Opinion ID: 569388
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Lindy Lodestar and Johnson Twelve-Factor Approaches

Text: 15 In an effort to provide findings on fee awards that could be more easily reviewed by the courts of appeal and to insure that attorneys be compensated for the reasonable value their time would normally command in the marketplace, the Third Circuit in 1973 established a prescribed set of guidelines that district courts in that circuit would be required to consider in arriving at a reasonable fee award under the common fund doctrine. In Lindy Bros. Builders, Inc. v. American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp., 487 F.2d 161 (3d Cir.1973), appeal following remand, 540 F.2d 102 (3d Cir.1976), the Third Circuit reviewed a district court's order approving attorneys' fees out of a common fund which was created by the settlement of several class actions charging a conspiracy to fix prices in violation of the Sherman Act. The Third Circuit in Lindy vacated the district court's fee award and set forth new fee award guidelines and prescribed steps, which now are known commonly as the lodestar approach. 16 To arrive at a lodestar figure under the Third Circuit's approach, the district court must first determine the number of hours reasonably spent by the plaintiffs' counsel on the matter, then multiply those hours by an hourly rate the court deems reasonable for similarly complex non-contingent work. That lodestar figure may then be adjusted upward or downward for certain factors known as multipliers, such as contingency and the quality of the work performed, to arrive at a final fee. 17 At approximately the same time as the Lindy decision was rendered, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, Inc., 488 F.2d 714 (5th Cir.1974), adopted a twelve-factor method of determining court-awarded attorneys' fees. 3 Although Johnson was a statutory fee award case pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988 and not a common fund case, it has been applied outside the realm of statutory fees. See, e.g., Hoffert v. General Motors Corp., 656 F.2d 161 (5th Cir. Unit A 1981), cert. denied, 456 U.S. 961, 102 S.Ct. 2037, 72 L.Ed.2d 485 (1982) (product liability claim). 18 The Task Force Report noted that most commentators consider Johnson to be little different from Lindy because the first criterion of the Johnson test, and indeed the one most heavily weighted, is the time and labor required. Similarly, many of the Johnson factors are subsumed within the initial calculation of hours reasonably expended at a customary hourly rate. 108 F.R.D. at 244. Recently, in light of five Supreme Court statutory fee award decisions 4 in which the Johnson factors were presumptively included in the lodestar calculation, the Eleventh Circuit has refined its analysis for determining statutory fee awards. See Norman v. Housing Auth. of City of Montgomery, 836 F.2d 1292 (11th Cir.1988). In Norman, this court noted the lodestar approach has been favored because it produces a more objective estimate and ought to be a better assurance of more even results. Id. at 1299. 19