Bailey v. District of Columbia, Civ. A. No. 93-0403 (RCL).
| Decision Date | 13 December 1993 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 93-0403 (RCL). |
| Citation | 839 F. Supp. 888 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Columbia |
| Parties | Lawanda Lorraine BAILEY, et al., Plaintiffs, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, et al., Defendants. |
Ronald L. Drake, Washington, DC, for plaintiffs.
Michelle L. Sedgewick, Asst. Corp., D.C., Washington, DC, for defendants.
Having considered the pleadings and evidence of both parties, this court shall grant plaintiffs' fee request.
The case underlying this attorney's fee litigation was brought on behalf of fourteen minor plaintiffs by their parents and guardians, claiming that the District of Columbia Public Schools ("DCPS") had failed to provide the children with appropriate special education and related services in violation of IDEA, 20 U.S.C. § 1400 et seq. In administrative due process hearings, plaintiffs were found to be entitled to special education and related services. After winning on the merits of their case, plaintiffs filed this action for attorney's fees, expert witness fees, and costs. Defendants conceded that plaintiffs were prevailing parties for the purposes of § 1415(e)(4)(B) and were entitled to an award of reasonable attorney's fees and costs under that statute.
On April 23, 1993, this court granted plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment, finding defendants liable for reasonable attorney's fees but postponing the determination of the amount of such an award. Pursuant to court order, plaintiffs then filed a statement of the amount of attorney's fees, expert witness fees, costs and expenses incurred. Defendants filed a brief in opposition to that statement, and plaintiffs replied.
On November 8, 1993, finding the parties' submissions inadequate to resolve the attorney's fee and cost issues, this court ordered plaintiffs to submit evidence of the prevailing market rates for their counsel's services and to submit a well-documented list of plaintiffs' expert's expenses. By the same order, this court required defendants to disclose the hourly rate at which they have historically settled their attorney's fee disputes with lawyers like plaintiffs' counsel, to set forth their position on awards of interest against the District of Columbia, and to brief the issue of whether expert fees and costs may be awarded under § 1415(e)(4)(B).
Lastly, the order required defendants to state the uncontested amount of fees and costs that they conceded they owed to plaintiffs. By order of November 26, 1993, this court ordered defendants to pay that amount — $87,388.29 — to plaintiffs.
Nevertheless, the interim award left much unresolved. The parties still dispute the hourly rate to which plaintiffs' counsel is entitled, the number of hours of his time for which he is due compensation, the amount of costs that are recoverable, and the method of calculating pre-judgment interest. This court will address each issue in turn.
In the November order, this court determined that plaintiffs' counsel, Mr. Ronald Drake, was entitled to the prevailing market rate for his work in this case, and ordered further discovery to determine what that prevailing market rate is. The affidavits submitted by both parties have been extremely helpful. Defendants have submitted the billing rates of the eight attorneys in the District of Columbia who practice primarily in the special education field. (Plaintiffs have submitted the billing rates for three of these lawyers, confirming defendants' data.) All of these lawyers have represented clients on special education matters before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, and all but one of them have represented clients in administrative due process hearings against the DCPS.1 The current billing rates of these special education lawyers range from $150 per hour to $230 per hour. A chart of the fees currently charged by special education attorneys (other than Mr. Drake) in the District of Columbia is set forth below:
Name of Attorney Years of Experience Hourly Billing Rate (1993)
Matthew Bogin 19 $230
Michael Jeffrey Eig 19 $230
Francisco Lopez 2 $165
Margaret Kohn 21 $175
Donna Wulkan 10 $200
Beth Goodman 9 $175
Joan Christopher 13 $150
Concededly, there is not much data here upon which to base a prevailing market rate. The field of special education lawyers — the sub-market in which plaintiffs' counsel places himself — is small. Nevertheless, it is clear from the data available that the prevailing market rate for special education lawyers in the District of Columbia with Mr. Drake's many years of experience is $175 to $230 per hour. (Because none of the lawyers has acquired Mr. Drake's thirty years of legal experience, the court relies on the rates charged by lawyers who have practiced for more than nineteen years.) Mr. Drake's requested rate — $200 per hour — is well within the prevailing market rates for similar legal work performed in this community.
