Dorr v. Weber

• Decision Date: 30 September 2010
• Docket Number: No. C 08–4093–MBW.,C 08–4093–MBW.
• Parties: Paul DORR and Alexander Dorr, Individually and on Behalf of All Other Persons Similarly Situated, Plaintiffs,v.Douglas L. WEBER, Individually and in His Capacity as Sheriff and Osceola County, Iowa, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Iowa

741 F.Supp.2d 1022

Paul DORR and Alexander Dorr, Individually and on Behalf of All Other Persons Similarly Situated, Plaintiffs,

v.Douglas L. WEBER, Individually and in His Capacity as Sheriff and Osceola County, Iowa, Defendants.

No. C 08–4093–MBW.

United States District Court, N.D. Iowa, Western Division.

Sept. 30, 2010.

Erick G. Kaardal, Vincent J. Fahnlander, Mohrman & Kaardal, PA, Minneapolis, MN, William F. Mohrman, Saint Paul, MN, for Plaintiffs.Douglas L. Phillips, Klass Law Firm, L.L.P., Sioux City, IA, for Defendants.

ORDER REGARDING PLAINTIFF PAUL DORR'S MOTION FOR ATTORNEYS' FEES AND COSTS

MARK W. BENNETT, District Judge.

+-----------------+
                ¦TABLE OF CONTENTS¦
                +-----------------+
                

I. INTRODUCTION AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY                               1025
                II. LEGAL ANALYSIS                                                    1027
                

 A. Authority For And Purpose Of Fee Awards                         1027
                   B. Paul Dorr's Fee Claim                                           1028
                

 1. “Prevailing party”                                     1028
                        2. Calculation                                                1029
                

 a. Partial success                                                                        1031
                           b. Excessive hourly rate                                                                  1032
                           c. Reductions for hours not reasonably expended, overreaching, and “block billing”.   1034
                

 3. Costs and expenses                                         1037
                

 C. Summary                                                         1037
                

III. CONCLUSION                                                        1038
                

“Avarice, the spur of industry.”—David Hume

“The tighter you squeeze, the less you have.”—Thomas Merton

I. INTRODUCTION AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

As this case demonstrates, avarice may be the spur of industry, but it also has the potential to be the bane of the plaintiff's civil rights attorneys' fee request. Plaintiffs Paul Dorr (Paul), and his son, Alexander Dorr (Alexander) (collectively, “the Dorrs”), filed a “Class Action Second Amended Complaint” on February 9, 2010, naming defendants Sheriff Douglas L. Weber (Weber) and Osceola County, and asserting claims under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, as well as asserting claims under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1988 (civil rights statutes), 28 U.S.C. § 2201 (declaratory judgment statute), and the Second and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.¹

The Dorrs alleged that, in 2007 and 2008, they sought nonprofessional permits to carry weapons, pursuant to Iowa Code § 724.7, but, even though they met all of the statutory criteria necessary for issuance of such permits, pursuant to Iowa Code § 724.8, Weber refused to issue the permits without justification. Therefore, they alleged generally that all defendants acted illegally in denying their applications for nonprofessional permits to carry a weapon, meaning that the decisions were unreasonable, not authorized, and contrary to the terms, spirit, and purpose of the statute creating and defining nonprofessional permits for citizens to carry a weapon under Iowa law, and, thus, the defendants violated their constitutional rights under the Second and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution, including their rights to due process, equal protection, and to keep and bear arms.

On February 18, 2010, both sides filed Motions for Summary Judgment. The Dorrs argued that Weber wrongfully denied Paul a nonprofessional permit to carry a concealed weapon based on Paul's political activities and writings. The Dorrs also argued that Weber wrongfully denied Alexander a nonprofessional permit to carry a concealed weapon until Alexander turned the age of twenty-one, even though Iowa Code § 724.8 allows an applicant to obtain a nonprofessional permit at age eighteen. The Dorrs alleged that these actions constituted a clear denial of their Second Amendment right to bear arms, and violations of their right to equal protection and due process under the Fourteenth Amendment, therefore, the Dorrs were entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law. In the defendants' Motion for Partial Summary Judgment, they asserted that Weber was entitled to qualified immunity, that summary judgment should be granted on the Dorrs' due process claim because the Dorrs have no federally protected right to carry concealed weapons, and that the defendants were entitled to summary judgment on the Dorrs' equal protection claims because the Dorrs cannot establish that they were treated differently than other similarly situated persons. In response to Dorrs' Motion for Summary Judgment, the defendants filed a timely joint resistance, where they asserted material questions of fact existed concerning Weber's motivation for denying the Dorrs' permit applications, and the defendants generally denied the alleged Second Amendment, due process, and equal protection violations. The Dorrs filed a timely response to defendants' Motion For Partial Summary Judgment in which they argued that Weber was not immune from suit because Weber had no legitimate reason to deny the Dorrs' nonprofessional permit applications and, as a result, his arbitrary and capricious denial of their nonprofessional permit applications infringed upon their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

