Opinion ID: 754226
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Degree of Success--The Effects of Failed Claims

Text: 84 In finding no fee reasonable, the district judge also stated that plaintiffs were not prevailing parties against most of the defendants whom they sued originally and, indeed, were specifically the losing party with respect to five who went to trial individually and as Trustees, Fee Decision at 6, and that most of plaintiffs' attorneys' time had been devoted to claims that involved defendants as to whom plaintiff[s] did not prevail and claims for damages which were unsuccessful, id. at 10. The fact that plaintiffs did not prevail against other defendants, however, did not mean that no fee award was reasonable, for plaintiffs sought fees only against the Village, the party against which they plainly had prevailed. 85 Nor should a fee award have been denied on the ground that while securing a significant injunction against the Village, plaintiffs did not recover relief in the form of compensatory damages against that defendant. When a plaintiff has achieved substantial success in the litigation but has prevailed on fewer than all of his claims, the most important question in determining a reasonable fee is whether the failed claim was intertwined with the claims on which he succeeded. See Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. at 433-37, 103 S.Ct. at 1939-41; Reed v. A.W. Lawrence & Co., 95 F.3d 1170, 1183 (2d Cir.1996). No fees should be awarded for time spent pursuing a failed claim if it was unrelated to the plaintiff's successful claims in the sense that it was based on different facts and legal theories. Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. at 434-35, 103 S.Ct. at 1940. On the other hand, if the plaintiff won substantial relief, and all of his claims for relief involve[d] a common core of facts or were based on related legal theories, so that [m]uch of counsel's time w[as] devoted generally to the litigation as a whole, making it difficult to divide the hours expended on a claim-by-claim basis, there should be a fee award for all time reasonably expended. Id. at 435, 103 S.Ct. at 1940. 86 Where a plaintiff has obtained excellent results, his attorney should recover a fully compensatory fee. Normally this will encompass all hours reasonably expended on the litigation.... In these circumstances the fee award should not be reduced simply because the plaintiff failed to prevail on every contention raised in the lawsuit.... Litigants in good faith may raise alternative legal grounds for a desired outcome, and the court's rejection of or failure to reach certain grounds is not a sufficient reason for reducing a fee. 87 Id. (emphasis added). 88 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. 89 Id. n. 11 (emphasis added). The Hensley Court summarized as follows: 90 Where the plaintiff has failed to prevail on a claim that is distinct in all respects from his successful claims, the hours spent on the unsuccessful claim should be excluded in considering the amount of a reasonable fee. Where 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. 91 Id. at 440, 103 S.Ct. at 1943 (emphasis added). 92 In the present case, the claims on which plaintiffs succeeded were based on the same core of facts and law as the failed damages claims against the Village and most of the failed claims against individual defendants not dismissed prior to trial. For example, plaintiffs' legal and equitable claims against the Village were clearly based on the same conduct and the same FHA and First Amendment principles. Indeed, the jury's verdict conclusively determined the underlying facts with respect to both sets of claims. 93 Similarly, plaintiffs' claims against the Village and their claims against the individual defendants who remained parties through trial were largely based on the same core of facts and law, for plaintiffs claimed a conspiracy among, inter alios, the Village and ACA; and all of those individual defendants were both ACA and Village officials. As the district judge noted in denying those defendants' pretrial motion to dismiss, plaintiffs' contention was that ACA had been formed and used by those individual defendants with the intent to discriminate against Orthodox and Hasidic Jews and that ACA essentially became an instrument of the conspiracy. LeBlanc-Sternberg v. Fletcher, 781 F.Supp. 261, 273 (1991). The jury thereafter found that the Village had in fact conspired to violate plaintiffs' rights, and that its coconspirator was ACA, see LeBlanc-Sternberg I, 67 F.3d at 431 (jury implicit[ly] found that Airmont pursued this goal jointly with ACA). Thus, the fact that attorney time was spent on claims that involved, Fee Decision at 10, the five individual defendants who went to trial was not dispositive, for evidence against those defendants, who governed both members of the conspiracy, was necessarily involved in plaintiffs' successful conspiracy claim. 94 The record indicates that plaintiffs also asserted one or more claims that were not so related to their successful claims. For example, claims were initially asserted against the Town and its officials for interference with plaintiffs' right to vote; and one of the plaintiffs testified that one or more ACA officials had caused her to suffer physical injury. On remand, compensation should be denied to the extent that plaintiffs seek an award for services performed in pursuit of unrelated claims such as these, based on facts and legal theories different from the FHA and First Amendment claims; but it should not be denied for time necessarily spent pursuing claims that the individual defendants participated in the conspiracy that the jury found existed.