Johnson v. Lafayette Fire Fighters Ass'n Local 472, Intern. Ass'n of Fire Fighters, AFL-CIO-CLC, AFL-CIO-CL

• Decision Date: 05 April 1995
• Docket Number: AFL-CIO-CL,No. 94-3012,D,94-3012
• Citation: 51 F.3d 726
• Parties: 148 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2985, 31 Fed.R.Serv.3d 258 James Eric JOHNSON and Jerry M. Croker, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. LAFAYETTE FIRE FIGHTERS ASSOCIATION LOCAL 472, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FIRE FIGHTERS,efendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 726

51 F.3d 726

148 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2985, 31 Fed.R.Serv.3d 258

James Eric JOHNSON and Jerry M. Croker, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. LAFAYETTE FIRE FIGHTERS ASSOCIATION LOCAL 472, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FIRE FIGHTERS, AFL-CIO-CLC Defendant-Appellant.

No. 94-3012.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

Argued Jan. 12, 1995.

Decided April 5, 1995.

Milton L. Chappell, W. James Young (argued), National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation, Springfield, VA, John S. Damm, Miller, Tolbert, Muehlhausen, Muehlhausen & Groff, Logansport, IN, for James E. Johnson and Jerry M. Croker.

John C. Ruckelshaus, David T. Hasbrook (argued), Ruckelshaus, Roland, Hasbrook & O'Connor, Indianapolis, IN, for Lafayette Fire Fighters' Ass'n, Local 472, International Ass'n of Firefighters, AFL-CIO-CLC.

Thomas A. Woodley, Erick J. Genser, Mark F. Wilson, Mulholland & Hickey, Washington, DC, for International Ass'n of Fire Fighters, AFL-CIO, CLC, amicus curiae.

Before POSNER, Chief Circuit Judge, ROVNER, Circuit Judge, and MORAN, Chief District Judge. ¹

MORAN, Chief District Judge.

Appellant Lafayette Firefighters' Association Local 472 (the Union) appeals the award of attorney's fees to appellees James Johnson and Jerry Croker (collectively "plaintiffs"), non-union members of the City of Lafayette fire department, under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1988. The Union argues that plaintiffs' fee petition was untimely under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(d), that plaintiffs are not prevailing parties for the purposes of Sec. 1988, that the award of fees in this case was unreasonable, and that because plaintiffs received legal representation from a charitable legal assistance foundation they did not incur "costs" as the term is used in Sec. 1988. We affirm.

I.

The City of Lafayette and the Union have negotiated a series of collective bargaining agreements that contain a provision granting the Union the right to collect fair share or agency shop fees from non-union firefighters. In 1986 Johnson wrote the Union informing it of what he believed to be a fair amount for him to pay for his fair share fee. The Union did not respond until it sent letters to Johnson and Croker in 1992 notifying them of their failure to pay the fair share amount in the collective bargaining agreement and threatening them with further action if they failed to pay what was due.

Soon thereafter Johnson and Croker retained the National Right To Work Legal Defense Fund (NRTWF) and filed a complaint in the Northern District of Indiana under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983, alleging that the fair share provision of the collective bargaining agreement violated their First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights by failing to provide the procedural protections set out in the Supreme Court's decision in Teachers' Local Number 1 v. Hudson, 475 U.S. 292 106 S.Ct. 1066, 89 L.Ed.2d 232 (1986). ² The complaint sought a declaratory judgment that the fair share agreement violated the Constitution; a permanent injunction preventing the Union from enforcing the fair share provision of the collective bargaining agreement; and nominal damages stemming from the Union's demand that plaintiffs comply with the fair share provision.

The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment. In ruling on the motions the district court held that "[w]hen the complaint was filed ... it was readily apparent that Local 472 was not in compliance with [Hudson ]. It is also apparent that since the filing of this complaint, Local 472 has been engaged in an effort to back and fill with reference to these requirements." The Union's "back and fill" efforts included sending letters to plaintiffs--while the parties were in the process of briefing the pending motions--detailing the Union's expenses for the period in question. The court then found that this correspondence satisfied the Union's financial disclosure obligation under Hudson and, accordingly, granted partial summary judgment in favor of the Union. The court noted that it was plaintiffs' obligation to object to the Union's calculations to effectuate the rest of Hudson's requirements.

Complaining that they were "sandbagged" by the Union's eleventh-hour disclosure, plaintiffs sought an opportunity to show the court that the Union's correspondence did not meet Hudson's financial disclosure requirements. The district court held an evidentiary hearing under Fed.R.Civ.P. 43 and concluded that the Union did not comply with Hudson's requirement of an independent audit. The court set aside its prior grant of summary judgment for the Union and entered judgment for plaintiffs on December 14, 1993. The Union filed a motion for reconsideration, which the court denied on February 28, 1994. The court then denied plaintiffs' prayer for a permanent injunction and for nominal damages.

