Clark v. City of Los Angeles
| Decision Date | 29 October 1986 |
| Docket Number | 85-6382,Nos. 85-6343,s. 85-6343 |
| Citation | 803 F.2d 987 |
| Parties | Ruth CLARK and Charles E. Bunker, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. CITY OF LOS ANGELES and the Los Angeles Police Department, Defendants-Appellants. Ruth CLARK and Charles E. Bunker, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. CITY OF LOS ANGELES; City Attorney Burt Pines; Councilwoman Pat Russell; Los Angeles Police Dept.; L.A.P.D. Officer Smith (Ser. # 20585); Officer John D'Amicus; Officer Alphonso Moreno; Officer Thomas Stead; Lt. Donald Ferguson; L.A.P.D. Venice Area Team Supervisor Sergeant Atchison; and Sol Walzer, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
John B. Murdock, Santa Monica, Cal., for plaintiffs-appellees.
Katherine Hamilton, Dist. City Atty., Los Angeles, Cal., for defendants-appellants.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California.
Before WALLACE, FARRIS and CANBY, Circuit Judges.
In these consolidated appeals, both sides asked us to review the district court's award of $87,360 in attorney's fees to plaintiffs' counsel under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1988.
In February 1977, plaintiffs Ruth Clark and Charles Bunker filed this civil rights action against the City of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Police Department and various individuals. The dispute involved plaintiffs' operation of open-air retail businesses on Ocean Front Walk at Venice Beach, California. Plaintiffs claimed that defendants denied them due process of law by discriminatorily and selectively enforcing provisions of the Los Angeles Municipal Code against them and by attempting to harass and intimidate them. Plaintiffs sought monetary and injunctive relief.
Shortly thereafter, the district court granted plaintiffs a preliminary injunction. The court found that Los Angeles police officers had, for a substantial period of time, interrupted plaintiffs in the conduct of their business, often several times a day, demanding to see plaintiffs' licenses, permits and other documents, while not asking the same of other merchants similarly situated.
The matter went to trial in November 1978, and a jury awarded plaintiffs $60,000 in damages. We reversed and remanded because a hearsay document was improperly introduced into evidence at the trial. Clark v. City of Los Angeles, 650 F.2d 1033 (9th Cir.1981), cert. denied, 456 U.S. 927, 102 S.Ct. 1974, 72 L.Ed.2d 443 (1982).
For undisclosed reasons, retrial of this matter was delayed several times. Finally, in April 1983, plaintiffs filed a voluntary motion to dismiss the action with prejudice, specifically reserving their right to seek attorney's fees under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1988. Plaintiffs noted that, since the trial, the harassment had ceased and they had been able to operate their businesses continuously and without interference. Plaintiffs stated that they did not wish to go through the trauma and pressure of another trial when they already had most of the relief they had sought. The district court granted the motion to dismiss.
Plaintiffs sought attorney's fees for work performed before and during the trial, on appeal, and after remand, including the time spent seeking fees. The district court found that plaintiffs were prevailing parties in the action. Accordingly, it awarded fees at a rate of $95 per hour 1 for services performed before and during trial, adjusting counsel's claim downward to reflect unsuccessful claims raised and subtracting certain fees already paid. In addition, the court awarded fees for 30 of the 46 hours claimed for fee-petition work, at a rate of $150 per hour. 2 The court refused to award fees for counsel's work on the appeal. The court found, therefore, that counsel was entitled to a lodestar fee amount totaling $58,240.
Counsel had requested that the lodestar figure be adjusted for inflation and also be subject to a multiplier of two because of the risk involved in the litigation and the contingent nature of counsel's fee arrangement with plaintiffs. The district court, after careful application of the factors we set out in Kerr v. Screen Extras Guild, Inc., 526 F.2d 67 (9th Cir.1975), cert. denied, 425 U.S. 951, 96 S.Ct. 1726, 48 L.Ed.2d 195 (1976), concluded that a multiplier of 1.5 was appropriate. The court did not make an adjustment for inflation. Accordingly, the court ordered defendants to pay $87,360 in attorney's fees.
On appeal, defendants challenge the finding that plaintiffs were prevailing parties. Alternatively, they argue: (1) that any fees awarded should be reduced because of the limited relief plaintiffs ultimately obtained; (2) that fees should not have been subject to a multiplier; and (3) that time spent pursuing fee petitions should not be recoverable at all and certainly should not be subject to any multiplier. On cross-appeal, plaintiffs challenge the district court's refusal to adjust fees for inflation and to award fees for work performed on the appeal.
