Graves v. Penzone
| Decision Date | 27 April 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. CV-77-00479-PHX-NVW,CV-77-00479-PHX-NVW |
| Parties | Fred Graves, Isaac Popoca, on their own behalf and on behalf of a class of all pretrial detainees in the Maricopa County Jails, Plaintiffs, v. Paul Penzone, Sheriff of Maricopa County; Bill Gates, Steve Gallardo, Jack Sellers, Steve Chucri, and Clint L. Hickman, Maricopa County Supervisors, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Arizona |
Before the Court are Plaintiffs' Motion for Attorneys' Fees and Non-Taxable Costs (Doc. 2531) and Plaintiffs' Bill of Costs (Doc. 2532). For the reasons stated below, the motion will be granted for the most part and the objection to the bill of costs will be overruled.
This action is 42 years old. The history of the proceedings has been detailed in prior orders. (See, e.g., Doc. 2525). Cf. David Marcus, Finding the Civil Trial's Democratic Future After Its Demise, 15 Nev. L. J. 1523, 1530-56 (2015) ().
A class of pretrial detainees in the Maricopa County Jails brought this action in 1977 against the Maricopa County Sheriff and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors ("Defendants") for an injunction against violations of their constitutional rights. In 1981, the parties entered into a consent decree that found liability and regulated certain jail operations. A stipulated Amended Judgment was entered in 1995, which Defendants thrice moved to terminate. Defendants' first motion, made in 1998, was denied on grounds later reversed by the Court of Appeals; the second motion was made on remand in 2001 but was not ruled on before the undersigned judge was assigned this case in 2008.
In 2008, after a 13-day evidentiary hearing, the Court found that numerous provisions of the Amended Judgment remained necessary to correct ongoing constitutional violations and entered a Second Amended Judgment restating the remaining operative terms. The Court was required by law to await Defendants' proposals for remedying those violations and thereby complying with the Second Amended Judgment. Over the course of 2011 and 2012, the nonmedical provisions thereof were terminated upon Defendants' demonstration of compliance and a Third Amended Judgment—which stated Defendants' continuing violations—was entered.
In 2013, Defendants moved to terminate the Third Amended Judgment. The Court largely denied the motion in 2014 and ordered remedies to correct the remaining constitutional violations, which were restated in the Revised Fourth Amended Judgment. Specifically, the Court continued some prospective relief and identified 31 requirements Defendants had to fulfill. As the Court later stated, the Revised Fourth Amended Judgment required them to meet various deadlines and anticipated "that Plaintiffs will promptly bring to the Court's attention any perceived lack of compliance with each requirement." (Doc. 2309.) Indeed, the Court reiterated the obvious that the Plaintiffs were not "required to accept as true Defendants' assertions about their compliance." (Doc. 2352.)
The Court found in 2017 that Defendants had demonstrated compliance with 21 of the requirements and in 2018 determined Defendants had demonstrated compliance with seven more. On January 15, 2019, the Court found Defendants had shown compliance with an additional two, leaving one final requirement, stated in the Revised Fourth Amended Judgment as follows: "Defendants will adopt and implement a written policyrequiring that mental health staff be consulted regarding discipline of any seriously mentally ill pretrial detainee." (Doc. 2299 at 6.) On July 19, 2019, Defendants filed a compliance report regarding this requirement.
On September 19, 2019, the Court found Defendants had demonstrated compliance with the last requirement and denied Plaintiffs' motions. All the requirements having been fulfilled, the Court terminated the Revised Fourth Amended Judgment. This motion for attorneys' fees followed.
Over many years, Defendants repeatedly contended they had complied with the Court's judgments and the Court repeatedly found these contentions were wrong. Meanwhile, Plaintiffs repeatedly demonstrated Defendants were in violation of the judgments and of their constitutional rights. Plaintiffs' tireless advocacy has been essential to defeating Defendants' erroneous assertions of compliance. Based on this advocacy, Plaintiffs are entitled to their attorneys' fees, which, for the most part, were reasonably incurred at a reasonable hourly rate.
