Gaines v. DOUGHERTY COUNTY BD. OF EDUC., Civ. A. No. 764-ALB.
| Decision Date | 11 May 1984 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 764-ALB. |
| Citation | 586 F. Supp. 1324 |
| Parties | Shirley GAINES, et al., Plaintiffs, v. DOUGHERTY COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Middle District of Georgia |
Herbert Phipps, C.B. King, Jr., Albany, Ga., for plaintiffs.
Jesse W. Walters, P.Z. Geer, Albany, Ga., Jack Greenberg and Charles Ralston, New York City, for defendants.
In this school desegregation lawsuit which began April 5, 1963, and has continued to the present time, plaintiffs' attorneys have moved the court for an award of attorney's fees for services rendered from April 5, 1963, to date. Responses and affidavits having been received from both the plaintiffs and defendants and an evidentiary hearing having been held, this constitutes the court's findings of fact and conclusions of law. The facts relevant to plaintiffs' current application for fees are as follows.1
Plaintiffs' first motion for attorneys' fees was made in July of 1971. MOTION, filed July 2, 1971. At that time this court2 denied plaintiffs' request for fees as well as their request for an order appointing an expert in education and request that the Dougherty County School Board's revised desegregation plan not be approved. MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER, filed August 4, 1971. More specifically, in regard to attorneys' fees, this court found as follows: "The Court also denies the motion of the Plaintiffs that the Defendants be ordered to pay the Plaintiffs' expenses and attorneys' (sic) fees because the Defendants have in good faith and promptly undertaken to fully comply with the orders and judgments made by the Court in this case." MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER at p. 10. The plaintiffs appealed the court's decision denying all three requests, NOTICE OF APPEAL, filed August 5, 1971, and the United States Court of Appeals remanded the case to this court for further action, but only in regard to the student assignment plan prepared by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare which had not been previously approved by the Board. Because the case was remanded only as to that one issue, this court's decision regarding attorneys' fees and the appointment of an expert in education was thereby impliedly affirmed. Gaines v. Dougherty County Board of Education, 446 F.2d 907 (5th Cir.1971).3
Thereafter, the plaintiffs filed a motion objection to the HEW plan and again requesting this court to appoint an educational expert and award costs and attorneys' fees. MOTION, filed August 31, 1971. Plaintiffs motion was overruled that same day; subsequently, seemingly in accordance with the direction which had been given by the Court of Appeals, this court approved the HEW plan with certain modifications. In that regard, this court stated: MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER, filed September 3, 1971, at p. 12.
The plaintiffs again appealed and once more specifically requested that this court be ordered to award attorneys' fees. Plaintiffs urged that the defendant Board had acted unreasonably and obstinately in not following the Court of Appeals' previous mandate to adopt an acceptable desegregation plan. NOTICE OF APPEAL, filed September 7, 1971. This court's decision was reversed and the case was remanded for submission of yet another desegregation plan. Gaines v. Dougherty County Board of Education, 465 F.2d 363 (5th Cir.1972). No mention was made of plaintiffs' request for attorneys' fees; thus, this court's decision in that regard was again impliedly affirmed.
Plaintiffs then filed a MOTION FOR FURTHER RELIEF on September 7, 1972, which included a request for fees; however, no further request for fees was made until 1976 at which time this court awarded $100.00, ORDER, filed October 27, 1976, for services rendered in connection with plaintiffs' motion of February 5, 1975, for class relief.
The application for attorneys' fees is made pursuant to the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act of 1976, 42 U.S. C.A. § 1988, and the Education Amendments Act of 1972, 20 U.S.C.A. § 1617. The Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act, effective as of October 19, 1976, provides that federal courts may award attorneys' fees as a part of costs to prevailing parties in suits brought under 42 U.S.C.A. § 1983 and certain other statutes. Kelley v. Metropolitan City Board of Education of Nashville, 558 F.Supp. 468, 470 (M.D. Tenn.1983). The Education Amendments Act of 1972, effective as of July 1, 1972, authorizes a federal court to award, at its discretion, reasonable attorneys' fees in a school desegregation case where a final order has been entered, the litigation was necessary to bring about compliance of a school district, and the party receiving the award was the prevailing party. Tasby v. Estes, 498 F.Supp. 1130, 1132 (N.D.Tex. 1980).
Under either of those provisions an award of attorneys' fees to plaintiffs is appropriate.4 This suit worked as the catalyst for the desegregation process of the Dougherty County school system; plaintiffs are thus without a doubt prevailing parties entitled to be compensated in some amount. The primary question in this case concerns the date from which the awardable fee is to be calculated. Under some circumstances plaintiffs may be awarded fees for work done even prior to the effective dates of those acts. See, Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678, 98 S.Ct. 2565, 57 L.Ed.2d 522 (1978); Bradley v. School Board of City of Richmond, 416 U.S. 696, 94 S.Ct. 2006, 40 L.Ed.2d 476 (1974). After the date for determining fees is set, the next question to be addressed is what constitutes a reasonable fee in this case.
In a MEMORANDUM TO COUNSEL, dated April 21, 1983, the parties were apprised of the court's concern regarding the plaintiffs' request to be awarded a fee for services rendered all the way back to the commencement of this suit in 1963. In response to that memorandum plaintiffs urged, in sum, that there was never a final order denying counsel fees in this matter and that as a result the issue of counsel fees back to the commencement of this litigation is now open and ripe for decision. This court disagrees.
A retroactive award of attorneys' fees for services rendered all the way back to 1963 would be unfair to the defendants in this case because plaintiffs' previous requests for attorneys' fees were denied; appeals were taken and the issue settled by the 1971 and 1972 decisions discussed herein. As stated in Northcross v. Board of Education of Memphis City Schools:
This is not to say that a retroactive award of attorney's fees must be made in all school desegregation cases. Certain interim aspects of the case may have been subject to a final order settling the issue of attorney's fees to that point, rendering the reopening of long-settled aspects of the case unfair.
611 F.2d 624 at 635 (6th Cir.1979).
This court's September, 1971, decision constituted a final order as to an interim aspect of this case, i.e., the adoption of a modified version of the HEW plan as seemingly mandated by the Court of Appeals, and settled the issue of attorneys' fees to that point. Although this court's action in adopting a modified version of the HEW plan was ultimately reversed by the Court of Appeals, it is reasonable to assume that this court's decision to deny plaintiffs' request for attorneys' fees was affirmed where that issue had been specifically appealed and where an award would have been appropriate if merited because of the final nature of this court's decision which was the subject of the appeal. If this court were to consider awarding fees for services rendered prior to its decision of September 3, 1971, a "long-settled" aspect of this case would be reopened.
As to the finality of this court's order of September 3, 1971, there is no set formula for determining what constitutes a final order, especially in a desegregation case such as this one. As noted in Johnson v. Combs:
471 F.2d 84 at 87 (5th Cir.1973) (emphasis added).
Looking more specifically at this case, the August, 1971, remand by the Court of Appeals was "... with the direction that the district court at once issue a rule nisi to defendants as to why the student assignment plan now on file prepared by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare should not be made the student assignment plan for school system for the 71-72 school term." 446 F.2d at 907.
As previously noted, this court thereafter again denied plaintiffs' motion for attorneys' fees and in compliance with the Court of Appeals' mandate approved a modified version of...
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Gaines v. Dougherty County Bd. of Educ.
...the hourly rates currently in effect in Albany, Georgia, 6 in order to account for the delay in payment. 7 The district court, on May 11, 1984, 586 F.Supp. 1324, awarded plaintiffs $50,736.34. 8 It ruled that no fees could be recovered for the eight years prior to 1971 because previous opin......