Defendants first argue that the district court erred in finding plaintiffs to be prevailing parties within the meaning of 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1988. We disagree. Plaintiffs need not obtain formal relief in order to enjoy prevailing party status. E.g., Braafladt v. Board of Governors of the Oregon State Bar Ass'n, 778 F.2d 1442, 1443-44 (9th Cir.1985); American Constitutional Party v. Munro, 650 F.2d 184, 187 (9th Cir.1981). It is enough that plaintiffs received some of the benefit they sought in bringing the suit. E.g., Lummi Indian Tribe v. Oltman, 720 F.2d 1124, 1125 (9th Cir.1983).
Whether a litigant has shown a sufficient causal relationship between the lawsuit and the practical outcome realized is a pragmatic factual inquiry for the district The district court's finding that plaintiffs were prevailing parties is not clearly erroneous. Although the damage award was reversed on appeal, the district court found that the harassment plaintiffs had experienced ended with the jury verdict. This result was the primary relief plaintiffs wanted. Plaintiffs qualify as prevailing parties.
court. We review the findings for clear error. Braafladt, 778 F.2d at 1444
A district court's award of attorney's fees will not be disturbed absent an abuse of discretion. Harris v. McCarthy, 790 F.2d 753, 756 (9th Cir.1986).
Defendants argue that the district court abused its discretion by not reducing the fee awarded to reflect the limited relief obtained by plaintiffs. We disagree.
As we have already suggested, success in a lawsuit is not always measured by the formal relief obtained. See, e.g., Maher v. Gagne, 448 U.S. 122, 129, 100 S.Ct. 2570, 2574, 65 L.Ed.2d 653 (1980). Here, although plaintiffs ultimately elected not to press their damages claim, they received formal injunctive relief. More important, they achieved the practical result they sought. The district court could properly award fees for the efforts of plaintiffs' attorney that led to the favorable practical outcome, even if they did not also lead to an award of damages. See also City of Riverside v. Rivera, --- U.S. ----, 106 S.Ct. 2686, 2695, 91 L.Ed.2d 466 (1986) ().
Defendants next argue that it was an abuse of discretion for the district court to increase the lodestar fee amount by a multiplier of 1.5. Again, we cannot agree.
As the Supreme Court has held repeatedly, the "benchmark" for the award of attorney's fees is that the fee awarded must be "reasonable." E.g., Pennsylvania v. Delaware Valley Citizens' Council for Clean Air, --- U.S. ----, 106 S.Ct. 3088, 3096-97, 92 L.Ed.2d 439 (1986) (). Although courts have struggled with different approaches for determining "reasonableness" in fee awards, the Supreme Court has established certain guidelines.
The district court's approach to awarding fees in this case is fully consistent with the procedure endorsed by the Supreme Court in Delaware Valley Citizens' Council. See id. at 3097-98. The district court first examined the record and determined the number of hours reasonably expended on the litigation. The court next determined a reasonable hourly rate for legal work at the time the services were performed, and it multiplied these two figures to establish the lodestar amount. See also Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 433, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 1939, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983); Planned Parenthood of Central and Northern Arizona v. Arizona, 789 F.2d 1348, 1351 (9th Cir.1986).
This lodestar figure is presumptively a reasonable fee. As the Supreme Court held in Blum v. Stenson, 465 U.S. 886, 897-900, 104 S.Ct. 1541, 1547-49, 79 L.Ed.2d 891 (1984), many factors previously identified by courts as probative on the issue of "reasonableness" of a fee award, see, e.g., Kerr v. Screen Extras Guild, Inc., 526 F.2d 67, 70 (9th Cir.1975), are subsumed within the initial calculation of the lodestar amount. 3 See also Delaware Nonetheless, the Supreme Court has recognized that adjustments, both upward and downward, to the lodestar amount are sometimes appropriate, albeit in "rare" and "exceptional" cases. Id.; Blum, 465 U.S. at 898-901, 104 S.Ct. at 1548-50. The possibility of adjustments to the lodestar amount necessitates an analysis of various factors that could justify an adjustment. In this circuit, the relevant factors were identified in Kerr v. Screen Extras Guild, Inc., 526 F.2d 67, 70 (9th Cir.1975). Although several of these factors are now considered to be subsumed within the calculation of the lodestar figure, see supra, review of the Kerr factors remains the appropriate procedure for considering a request for a fee-award adjustment.
Valley Citizens' Council, 106 S.Ct. at 3098.
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