The threshold question is whether Plaintiffs are entitled to their attorneys' fees. Two statutes—the Civil Rights Attorneys' Fees Awards Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1988(b), and the Prison Litigation Reform Act (the "PLRA")—govern. Under § 1988(b), 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(b). To qualify as a prevailing party:
[A] civil rights plaintiff must obtain at least some relief on the merits of his claim. The plaintiff must obtain an enforceable judgment against the defendant from whom fees are sought, or comparable relief through a consent decree or settlement . . . . In short, a plaintiff "prevails" when actual relief on the merits of his claim materially alters the legal relationship between the parties by modifying the defendant's behavior in a way that directly benefits the plaintiff.
Farrar v. Hobby, 506 U.S. 103, 111-12 (1992) (internal citations omitted). A party that prevails by obtaining a consent decree may recover attorneys' fees under § 1988(b) for monitoring compliance with the decree—even when such monitoring does not result in any new judicially sanctioned relief. Keith v. Volpe, 833 F.2d 850, 855-57 (9th Cir. 1987); see also Prison Legal News v. Schwarzenegger, 608 F.3d 446, 452 (9th Cir. 2010) ().
In addition, "[i]n actions by prisoners, it is not enough that fees are authorized under the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Award Act of 1976." Balla v. Idaho, 677 F.3d 910, 918 (9th Cir. 2012) (footnote omitted). Under the PLRA, "fees 'shall not be awarded, except to the extent that' the fee was directly and reasonably incurred in proving a violation of the plaintiff's rights, and either the amount is proportionate to the relief ordered, or alternatively, the fee is 'directly and reasonably incurred in enforcing the relief.'" Id. (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(d)(1)). "The PLRA defines relief as 'all relief in any form that may be granted or approved by the court, and includes consent decrees.'" Webb v. Ada County, 285 F.3d 829, 834-35 (9th Cir. 2002) (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 3626(g)(9)). Therefore—and as the Court previously determined—the PLRA permits compensation for attorneys' fees incurred for proving an actual violation of the plaintiff's rights and for enforcing a court order or a consent decree. Graves v. Arpaio, 633 F. Supp. 2d 834, 843-44 (D. Ariz. 2009); accord Webb, 285 F.3d at 835 ().
Plaintiffs are and always have been the prevailing parties in this litigation. They won a consent decree in 1981, which was reaffirmed in a stipulated judgment in 1995. In the ensuing years, Plaintiffs repeatedly defeated in whole or in part Defendants' numerous assertions of compliance and attempts to terminate the stipulated judgments. Through Plaintiffs' persistence and Defendants' recalcitrance, this case has become the poster childfor the maxim "injunctions do not always work effectively, without lawyers to see that the enjoined parties do what they were told to do." See Balla, 677 F.3d at 918. Plaintiffs are entitled to their reasonable fees for monitoring and enforcing the Court's judgments. They did not have to obtain new judicially sanctioned relief, Prison Legal News, 608 F.3d at 452, or proof of new constitutional violations, Webb, 285 F.3d at 834-35, to be entitled to an award of their fees for monitoring and enforcing compliance with the original relief from 1981 and 1995.
Yet, Defendants argue (without citing any authority) they were the prevailing parties as of January 15, 2019, and object to $69,990.73 in Plaintiffs' fees and expenses incurred on or after that date. Defendants reason that notwithstanding (1) the consent decree they entered into, (2) the numerous judgments that were entered by the Court, and (3) their frequent and failed attempts to terminate them, they became the prevailing parties when the Court terminated the Revised Fourth Amended Judgment last September. In other words, Defendants believe they became the prevailing parties, and therefore not obligated to pay attorneys' fees, even before they ended their 40-year run of systematically violating Plaintiffs' constitutional rights.
Defendants' contention is, to use Justice Scalia's euphemism, "[p]ure applesauce." See King v. Burwell, ___ U.S. ___, 135 S. Ct. 2480, 2501 (2015) (Scalia, J., dissenting). The issue here is not whether Defendants—after entering into a consent decree and failing to right all their constitutional wrongs for decades—suddenly attained prevailing party status in January 2019. Rather, the issue is whether Plaintiffs should be compensated for their monitoring and enforcement work that continued after January 15, 2019, until the Court's September 19, 2019 order terminating the Revised Fourth Amended Judgment.
The Court's January 15, 2019 order did not then terminate the Revised Fourth Judgment or otherwise free Defendants from the Court's oversight. To the contrary, the Court ordered "that subparagraph (26) of Paragraph 5(a) of the Revised Fourth Amended...
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