Kenny A. ex rel. Winn v. Perdue
| Decision Date | 03 October 2006 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action 1:02-CV-1686-MHS. |
| Citation | 454 F.Supp.2d 1260 |
| Parties | KENNY A., by his next friend Linda WINN, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Sonny PERDUE, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Georgia |
Corey Fleming Hirokawa, Jeffrey O. Bramlett, Bondurant Mixson & Elmore, Atlanta, GA, Douglas C. Gray, Ira P. Lustbader, Jeffrey K. Powell, Marcia Robinson Lowry, Stacy F. Antonucci, Michael K. Bartosz, Children's Rights Inc., Erik S. Pitchal, New York City, for Plaintiffs.
Sarah Hechtman, Children's Rights, Inc., New York City, for Plaintiffs and Defendant.
Carmen R. Alexander, Eddie Snelling, Jr., John C. Jones, Kathleen Mary Pacious, Thurbert E. Baker, Office of State Attorney General, Mark Howard Cohen, J. Timothy Mast, Troutman Sanders, Rolesia Butler Dancy, Willie Jake Lovett, Jr., Andrew George MacKenzie, Overtis Hicks Brantley, Charissa Ann Ruel, Social Security Administration, Atlanta, GA, Elizabeth B. Taylor, Vivica Mitchell Brown, Jefferson James Davis, Davis & Davis, Stephen E. Whitted, William J. Linkous, III, Decatur, GA, Winston A. Denmark, Fincher Denmark & Williams LLC, Jonesboro, GA, for Defendants.
Before the Court are plaintiffs' application for an award of attorneys' fees and expenses of litigation; State Defendants' motion for review of taxation of costs by the Clerk of Court; and plaintiffs' motion for an interim award of attorneys' fees, costs, and expenses. The Court's rulings are set out below.1
This class action brought on behalf of foster children in Fulton and DeKalb Counties has been one of the most complex and difficult cases that the undersigned has handled in more than 27 years on the bench. Now that the matter has been successfully concluded through entry of a Consent Decree, one difficult issue remains: what is a reasonable amount of attorneys' fees and expenses to be awarded to plaintiffs' counsel? The parties do not dispute that plaintiffs' counsel are entitled to an award, but they differ widely on the appropriate amount of the award.
Plaintiffs, applying both lodestar and percentage-of-the-benefit approaches, seek a fee award of $14,342,868. This amount represents an enhancement of plaintiffs' claimed lodestar figure by a multiplier of two, as well as approximately 8.5% of the $168,688,220 common benefit that plaintiffs claim they generated for the plaintiff class. Plaintiffs also seek an award of $1,658,341.38 in expenses, almost half of which was expended on experts. Included in this figure are costs already taxed by the Clerk pursuant to a bill of costs in the total amount of $549,808.43, most of which ($467,323.32) was spent for exemplification and copies of documents.
State Defendants contend that all of these amounts are unreasonable and grossly excessive. Arguing that a percentage-of-the-benefit approach is not appropriate, State Defendants contend that a reasonable lodestar figure would be $2,971,754.52 and that no enhancement of the lodestar is warranted in this case. State Defendants also contend that none of plaintiffs' expert expenses are recoverable, and that an appropriate award for nontaxable expenses is $189,326.08. Finally, State Defendants object to a large portion of plaintiffs' claimed copying costs and argue that the costs taxed by the Clerk should be reduced to $95,485.08.
As essential background to evaluating plaintiffs' request for fees and expenses, it is important first of all to appreciate the enormous time and effort involved in litigating this complex matter. Therefore, before turning to the specifics of plaintiffs' request, the Court will briefly review the procedural history of the case. As this history demonstrates, State Defendants vigorously fought plaintiffs' claims for almost three years, Ming both motions to dismiss and for summary judgment, as well as seeking repeatedly to limit plaintiffs' discovery efforts. This strategy of resistance undoubtedly prolonged this litigation and substantially increased the amount of fees and expenses that plaintiffs were required to incur.
