Palmer v. City of Chicago, 82 C 2349.
| Citation | 596 F. Supp. 1060 |
| Decision Date | 07 November 1984 |
| Docket Number | No. 82 C 2349.,82 C 2349. |
| Parties | Reuben PALMER, et al., Subclass A Plaintiffs, and Edward Negron, et al., Subclass B Plaintiffs, v. CITY OF CHICAGO, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
Michael E. Deutsch, G. Flint Taylor, Jeffrey H. Haas, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiffs.
Jeremiah Marsh, Wm. Carlisle Herbert, James D. Ossyra, Hopkins & Sutter, Chicago, Ill., for defendants.
On November 18, 1983 (in the "Opinion," 576 F.Supp. 252) this Court determined plaintiffs were entitled under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 ("Section 1988") to interim attorneys' fees of $116,980.20, an amount later reduced (by a December 28 oral bench ruling) to $112,606.20.1 In response to this Court's invitation for the parties' submissions as to the proper time for payment, the City of Chicago ("City") opposes immediate payment, claiming:
For the reasons stated in this memorandum opinion and order, this Court finds none of City's objections persuasive and therefore orders immediate payment.
City's first two objections are really a back-door effort to obtain reconsideration of the Opinion. Each was disposed of when this Court expressly determined (576 F.Supp. at 253-54) plaintiffs were prevailing parties and were entitled to attorneys' fees regardless of the outcome of the current appeal or the rest of the litigation. There is no need to repeat that analysis. This opinion therefore restricts its discussion to:
Evans-Baylark has determined the sequence to be followed in payment of tort judgments against City. It contains a provision for attorneys' fees to be paid along with the judgments themselves, but Judge Grady has specified that provision applies only to attorneys' fees awarded in conjunction with damage awards, adding (Decree I.2 n. *):
However, in cases which do not involve claims for money damages, such as cases where only injunctive or declaratory relief is sought, payment of a fee award out of sequence would not result in a preference of the attorney over the client. While this court assumes that for purposes of simplicity and uniformity attorneys fees awards in cases not involving money damages will ordinarily be paid in the same sequential order established in this decree for tort judgments, we nonetheless recognize that another court may in its discretion order current or immediate payment of attorneys fees in non-money damage cases in appropriate circumstances.2
This action falls squarely within that last clause. It plainly presents an "appropriate circumstance" for immediate payment. As the Opinion reflects, the fees awarded by this Court were earned in pursuit of injunctive relief rather than money damages,3 and thus there is no question of favoring lawyer over client.
Most importantly, immediate payment will fulfill the purpose of Section 1988: to encourage — and indeed in this case actually enable — private enforcement of civil rights. Lynch v. City of Milwaukee, 747 F.2d 423, 426 (7th Cir.1984), quoting earlier opinions by our Court of Appeals. Where as here the fee award is consequent on plaintiffs' having obtained injunctive relief in vindication of constitutional rights, the Supreme Court's language in Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, 390 U.S. 400, 402, 88 S.Ct. 964, 966, 19 L.Ed.2d 1263 (1968) () has special force:
If a plaintiff obtains an injunction, he does so not for himself alone but also as a "private attorney general," vindicating a policy that Congress considered of the highest priority. If successful plaintiffs were routinely forced to bear their own attorneys' fees, few aggrieved parties would be in a position to advance the public interest by invoking the injunctive powers of the federal courts.4
And the same principles should apply in determining the time for, as well as the right to, interim payment of fees. As the Opinion said (576 F.Supp. at 254):
Plaintiffs invoke Hensley's v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983) fee determination principles to obtain current payment of the amount below which their fee award will not fall even under the worst possible scenario. Because plaintiffs will receive at least that amount in the end, they ask it be awarded now. Their position is unassailable. Plaintiffs are "prevailing" and have engaged in successful efforts for which they will inevitably be compensated. Their attorneys have spent hundreds of hours on the case without pay, and it may be years before a final evaluation of their success in every phase of the case can be made. Moreover Hanrahan v. Hampton, 446 U.S. 754, 757, 100 S.Ct. 1987, 1989, 64 L.Ed.2d 670 (1980) (per curiam) expressly authorizes fee awards pendente lite.