On May 18, 2010, I denied plaintiff's Motion for Summary Judgment, and granted in part and denied in part defendants' Motion for Partial Summary Judgment. Dorr v. Weber, 741 F.Supp.2d 993, 2010 WL 1976743 (N.D.Iowa, 2010). Specifically, I denied the motion as to Paul's equal protection claim, but granted it as to Weber's claim for qualified immunity on plaintiffs' Second Amendment claims, plaintiffs' Second Amendment claims against Osceola County, Alexander's equal protection claim, and plaintiffs' due process claims. Id. at 1010, at *12.

On June 16, 2010, I held a one-day bench trial on Paul's First and Fourteenth Amendment claims, and Alexander's remaining First Amendment claim. On July 8, 2010, I issued a Judgment in favor of Paul against Weber. Dorr v. Weber, 741 F.Supp.2d 1010, 1021, 2010 WL 2710468 at *9 (N.D.Iowa, 2010) (holding that Weber's denial of Paul's application for a concealed nonprofessional permit was “unconstitutional retaliation for exercising [Paul's] First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and freedom of association.”). I also found that Weber did not retaliate against Alexander for exercising his rights under the First Amendment. Id. at 1022, at *10. Consequently, I ordered Weber to immediately issue Paul a nonprofessional permit to carry a weapon, and ordered Weber to enroll in, and successfully complete, a court approved college level course concerning the United States Constitution. Id.

On July 22, 2010, plaintiff Paul Dorr filed a Motion for Attorneys' Fees and Costs, seeking an award of $115,985.15 for attorneys' fees and $2,430.60 for expenses. Weber resists the fee application on the ground that it is excessive in terms of hours spent, hourly rates claimed, and Paul's limited success against only one of several defendants on only one of several claims.

Ultimately, I find Paul is a prevailing party within the meaning of 42 U.S.C. § 1988 and, therefore, entitled to an award of some reasonable amount of attorneys' fees. However, upon a line by line review of the fee application, plaintiff's counsel breathes new life into Merton's observation that the tighter you squeeze, the less you have. I have concluded that the fees claimed should be reduced for time not reasonably expended, further reduced by ten percent for “block billing,” and reduced still further by an additional ten percent “penalty” for submitting a wildly over-inflated fee request.

II. LEGAL ANALYSIS

A. Authority For And Purpose Of Fee Awards

The Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act of 1976 provides for the payment of attorneys' fees to prevailing parties in § 1983 cases. 42 U.S.C. § 1988. That statute provides, in pertinent part, as follows:

In any action or proceeding to enforce a provision of section [ ] ... 1983, ... the court, in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party, other than the United States, a reasonable attorney's fee as part of the costs.

42 U.S.C. § 1988. Thus, a fee award pursuant to § 1988, as the statute says, is made at the discretion of the court. Jensen v. Clarke, 94 F.3d 1191, 1203 (8th Cir.1996); Casey v. City of Cabool, Mo., 12 F.3d 799, 804 (8th Cir.1993). In Casey, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals found that a fair evaluation of a fee claim required review of the purpose of § 1988:

Congress intended that “[i]n computing the fee, counsel for prevailing parties should be paid, as is traditional for attorneys compensated by a fee-paying client, ‘for all time reasonably expended on a matter.’ ” S.Rep. No. 1011, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. 5 (1976), reprinted in 1976 U.S.C.C.A.N. 5908, 5913. The primary purpose of this formulation is to promote diffuse private enforcement of civil rights law by allowing the citizenry to monitor rights violations at their source, while imposing the costs of rights violations on the violators. See Id. A plaintiff bringing a civil rights action “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....” Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., 390 U.S. 400, 402, 88 S.Ct. 964, 966, 19 L.Ed.2d 1263 (1968).

In order for such a policy to be effective, Congress felt it appropriate to shift the true full cost of enforcement to the guilty parties to eliminate any obstacle to enforcement. “It is intended that the amount of fees awarded under [§ 1988] be governed by the same standards which prevail in other types of equally...