The complaint in this action was filed on June 6, 2002, in the Superior Court of Fulton County. There were nine named plaintiffs, all foster children in the custody of the Georgia Department of Human Resources, who sought to represent a class of all foster children in Fulton and DeKalb Counties and a subclass of African-American foster children. Plaintiffs were represented by attorneys from Children's Rights, Inc. (CRI), a New York-based advocacy organization for children, and the Atlanta-based Keenan's Kids Law Center. Shortly thereafter, the Atlanta law firm of Bondurant, Mixon & Elmore (BME) joined the case as co-counsel for plaintiffs.2
The 75-page complaint asserted fifteen causes of action under both federal and state law based on alleged systemic deficiencies in foster care in both Fulton and DeKalb Counties. The alleged deficiencies included (1) assigning excessive numbers of cases to inadequately trained and poorly supervised caseworkers; (2) not developing a sufficient number of foster homes properly screened to ensure the plaintiff children's safety; (3) not identifying adult relatives who could care for the plaintiff children as an alternative to strangers or impersonal institutions; (4) failing to provide relevant information and support services to foster parents in order to prevent foster placements from being disrupted; (5) failing to develop administrative controls such as an information management system that ensures plaintiff children are expeditiously placed in a foster home matched to meet the children's specific needs; (6) failing to provide timely and appropriate permanency planning, including failing to provide services that would enable plaintiffs to achieve their permanency planning goals; (7) placing plaintiffs in dangerous, unsanitary, inappropriate shelters and other placements; (8) failing to provide appropriate and necessary mental health, medical, and education services to children in their custody; and (9) separating teenage mothers in foster care from their own children and separating siblings in foster care from each other without providing visitation. (Compl.¶¶ 39-97.) Plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief to correct these alleged deficiencies.
The named defendants were the Governor of Georgia, the Georgia Department of Human Resources and its Commissioner, the Fulton County Department of Family and Children Services and its Director, and the DeKalb County Department of Family and Children Services and its Director (State Defendants). Plaintiffs also sued Fulton and DeKalb Counties for their alleged failure to provide foster children with adequate and effective legal representation. Those claims were resolved in separate settlements reached between plaintiffs and each county. Since the pending motions involve only fees and expenses related to plaintiffs' claims against State Defendants, this procedural history omits any reference to matters involving only the claims against Fulton and DeKalb Counties.
On June 19, 2002, defendants removed the case to this Court. On July 1, 2002, the Court granted plaintiffs' motion for expedited discovery regarding one aspect of the case: the safety and well-being of foster children housed in Fulton and DeKalb Counties' two emergency children's shelters. On September 19, 2002, plaintiffs filed an 80-page motion and brief seeking a preliminary injunction prohibiting defendants from continuing to operate the shelters in a manner that allegedly violated plaintiffs' legal rights. State Defendants filed a 57-page response, and plaintiffs filed a 19-page reply. In November 2002, the Court held four days of hearings on the motion, during which the parties presented voluminous documentary evidence as well as both fact and expert witnesses. The parties then submitted more than 203 pages of proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law.
On December 12, 2002, the Court entered an Order finding that plaintiffs had established numerous major deficiencies in the foster care system in general and in the emergency shelters in particular. Nevertheless, in reliance on State Defendants' assurances that they planned to close the shelters and provide safe alternative emergency placements for children as well as address other deficiencies in the foster care system, and based largely on the Court's confidence in the integrity and competence of then-Commissioner of Human Resources Jim Martin, the Court denied the motion for a preliminary injunction without prejudice to its being renewed by plaintiffs if State Defendants failed to fulfill their promise. State Defendants subsequently reported to the Court that the Fulton and DeKalb shelters had both been closed, thus mooting plaintiffs' claims relating to the shelters.
Meanwhile, on November 4, 2002, State Defendants filed a 44-page motion to dismiss, which argued that the Court was required to abstain from hearing plaintiffs' claims under Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669 (1971), because the proceedings would impermissibly interfere with ongoing juvenile court proceedings. State Defendants also argued that plaintiffs' claims were barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. See District of Columbia Ct. of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 486, 103 S.Ct. 1303, 75 L.Ed.2d 206 (1983); Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413, 415-16, 44 S.Ct. 149, 68 L.Ed. 362 (1923). Alternatively, State Defendants contended that most of plaintiffs' federal and state law claims failed to state a claim on which relief could be granted. State Defendants also filed a brief opposing class certification on the grounds that Younger abstention was required and that plaintiffs could not satisfy the commonality and typicality requirements.
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