If Hanrahan's sanction of "the award of counsel fees pendent lite" (446 U.S. at 757, 100 S.Ct. at 1989) and "the interim award of counsel fees" (id. at 758, 100 S.Ct. at 1989) were to mean merely a declaration of future rights and not a right to immediate compensation, it would be an empty promise. That kind of purposelessness cannot be ascribed to Congress or to the Supreme Court.5
City cites the rule that a judgment may not be executed upon unless it is final (International Controls Corp. v. Vesco, 535 F.2d 742, 744-45 (2d Cir.1976)) and suggests this Court must therefore certify any payment order under Rule 54(b). But Mulay Plastics, Inc. v. Grand Trunk Western Railroad Co., 742 F.2d 369, 371 (7th Cir.1984) teaches Rule 54(b) applies only to judgments or orders relating to "substantive claims" in the complaint.6 Section 1988 attorneys' fees awards are collateral to and "uniquely separable" from the merits (White v. New Hampshire Department of Employment Security, 455 U.S. 445, 452, 102 S.Ct. 1162, 1166, 71 L.Ed.2d 325 (1982)) and are therefore not subject to certification under Rule 54(b). Mulay, 742 F.2d at 371; Cheng v. GAF Corp., 713 F.2d 886, 888-89 (2d Cir.1983); Swanson v. American Consumer Industries, Inc., 517 F.2d 555, 560-61 (7th Cir. 1975). Thus the "finality" of an attorneys' fee award under Section 1988 () is to be determined solely under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 ("Section 1291").
Because of the apparent confusion in City's memorandum in these respects, this Court wants to make it plain today's order is immediately effective and the fees are payable now. To that end some brief discussion of the distinction between an order and a final judgment may be in order.
Rule 54(a) defines "judgment" for purposes of the Rules as "a decree" or "any order from which an appeal lies." With courts of equity no longer separate from courts of law, "decrees" are not distinguished from appealable orders for purposes of that definition. Appealable orders for Rule 54(a) purposes fall into two categories:
10 Wright, Miller & Kane, Federal Practice & Procedure: Civil 2d § 2651, at 9 (1983).
Interim attorneys' fees awards are clearly not among the interlocutory orders enumerated in Section 1292. Yakowicz v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 683 F.2d 778, 782 n. 8 (3d Cir.1982); Hastings v. Maine-Endwell Central School District, 676 F.2d 893, 896 (2d Cir.1982). They may also not be "final decisions" for purposes of Section 1291 because of the prospect of an additional attorneys' fees award after final disposition of the case. Hastings, 676 F.2d at 895-96; Yakowicz, 683 F.2d at 782. Accordingly the interim fee payment ordered by this Court today may not (unless the Cohen doctrine applies, see n. 6) be an appealable "final decision." That however does not preclude its full enforceability: It is after all a court order, with which parties litigant are bound to comply.
This Court unquestionably has jurisdiction under Section 1988, as interpreted by Hanrahan, 446 U.S. at 757-58, 100 S.Ct. at 1989-90, to order the payment of attorneys' fees pendente lite. And Mulay makes plain that any nonappealability of such an order does not prevent its current enforcement.7
Mulay was a consolidated appeal from two pendente lite awards:
In the course of ruling both awards non-appealable, our Court of Appeals recognized they were immediately enforceable (742 F.2d at 370). It said immediate payment of sanctions would not inflict irreparable harm on the party charged. Id. If the sanctions award were overturned on appeal at some point in the future, the money would simply be repaid to the party charged. In conceptual legal terms the current award of attorneys' fees is...
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