Cruz v. Hauck

• Decision Date: 17 June 1985
• Docket Number: No. 84-1119,84-1119
• Parties: Fred A. CRUZ, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, and Mrs. Frances T. Freeman Cruz, Movant-Appellant, v. W.B. "Bill" HAUCK, Sheriff of Bexar County, Texas, et al., Defendants- Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 1230

762 F.2d 1230

Fred A. CRUZ, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants and Mrs. Frances T. Freeman Cruz, Movant-Appellant, v. W.B. "Bill" HAUCK, Sheriff of Bexar County, Texas, et al Defendants- Appellees.

No. 84-1119.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

June 17, 1985.

Frances T. Freeman Cruz, pro se.

Lonnie W. Duke, San Antonio, Tex., for plaintiffs-appellants.

J. Patrick Wiseman, Houston, Tex., for Fred Cruz, et al. and Mrs. Frances Cruz.

Sam D. Millsap, Jr., Barry P. Hitchings, Carroll Schubert, George B. Hernandez, Jr., Crim. Dist. Attys., San Antonio, Tex., for defendants-appellees.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas.

Before THORNBERRY, REAVLEY and HIGGINBOTHAM, Circuit Judges:

THORNBERRY, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiffs-Appellants successfully prosecuted a civil rights action and were subsequently awarded attorney's fees pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1988. Thirty days after the district court signed the order awarding fees Plaintiffs filed a Supplemental Motion in which they sought attorney's fees for the time spent defending the original fee claim. The district court denied the Supplemental Motion and this appeal followed. We vacate and remand.

I.

This case recently observed its fifteenth birthday. The litigation began on May 4, 1970, when inmates of the Bexar County Jail filed a Sec. 1983 action alleging that certain jail regulations unconstitutionally denied them access to the courts. Over the next thirteen years Plaintiffs fought an uphill battle that included four appeals to this Court and two petitions for certiorari to the United States Supreme Court. ¹ Finally, on November 4, 1982, the district court entered its judgment ordering Defendants to implement a set of "Rules and Policies" meant to provide the inmates of the Bexar County Jail meaningful access to legal materials and thus to the courts of the United States.

On January 14, 1983, Plaintiffs filed a Motion for Award of Attorney's Fees pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1988. The motion, accompanied by detailed affidavits of Plaintiffs' two attorneys, sought an award for legal services and expenses from 1970 through 1982. The affidavits stated that attorney Cruz rendered 765 hours of legal services from 1970 through 1982 and that attorney Duke rendered 279 hours of services from 1977 through 1982. Both affidavits included hours spent preparing the affidavits and the fee motion. Defendants contested the motion, challenging primarily the Plaintiffs' status as "prevailing parties" and the reasonableness of the hours claimed.

On March 2, 1983, the district court entered an interim order on the motion. The order required Defendants to specify their objections to the fee claim in writing accompanied by affidavits and required both parties to submit memoranda on the hourly rates awarded to attorneys in each of the years from 1970 through 1982. Both parties responded to the request for rate information with summaries of opinions awarding attorney's fees. Additionally, Plaintiffs submitted some information on cost-of-living increases.

On June 17, 1983, Plaintiffs' attorney Cruz sent a letter to the district court advising that she would be out of town for a period of time and leaving a forwarding address. The letter also advised that Cruz had completed a supplemental affidavit accounting for professional services rendered and expenses incurred since December 1982. Cruz stated that she was mailing the affidavit and supporting documents to Plaintiffs' attorney Duke "for filing with his own Affidavit, at the appropriate time." A copy of this letter was sent to Defendants' attorney.

On July 11, 1983, the district court signed a judgment awarding Plaintiffs over $90,000.00 in attorney's fees. In the accompanying opinion the court held that Plaintiffs were the prevailing parties and were thus entitled to an award of fees under Sec. 1988. The court then analyzed the fee claim using the twelve guidelines set out in Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, Inc., 488 F.2d 714 (5th Cir.1974). In early August 1983, Bexar County authorities issued checks to the Plaintiffs' attorneys.

On August 10, 1983, Plaintiffs filed the Supplemental Motion for Award of Attorney's Fees that is the subject of this appeal. It was accompanied by attorney Cruz' affidavit dated June 17 and attorney Duke's affidavit dated August 9. The supplemental motion requested an award for On September 3, 1983, the district court denied the Plaintiffs' supplemental motion in its entirety. After the district court denied a motion for reconsideration, Plaintiffs noticed this appeal.

professional services rendered and expenses incurred in 1983 in the course of defending the original fee motion, complying with the court's March 2 order, and preparing the supplemental motion. The affidavits claimed approximately 209 hours of attorney time.