On April 8, 1994, plaintiffs petitioned for costs and attorneys' fees. The Union filed an objection alleging that the petition was untimely under the federal rule, 54(d)(2)(B), because it requires fee petitions to be filed within 14 days of judgment. The district court rejected that argument, relying on a local rule in the Northern District of Indiana which grants 90 days to file such petitions, and granted the fee petition in part on July 22, 1994. The court accepted the hourly rate and hours spent submitted by plaintiffs, but reduced the award by 25% in light of plaintiffs' partial success in the case, yielding a total award of $33,096.96.

The Union is now appealing the fee award but not the underlying Hudson decision. The International Association of Firefighters, AFL-CIO-CLC, has filed an amicus curiae brief in support of Local 472.

II.

A. Timeliness Of the Fee Petition

The 1993 Amendments to Fed.R.Civ.P. 54(d), which governs the awarding of attorneys' fees, state: ³

Unless otherwise provided by statute or an order of the court, the motion must be filed and served no later than 14 days after entry of judgment; must specify the judgment and the statute, rule, or other grounds entitling the moving party to the award; and must state the amount or provide a fair estimate of the amount sought.

Fed.R.Civ.P. 54(d)(2)(B). Plaintiffs filed their fee petition on April 8, 1994--39 days after the district court denied the Union's motion for reconsideration, ⁴ and clearly more than the 14 days provided in the federal rule. The court found that plaintiffs' petition was not time-barred by relying on Northern District of Indiana Local Rule 54.1, which states:

Except as otherwise provided by statute, rule, or court order, the parties shall have ninety (90) days from the entry of a final judgment against a party to file requests for the taxation of costs and for assessment of attorney fees. This time may be extended by the court for good cause shown. Failure to file such requests or to obtain leave of court for extensions of time within which to file shall be deemed a waiver of the right to make such requests.

The Union argues that since a local rule may not conflict with the applicable federal rule, see Fed.R.Civ.P. 83; 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2071; Colgrove v. Battin, 413 U.S. 149, 161, 93 S.Ct. 2448, 2455, 37 L.Ed.2d 522 (1973), Local Rule 54.1 is invalid. Plaintiffs argue that the federal rule and the local rule do not conflict because Local Rule 54.1 is "an order of the court" and thus qualifies as an exception to the limitations period in Fed.R.Civ.P. 54(d)(2)(B). ⁵ This issue is one of first impression. ⁶

We agree with plaintiffs that a local rule is an order of the court, at least for the purposes of Fed.R.Civ.P. 54(d)(2)(B). Local rules are adopted by the majority of the judges in a district to govern the practice and procedure of litigation in that district. As such, local rules are, in effect, "standing orders," such that Local Rule 54.1 should be viewed as an order of the court of the Northern District of Indiana. ⁷ And while these standing orders generally cannot conflict with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Supreme Court and Congress have frequently used the federal rules to adopt default rules of procedure that are modifiable by the districts through the adoption of local rules. See, e.g., Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(a)(1). We believe that the 14-day filing period contained in Fed.R.Civ.P. 54(d)(2)(B) is one such default rule and that the districts are free to modify the filing period through local rules.

That our reading of Fed.R.Civ.P. 54(d)(2)(B) is the most logical reading of the rule, is made apparent after considering the prior law. Before the enactment of the 1993 Amendments, districts were free to adopt local rules to govern the filing of fee petitions. See White v. New Hampshire Dep't of Employment Security, 455 U.S. 445, 102 S.Ct. 1162, 71 L.Ed.2d 325 (1982). After White, many districts adopted local rules to govern the filing of fee petitions. See e.g., Southern District of Georgia Local Rule 11.2(b). If the Supreme Court and Congress had wanted to preempt these local rules they would have done so in definite terms that would not place practitioners in the difficult position of guessing what time period governed the filing of fee petitions. But Fed.R.Civ.P. 54(d)(2)(B) does not contain clear language stripping districts of their power to promulgate local rules to govern the filing of fee petitions. Rather, the rule contains the ambiguous phrase "order of the court," which we do not believe evidences the intent of the Supreme Court and of Congress to so fundamentally change the law in this area. ⁸

Therefore, we hold that Local Rule 54.1 is an order of the court for the purposes of Fed.R.Civ.P. 54(d)(2)(B), and since plaintiffs' petition was filed within 90 days of judgment, the district court properly considered it timely.

B. "Prevailing Party" Status

The Union argues that even if the fee petition was timely, plaintiffs are not entitled to a fee award because they are not prevailing parties for the purposes of Sec. 1988. ⁹

The law in this area is relatively clear....