Court Opinion

ID: 9479094
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:08:17.050993+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:49.508009
License: Public Domain

GARWOOD, Circuit Judge,
partially dissenting:
I concur in all except part IV of the majority opinion. However, I am unable to agree with the holding that the particular attorney’s “customary billing rate” is presumptively the appropriate hourly lodestar rate, any deviation from which must be in some manner specifically justified by the evidence and explained by the district court even though the rate ultimately used is well within the community’s prevailing range of market rates for similar services by lawyers of reasonably comparable skill, experience, and reputation.
It seems to me that introducing such a presumption, with its attendant burden shifting and requirement for special explanations, likely will unduly complicate and formalize the fee fixing process and ultimately operate to reduce the district court’s discretion and enhance the role of appellate courts in these matters. Moreover, whether a particular attorney’s asserted billing rate has been sufficiently customary, or more of a goal than a reality, or usually applied to this kind of case, and the like, may well become the subject of satellite factual disputes, distracting effort and attention from resolution of the ultimate question of reasonableness. So, too, as to whether the attorney’s lower rates for some clients justify an exception, which may involve exploration of whether the attorney has thereby really been pursuing noneconomic interests, whether these favored clients were sufficiently poor (or perhaps otherwise “deserving”) and the like. All this runs counter to the thrust of the Supreme Court’s admonitions in Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 103 S.Ct.1933, 1941, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983), that
“[a] request for attorney’s fees should not result in a second major litigation. ...
“We reemphasize that the district court has discretion in determining the amount of a fee award. This is appropriate in view of the district court’s superior understanding of the litigation and the desirability of avoiding frequent appellate review of what essentially are factual matters.”
The basic “purpose of § 1988 was to make sure that competent counsel was available to civil rights plaintiffs.” Blanchard v. Bergeron, — U.S.-, 109 S.Ct. 939, 944, 103 L.Ed.2d 67 (1989). The legislative history reflects that the fees awarded should be “ ‘adequate to attract competent counsel, but ... not produce windfalls to attorneys.’ ” Id. 109 S.Ct. at 943 n. 6 (quoting S.Rep. No. 94-1011, p. 6 (1976), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1976, p. 5913). Counsel is not entitled to, or limited by, her agreed fee, and that is *475simply one of several factors to be considered on the ultimate issue of reasonableness. Blanchard, at 944. The same should be true for the attorney’s “customary billing rate.” What is at issue is the reasonableness of the awarded rate “calculated according to the prevailing market rates in the relevant community,” Blum v. Stenson, 465 U.S. 886, 104 S.Ct. 1541, 1547, 79 L.Ed.2d 891 (1984), “for similar services by lawyers of reasonably comparable skill, experience, and reputation.” Id. n. 11. This is an area where the relevant variables are so numerous and the subject matter so inherently imprecise that the increased administrative burdens of further refinement and formularization are unlikely to be justified by any significant enhancement in precision or reliability. We must ultimately rely on the experience and eommonsense judgment of the district judges exercising their discretion and of the court of appeals judges reviewing only for abuse of discretion or legal error.