II.

The Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act of 1976, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1988 (West 1981), provides that in certain civil rights actions courts may award a reasonable attorney's fee to a prevailing party. ² We have held that prevailing parties are entitled to attorney's fees under Sec. 1988 for time spent establishing and litigating a fee claim as well as for time spent prosecuting the merits of the civil rights action. Johnson v. State of Mississippi, 606 F.2d 635, 637-638 (5th Cir.1979). Prevailing plaintiffs "should ordinarily recover an attorney's fee unless special circumstances would render such an award unjust." Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., 390 U.S. 400, 402, 88 S.Ct. 964, 966, 19 L.Ed.2d 1263 (1968). We have interpreted this to mean that "absent special circumstances, a prevailing plaintiff should be awarded section 1988 fees as a matter of course." Kirchberg v. Feenstra, 708 F.2d 991, 998 (5th Cir.1983) (emphasis in original). Appellate review of a denial of Sec. 1988 attorney's fees is governed by the abuse of discretion standard; nevertheless, "the discretion afforded district courts to deny attorney's fees to prevailing plaintiffs under Sec. 1988 is exceedingly narrow." Ellwest Stereo Theatre, Inc. v. Jackson, 653 F.2d 954, 955 (5th Cir.1981).

The district court's Memorandum Opinion and Order stated three reasons for denying Plaintiffs' supplemental motion: (1) Each party should bear its own costs of litigating the original fee claim and of complying with the court's March 2 order; (2) Plaintiffs were "adequately compensated" by the July 11, 1983 award of attorney's fees; and (3) The supplemental motion was untimely filed. For the reasons that follow we hold that the denial of the supplemental motion for the first two stated rounds was an abuse of the district court's discretion. We further hold that the district court made insufficient findings to support its holding that the motion was untimely filed.

III.

The Plaintiffs' supplemental motion was accompanied by detailed affidavits of the Plaintiffs' attorneys. The affidavits reveal that most of the attorney time for which the supplemental award was requested was spent reviewing and replying to the Defendant's objections to the original fee claim and complying with the court's March 2 order. The rest of the time for which fees were requested was spent preparing the supplemental motion and the affidavits. In denying the supplemental motion the district court stated that "both parties should bear the costs each expended in complying with the order," and that "the natural zeal with which Plaintiffs complied with the order should not be charged against Defendants who filed only general objections to the motion for the award of attorneys' fees."

It is settled that a prevailing plaintiff is entitled to attorney's fees for the effort entailed in litigating a fee claim and securing compensation. Knighton v. Watkins, 616 F.2d 795, 800 (5th Cir.1980); Johnson v. State of Mississippi, 606 F.2d 635, 637-638 (5th Cir.1979). In the Defendants' response to the Plaintiffs' original On March 2, 1983, while the Plaintiffs' original motion was pending, the district court entered an order directed to both parties that stated in part as follows:

                motion for fees the Defendants challenged the reasonableness of the hours claimed, the reasonableness of the hourly rate requested, and the extent to which Plaintiffs were "prevailing parties."    Further, Defendants alleged that many of Mr. Duke's claimed hours represented a duplication of efforts and that a number of the costs and expenses submitted were excessive and nonreimbursable.  As any prudent and reasonable attorney would do in this situation, Plaintiffs' attorneys replied to the Defendants' objections.  The time spent so replying is compensable under Sec. 1988.  To hold otherwise would dilute the fee award and be inconsistent with the purposes of Sec. 1988
                

because the Court recognizes that hourly fees have changed through the years, it is disinclined to compensate Plaintiffs' counsel at a uniform rate for the entire period. It, therefore, orders the parties to submit information on the prevailing hourly rate for attorneys of similar experience in similar cases during each of the years from 1970 through 1982.

It was entirely reasonable for Plaintiffs to believe that compliance with this order was necessary to obtain a fee award. Gathering the information requested by the court required a considerable amount of research on the part of the attorneys. Moreover, Plaintiffs' attorneys' diligence in seeking out the requested information is understandable since the court had made it clear that it would determine the rate of compensation on the basis of the parties' submissions. Compliance with the court's order was necessary to establish the fee claim, and the effort Plaintiffs' attorneys expended in complying with the order is compensable. The fact that the court's order required both parties to submit additional information is irrelevant. We see no reason to treat the time spent complying with the...