Friend v. Kolodzieczak

• Decision Date: 22 May 1995
• Docket Number: No. 93-16918,93-16918
• Citation: 72 F.3d 1386
• Parties: Jack W. FRIEND, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Ronald KOLODZIECZAK, et al., Defendants-Appellants. . Submitted *
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 1386

72 F.3d 1386

Jack W. FRIEND, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Ronald KOLODZIECZAK, et al., Defendants-Appellants.

No. 93-16918.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Submitted ^* May 22, 1995.

Decided Sept. 19, 1995.

As Amended on Denial of Rehearing

and Rehearing En Banc Dec. 21, 1995.

Richard L. Reynolds, Bennett, Samuelsen, Reynolds & Allard, Oakland, California, for the defendants-appellants.

Amitai Schwartz, San Francisco, California, for the plaintiffs-appellees.

AMENDED ORDER, DISSENT, AND DENIAL OF REHEARING

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

Before: PREGERSON, FERGUSON, and O'SCANNLAIN, Circuit Judges.

Dissent by Judge FERGUSON.

ORDER AMENDING ORDER

The Order, Appendix and Dissent filed September 19, 1995 is amended as follows:

With the above amendments, Judges Pregerson and O'Scannlain have voted to deny the petition for rehearing and to reject the suggestion for rehearing en banc. Judge Ferguson votes to grant the petition for rehearing and recommends granting of rehearing en banc.

The full court has been advised of the suggestion for rehearing en banc, and no judge of the court has requested a vote on the suggestion for rehearing en banc. Fed.R.App.P. 35(b).

The petition for rehearing is denied and the suggestion for rehearing en banc is rejected.

ORDER

We affirm the district court's order on remand for the reasons stated in the district court's Memorandum and Order Re Attorney's Fees and Costs (On Remand), filed September 14, 1993, attached as Appendix A.

In affirming the district court's order on remand, we adopt its discussion and conclusion that plaintiffs are prevailing parties. A prevailing party analysis is a prerequisite for determining the reasonableness of an attorney's fee award; thus, our remand order assumed that the district court would conduct this analysis, which in fact it did.

The district court's discussion and conclusion in its order on remand comports with the Supreme Court's refinements to the prevailing party analysis in Farrar v. Hobby, 506 U.S. 103, 111-12, 113 S.Ct. 566, 573, 121 L.Ed.2d 494 (1992).

APPENDIX A

United States District Court Northern District of California

JACK WAYNE FRIEND, et al., Plaintiffs,

v.

RONALD KOLODZIECZAK, et al., Defendants.

No. C 87-0161 MHP

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER RE ATTORNEYS' FEES AND COSTS (ON REMAND)

This case is back before this court on remand from the Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for re-examination of the reasonableness of the attorneys' fees award in light of the Supreme Court's recent decision in Farrar v. Hobby, 506 U.S. 103, 113 S.Ct. 566, 121 L.Ed.2d 494 (1992). Plaintiffs also seek fees and costs for time spent defending the fee award and seek interest on the fee award.

Having considered the submissions of the parties, the court re-affirms its original award, orders that plaintiffs be awarded fees and costs for time expended defending the fee award, and orders that all fee awards be paid with interest.

BACKGROUND

The facts of this case are treated in detail in this court's previous order of September 29, 1989. Briefly, plaintiffs, a class of all Roman Catholic inmates at Alameda County's North County Jail, brought this suit against county officials under the Civil Rights Act of 1864, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983, seeking to secure access to Roman Catholic services and to possess certain sacramental articles (rosary beads and scapulars).

At hearings on cross-motions for summary judgment in October 1988 and March 1989, the parties indicated to the court that all issues regarding inmates' access to religious services had been resolved. Defendants further represented to the court that they were willing to allow inmates to possess rosaries and scapulars, but only under supervision. In September 1989, this court granted defendants' motion for summary judgment on the issue of whether jail officials were required to permit inmates access to rosaries and scapulars at all times, finding that unfettered and unsupervised possession of the sacramental articles was not constitutionally required. Friend v. Kolodzieczak, No. C-87-0161 (N.D.Cal. September 29, 1989). At the court's instruction, the defendants put in writing a policy regarding accommodation of inmates' religious needs.

