Opinion ID: 387362
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: The Statute and the Legislative History

Text: 250 The majority asserts that the cost-plus formula is fundamentally inconsistent with Congress's purpose in providing for statutory fee-shifting. 13 The majority further contends that Congress intended that a fee should be based on the market value of the services rendered. 14 Neither the language of the statute nor the legislative history underlying the attorney's fee provision evinces a congressional mandate to use the market value approach in calculating a reasonable attorney's fee award. 251 The purpose underlying the attorney's fee provision is to encourage deserving litigants to seek judicial relief. To effectuate this purpose, Congress intended that the attorney's fee awards be sufficient to attract competent counsel, but not so unreasonably high as to produce a windfall for the attorney. It is our position, quite simply, that the market value approach is inappropriate at least in cases in which the Government is the losing defendant because, as will be demonstrated in our analysis of the practical flaws in the majority theory in Part II below, it presents the likelihood that the attorney indeed will reap a bonanza. The cost-plus formula, on the other hand, will provide adequate compensation to enable litigants to obtain competent counsel without providing a windfall to the attorney. 252 We begin by looking to the language of the statute. The attorney's fee section provides that the court, in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party ... a reasonable attorney's fee as part of the costs, and the ... United States shall be liable for costs the same as the private person. 15 The language of the statute surely does not mandate a market value approach; it specifies not at all the method of computing the fee, but instead only generally directs that the attorney's fee should be reasonable. 253 The majority asserts, however, that the language the United States shall be liable for costs the same as a private person plainly indicates that the method of calculation of the attorney's fee should not vary with the identity of the losing defendant. To prove that this is wrong we need not advocate a clear dichotomy between the method of calculating fees in the case in which the losing defendant is a private company and in the case in which the losing defendant is the Government. The case before us is one in which the losing defendant is the Government, and we think that it well illustrates how the market value approach leads to an unreasonable result in this type of case. It may be, however, that the market value approach would not be inappropriate in cases in which a private concern is the losing defendant, another case which we do not have before us. 254 Apart from that caveat, our response to the majority's contention is that we take the language of the statute to mean only that the United States shall also bear the burden of a reasonable attorney's fee when it is the losing defendant. The statutory language does not indicate that the identical method of calculation shall be used in computing this fee-what may be a reasonable method of calculating an attorney's fee award in the situation in which a private entity is the defendant may be a totally unreasonable method when the Government is the losing defendant. 255 We also note that the attorney's fee provision quoted above has been a part of Title VII since the enactment of the statute in 1964. At that time, as the majority indicates in a footnote, Title VII did not permit employment discrimination suits against the United States. Thus attorney's fees were awarded against the Government only when the Government was a losing plaintiff. It was not until 1972 that a new provision was added to Title VII to allow suits against the Government. The language of the attorney's fee section was not changed; rather, the new section providing for suits against the federal government indicated that the attorney's fee provision would also be applicable to claims made by federal employees. 16 A fair reading of this sequence of events is that Congress did not contemplate at all whether the method of calculating a reasonable fee should be the same as the case in which the losing defendant was a private entity; instead, it appears that Congress only intended to make clear that the United States also would be assessed for costs when it was a losing defendant. 256 Turning to the policies and purposes of the attorney's fee provision set forth in Title VII, we find nothing which would dictate a market value approach. As the Supreme Court indicated in Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., 17 the provision for counsel fees in intended to encourage individuals injured by ... discrimination to seek judicial relief, by enabling these individuals to obtain adequate counsel. 18 Nothing in the legislative history of the provision indicates that Congress intended the attorney's fee to be computed according to the market value of the services rendered by the attorney: indeed, nothing in the legislative history indicates that Congress even addressed itself to the details of the method of calculating an award. 257 In regard to the Civil Rights Attorney's Fee Award Act of 1976, 19 an Act similar in design and principle to the attorney's fee provisions set forth in Title VII, the policy underlying the attorney's fee provisions in civil rights cases is elucidated more fully: (A)warding counsel fees to prevailing plaintiffs in (civil rights) litigation is particularly important and necessary if Federal civil and constitutional rights are to be adequately protected. 20 To accomplish this goal, reasonable fees must be awarded to attract competent counsel ... while avoiding windfalls to attorneys. 21 The majority correctly asserts that both the House and Senate Reports to the 1976 Civil Rights Attorney's Fee Award Act cite with approval Title VII cases in which the attorney's fee was calculated according to a market value formula. But Congress found that in those cases cited the fees (were) adequate to attract competent counsel, but (did) not produce windfalls to (the) attorneys. 22 258 We do not think therefore that Congress intended the market value of the services rendered to be the basis for an award of attorney's fees when that technique would produce a windfall or unreasonable fee. As the court explained in Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, Inc., 23 one of the cases Congress cited with approval: 259 The statute was not passed for the benefit of attorneys but to enable litigants to obtain competent counsel worthy of a contest with the caliber of counsel available to their opposition and to fairly place the economical burden of Title VII litigation. 24 260 We think applying the market value approach in cases in which the Government is a defendant, as will be shown below, likely will lead to the award of clearly un reasonable fees, in direct contradiction to congressional intent. To the contrary, the cost-plus formula will best promote the congressional policy of encouraging deserving litigants to bring Title VII suits, without making the attorney's position so lucrative as to ridicule the whole notion of a reasonable attorney's fee. 261