that the district court may attempt to identify specific hours that should be eliminated, or it may simply reduce the award to account for the limited success. Hensley, supra, 461 U.S. at 436-37, 103 S.Ct. 1933. The trial court was therefore not required to perform an in-depth analysis of the billing records, and our review of the trial court's decision must reflect that it `is not for the [trial] court to justify each dollar or hour deducted from the total submitted by counsel . . . [but] counsel's burden to prove and establish the reasonableness of each dollar, each hour, above zero. Bratcher, supra, 8 F.3d at 725 (quoting Mares v. Credit Bureau of Raton, 801 F.2d 1197, 1210 (10th Cir.1986)) (alterations in Bratcher ). Here, the trial court has provided no in-depth explanation of how it reached the conclusion that 25% appropriately reflected Ms. Lively's lack of success. Rather, the order simply cited Jackson v. Byrd, 2004 WL 3249692 (D.C.Super.Ct. Sept. 2, 2004), another case in which a trial court had reduced fees by 25% where the plaintiff alleged four counts based on similar facts, but was successful on only one count. Nonetheless, in cases where a voluminous fee application is filed, in exercising its billing judgment the [trial] court is not required to set forth an hour-by-hour analysis of the fee request. Gates, supra, 987 F.2d at 1399. Instead, when faced with a massive fee application the [trial] court has the authority to make across-the-board percentage cuts . . . `as a practical means of trimming the fat from a fee application.' Id. (quoting New York State Ass'n for Retarded Children v. Carey, 711 F.2d 1136, 1146 (2d Cir.1983)). [12] Where, as here, the judge addressing the fee petition is the same judge who conducted the pre-trial conference and presided over the trial of the case, substantial deference is owed on the issue of relative success of the litigation and the overlapping nature of the claims. See Hensley, supra, 461 U.S. at 437, 103 S.Ct. 1933. Moreover, it is clear that the trial court did not simply take a mathematical approach. Were that the case, a reduction of more than 25% would likely have resulted. Thus, we are satisfied that the trial court's decision to reduce the attorneys' fees awarded by 25% after considering the overall success on the merits was within its discretion.