Plaintiffs subsequently brought a motion for attorneys' fees and costs under the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Award Act of 1976, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1988. On June 20, 1990, the court granted plaintiffs' motion, awarding $72,445.00 in fees and $6462.22 in out-of pocket costs for the original litigation on the merits; the court furthered ruled that plaintiffs were entitled to fees and costs for time spent litigating the fee award. On July 10, 1990, the court fixed this latter amount at Defendants appealed this court's award of fees to the Ninth Circuit, which affirmed. Friend v. Kolodzieczak, 965 F.2d 682 (9th Cir.1992). Defendants then appealed the Ninth Circuit ruling to the Supreme Court, which granted certiorari, vacated the judgment, and remanded the fee award to the Ninth Circuit for consideration in light of Farrar. Kolodzieczak v. Friend, 506 U.S. 1075, 113 S.Ct. 1038, 122 L.Ed.2d 348 (1993). The Ninth Circuit subsequently remanded to this court with instructions to "re-examine its determination of the reasonableness of the attorneys' fees award" in light of Farrar. Friend v. Kolodzieczak, 992 F.2d 243 (9th Cir.1993).

$14,875.50. On July 18, 1990, the court issued an amended order consolidating the previous two orders.

LEGAL STANDARD

Under the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Award Act of 1976, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1988, a court may award reasonable attorneys' fees to a prevailing party in a civil rights action. In the absence of special circumstances, a prevailing party should recover reasonable attorneys' fees. Chalmers v. City of Los Angeles, 796 F.2d 1205, 1210 (9th Cir.1986), reh'g denied and opinion amended, 808 F.2d 1373 (9th Cir.1987) (citing Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 429, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 1937, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983)).

As an initial matter, a court must first determine whether or not the party seeking fees has "prevailed." In order to qualify as a prevailing party, a plaintiff must obtain some relief on the merits of his claim that materially alters the legal relationship between the parties. Texas State Teachers Ass'n v. Garland Independent School Dist., 489 U.S. 782, 109 S.Ct. 1486, 103 L.Ed.2d 866 (1989).

Having determined that a civil rights plaintiff is a prevailing party, the court may award reasonable attorneys' fees. In determining the amount of the award, a court generally should begin by calculating the so-called "lodestar" amount, arrived at by multiplying the number of hours reasonably spent in achieving the results obtained by a reasonable hourly rate. Gates v. Deukmejian, 987 F.2d 1392, 1397 (9th Cir.1992). A court may also consider other factors, including the degree of success obtained, and make adjustments to the lodestar accordingly. See Kerr v. Screen Extras Guild, Inc., 526 F.2d 67, 70 (9th Cir.1975) (enumerating the factors that may be considered in adjusting the lodestar amount), cert. denied, 425 U.S. 951, 96 S.Ct. 1726, 48 L.Ed.2d 195 (1976).

DISCUSSION

I. Reasonableness of the Fee Award in Light of Farrar

The Supreme Court in Farrar did not dramatically alter the law relevant to attorneys' fees awards; instead the Court refined its analysis of the fee award issue while in large part re-affirming its precedents. The Farrar decision does not undermine this court's original determination of what constitutes a reasonable fee award in this case.

In Farrar, the plaintiffs sued multiple defendants for $17 million but were ultimately awarded only one dollar in damages against a single defendant. Farrar, 506 U.S. at 105-07, 113 S.Ct. at 570. On the plaintiffs' motion for attorneys' fees under section 1988, the district court awarded over $300,000 in fees, costs, and interest. The Fifth Circuit reversed the fee award, holding that plaintiffs could not be considered prevailing parties, given the minimal recovery. Estate of Farrar v Cain, 941 F.2d 1311 (5th Cir.1991).

The Supreme Court affirmed the denial of fees. Although the Court held that the plaintiffs were in fact prevailing parties, see note 2 infra, the Court found that the plaintiffs were nonetheless not entitled to attorneys' fees, since the only reasonable fee award for such a hollow victory was no award at all.

In reaching this conclusion, the Court reiterated that a court must determine a reasonable fee award in light of the degree of success obtained in the action. Id. at 113-16, 113 S.Ct. at 574-75 (citing Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983)). In certain circumstances, the minimal nature of the party's "success" will compel an award of no fee at all. Id. The Court held that in such a case a The plaintiffs in the instant case achieved far more than the type of "technical" or "de minimus" victory won by the plaintiffs in Farrar, and the fee award originally ordered is reasonable. ¹ The plaintiffs here requested primarily injunctive relief and were for the most part successful in obtaining the relief that they requested. As this court stated in its original order, "[p]laintiffs achieved the right sought to expanded access to Roman Catholic services and sacraments, and gained explicit, written acknowledgment of the right to at least limited use of rosaries and scapulars." Friend, No. C-87-0161 (N.D.Cal. June 20, 1990), at 11. The changes accomplished were the result of the instigation of this lawsuit. This court found that these policies reflected changes in jail policy brought about by plaintiffs' suit and were not, as defendants claimed, pre-existing jail policies. Id. at 7. The record establishes that without this action defendants would not have developed the policy ultimately adopted in this case. This result was more than merely "t...