Court Opinion

ID: 9430631
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:30:14.734946+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:25.375818
License: Public Domain

*587Chief Justice Burger,
dissenting.
I join Justice Rehnquist’s dissenting opinion. I write only to add that it would be difficult to find a better example of legal nonsense than the fixing of attorney’s fees by a judge at $245,456.25 for the recovery of $33,350 damages.
The two attorneys receiving this nearly quarter-million-dollar fee graduated from law school in 1973 and 1974; they brought this action in 1975, which resulted in the $33,350 jury award in 1980. Their total professional experience when this litigation began consisted of Gerald Lopez’ 1-year service as a law clerk to a judge and Roy Cazares’ two years’ experience as a trial attorney in the Defenders’ Program of San Diego County. For their services the District Court found that an hourly rate of $125 per hour was reasonable.
Can anyone doubt that no private party would ever have dreamed of paying these two novice attorneys $125 per hour in 1975, which, considering inflation, would represent perhaps something more nearly a $250 per hour rate today? For example, as Justice Rehnquist points out, post, at 590, would any private litigant be willing to pay a total of $17,875 simply for preparation of a pretrial order?
*588This fee award plainly constitutes a grave abuse of discretion which should be rejected by this Court — particularly when we have already vacated and remanded this identical fee award previously — rather than simply affirming the District Court’s findings as not being either “clearly erroneous” or an “abuse of discretion.” See ante, at 572-573. The Court’s result will unfortunately- only add fuel to the fires of public indignation over the costs of litigation.