In the interim award, defendants denied plaintiffs compensation for roughly twenty to thirty percent of their claimed hours. Defendants conceded liability for almost all (eighty-seven percent) of Mr. Drake's time spent on the case of student William T. Robinson, for none of his time he spent on the case of Mario Valentino Key, and for seventy to eighty percent of the hours he spent on most of the other cases.2 Defendants do not explain why they have conceded liability for varying percentages of the hours counsel spent on the fourteen special education cases. In their opposition memorandum, however, defendants do make three arguments against plaintiffs' claimed hours.
First, defendants contest liability for the time plaintiffs' counsel spent doing "clerical" tasks like opening computer files and drafting retainer agreements, school record release authorizations, cover letters, independent evaluation requests, medical record release authorizations, and letters to parents requesting documents. (Defs.' Opp'n, at 6.) Yet drafting contracts, release authorizations, and outside correspondence are not mere clerical tasks. Perhaps they are jobs that could have been performed more cheaply by a less experienced lawyer who commands a lower billing rate. Yet attorneys like plaintiffs' counsel, operating either as solo practitioners or in small firms, often lack the resources to retain a large staff of junior lawyers who could handle such tasks more economically. Denying plaintiffs compensation for these tasks would unfairly punish plaintiffs and their counsel for not staffing this case as if they had the manpower of a major law firm.
Secondly, defendants argue that "several items billed from June 1992 to February 1993 are not related to the litigation."3 Between those dates, plaintiffs' counsel made several calls to the DCPS superintendent's assistant legal counsel about the legal bill of two of the plaintiffs, corresponded with DCPS legal counsel Ms. Cecelia Wirtz, and drafted and filed the complaint in this case. (Pls.' Reply Ex. 21, at 1-2.) All these tasks seem appropriately related to the case.
Lastly, defendants charge that plaintiffs' counsel spent an "excessive amount of time" on simple legal tasks. Defendants point to the 3.5 hours billed to draft a short motion for summary judgment and the two hours billed to revise it as their sole example of counsel's "excessive" billing. (Defs.' Opp'n, at 6.) This example makes plaintiffs' case. Less than six hours spent on a winning motion for summary judgment is impressively efficient. Plaintiffs may be compensated for all their time claimed.
Defendants granted plaintiffs most, but not all, of their requested costs in the interim award. The interim award has left in dispute only a few claimed photocopying, travel, long distance telephone, and postage expenditures, all incurred either in administrative proceedings4 or in the litigation of this fee petition.5 Congress has authorized all of these costs to be shifted to defendants as elements of a "reasonable attorney's fee" under § 1415(e)(4)(B). See, e.g., Northcross v. Board of Ed. of Memphis City, 611 F.2d 624, 639 (6th Cir.1979), cert. denied, 447 U.S. 911, 100 S.Ct. 2999, 3000, 64 L.Ed.2d 862 (1980).
The interim agreement also left uncompensated $17.50 in fees and $10.00 in costs of plaintiffs' expert, who testified at a 1992 hearing about the appropriateness of the MacArthur Day School for one of the fourteen plaintiffs, Reginald Walton. (Pls.' Application, Ex. 12.) Congress usually does not intend for the fees or costs of experts to be awarded as part of a reasonable attorney's fee. See West Virginia University Hospitals v. Casey, 499 U.S. 83, 88-92, 111 S.Ct. 1138, 1141-43, 113 L.Ed.2d 68 (1991). However, the statute at issue in this case, § 1415(e)(4)(B), is an exception. See id., at 91 n. 5, 111 S.Ct. at 1143 n. 5. Section 1415(e)(4)(B) awards "attorneys' fees as part of the costs," a phrase the congressional conferees intended to encompass "reasonable expenses and fees of expert witnesses." H.R.Conf.Rep. No. 687, 99th Cong., 2d Sess. 5, reprinted in, 1986 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1798, 1808 (emphasis added). See also Field v. Haddonfield Bd. of Educ....
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