Opinion ID: 483257
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Remedy Phase

Text: 19 According to the affidavits, the total number of attorney hours in the remedy phase 8 was 773.28, resulting in a fee request of $178,635.00. Of this time, 297.98 hours were spent in conferences with clients and congressmen. 9 The approximately 300 hours spent conferring with clients in this phase compares with 143.67 hours spent in the various aspects of the pre-remedy phase (45.1 in the initial challenge to the Feldman Plan; 88.57 during the first Supreme Court review). No billed hours were spent conferring with clients regarding the second Supreme Court review or the fee application. 20 Appellees take two positions on their liability for the remedy phase. They first assert that appellants are not entitled to any compensation for the remedy phase. However, to accept this assertion requires one first to disregard Chief Justice Marshall's admonition that where there is a right there must be a remedy. See Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 146, 163, 2 L.Ed. 60 (1803). If the appellees had submitted a reapportionment plan that had been adopted by the district court, their argument might be plausible, for under such circumstances the appellants would not be the prevailing party on the remedy issue. The appellees' plan was rejected by the district court, however, so they certainly did not prevail. Appellants, by contrast, did prevail, at least in part, which is all that Sec. 1988 requires. 10 21 In the few reported decisions that have considered whether a Sec. 1988 prevailing party is entitled to an attorney's fee award for work performed in the remedy phase of redistricting litigation, fees have been awarded. See In re Kansas Congressional Dists. Reapportionment Cases, 745 F.2d 610 (10th Cir.1984); Ramos v. Koebig, 638 F.2d 838, 845-46 (5th Cir. Unit A 1981); Connor v. Winter, 519 F.Supp. 1337 (S.D.Miss.1981) (three-judge court). We will not, therefore, as a matter of law preclude recovery for the remedy phase of the proceedings. 22 Secondly, appellees contest the award of fees for hours which may have been spent solely in partisan negotiations and proceedings. As Justice Frankfurter once noted, there comes a point where [we] should not be ignorant as judges of what we know as [women and] men. Watts v. Indiana, 338 U.S. 49, 52, 69 S.Ct. 1347, 1349, 93 L.Ed. 1801 (1949) (Frankfurter, J., joined by Murphy and Rutledge, JJ.): cf. In re Fine Paper Antitrust Litig., 751 F.2d at 584 (we do not approach the review process with any predisposition against what we know). Here, we cannot be oblivious to the fact that there are extraordinary political machinations and implications in the process of drawing congressional district boundaries. The Republican congressional appellants, to put the matter precisely, certainly were not interested in this statutory revision simply because of their innate attachment to mathematical exactitude. Indeed, it is certain that they would have tolerated any less exact redistricting plan that would have furthered their partisan prospects for reelection. We simply cannot discern, in the district court's opinion, how many attorney hours in the remedy phase were spent obtaining mathematical exactitude and how many hours were devoted solely to obtaining the most favorable political result for the appellants. While nothing in the record suggests that the appellants have acted in bad faith in making this fee request, we do find that the record is inadequate to justify the district court's order compensating 773.28 hours of work (i.e., an award of $178,635) in the remedy phase. 23 Because of the magnitude of the amount sought and the possibility of confusing a lawyer's role in getting a mathematically equitable distribution with a client's preference for maximizing his or her political advantages, the complex record of this case requires closer inquiry into the nature of the services rendered and the time spent. In addition, we are mindful of the fact that it is the appellants' burden to demonstrate the reasonable necessity of the hours charged. See, e.g., Hughes, 578 F.2d at 487. Appellees are not obligated to compensate counsel's efforts merely to maximize anyone's political leverage. But cf. In re Kansas Congressional Dists. Reapportionment Cases, 745 F.2d at 613 (the fact that some of the issues raised by the plaintiffs were political rather than constitutional does not alter the [Sec. 1988 fee] award). We will therefore remand for further findings on this issue.