Leffler v. Meer, s. 90-1434

• Decision Date: 12 July 1991
• Docket Number: 90-1773,90-1557,Nos. 90-1434,s. 90-1434
• Citation: 936 F.2d 981
• Parties: William R. LEFFLER and Shirley Jolliff, Plaintiffs-Appellants, Cross-Appellees, v. Ralph MEER, et al., Defendants-Appellees, Cross-Appellants, and Howard Shake, et al., Defendants, Cross-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 981

936 F.2d 981

20 Fed.R.Serv.3d 307

William R. LEFFLER and Shirley Jolliff Plaintiffs-Appellants, Cross-Appellees, v. Ralph MEER, et al., Defendants-Appellees, Cross-Appellants and Howard Shake, et al., Defendants, Cross-Appellants.

Nos. 90-1434, 90-1557, 90-1773.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

Argued Dec. 4, 1990.

Decided July 12, 1991.

Michael K. Sutherlin, Indianapolis, Ind., for plaintiffs-appellants, cross-appellees.

Maxwell Gray, Rick Pitts, Lowe, Gray, Steele & Hoffman, Indianapolis, Ind., W. Michael Wilke, Don Hubert Wickens, Wickens, Wickens & Wilke, Margaret Polanski, Greensburg, Ind., for defendants-appellees, cross-appellants.

Before WOOD, Jr. and CUDAHY, Circuit Judges, and ESCHBACH, Senior Circuit Judge.

HARLINGTON WOOD, Jr., Circuit Judge.

At issue in these appeals is the district court's award of "prevailing party" attorney's fees under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1988 and the denial of Rule 11 sanctions. The original lawsuit underlying this dispute involved the suicide of a pretrial detainee in the Decatur County, Indiana jail.

I.

In 1984, Mark Leffler, a twenty-four year old inmate of the Decatur County jail, committed suicide by hanging himself. His parents, William Leffler and Shirley Jolliff ("plaintiffs"), filed suit in district court claiming an unconstitutional deprivation of civil rights under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983. Plaintiffs sought damages for the estate of Mark Leffler in the amount of $500,000, punitive damages for the estate of $1 million, and $300,000 in damages for themselves. Named as defendants were Ralph Meer ("Meer"), individually and in his official capacity as sheriff of Decatur County, the County Commissioners ("Commissioners"), and certain sheriff's deputies and dispatchers.

At the close of their case in chief, plaintiffs moved for dismissal of all defendants except Meer and the Commissioners. The district court then granted the motion of the Commissioners for a directed verdict. The jury returned a verdict against the only remaining defendant, Meer (in his official capacity), in the amount of $3,000 as compensatory damages. In addition, plaintiffs were each awarded $15,000 in punitive damages against Meer individually. The verdicts were reduced to judgment, paid to plaintiffs, and are not at issue in this appeal.

Plaintiffs' attorneys then sought payment of their attorney's fees pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1988. ¹ The district court awarded plaintiffs' attorney's fees in an amount substantially less than their fee request. The district court also awarded fees to the Commissioners as prevailing parties, finding that they were frivolously joined as defendants. The attorneys for the sheriff's deputies and dispatchers sought attorney's fees as prevailing defendants under section 1988 and also Rule 11 sanctions; however, the district court denied both requests.

II.

A. Reduction of Plaintiffs' Attorney's Fees

Plaintiffs contend that the district court abused its discretion in failing to award the full amount of their attorney's fee request. Because of the factual nature of attorney's fee awards, appellate review is limited to a "highly deferential abuse of discretion standard." Dutchak v. Central States, S.E. & S.W. Areas Health & Welfare Fund, 932 F.2d 591, 596 (7th Cir.1991). See also Graham v. Sauk Prairie Police Comm'n, 915 F.2d 1085, 1108 (7th Cir.1990); Ustrak v. Fairman, 851 F.2d 983, 987 (7th Cir.1988). We will not find an abuse of discretion if reasonable persons could differ over the district court's view. Lightfoot v. Walker, 826 F.2d 516, 520 (7th Cir.1987); Nanetti v. University of Illinois, 867 F.2d 990, 995 (7th Cir.1989). Determining a fee award is left to the discretion of the district court in light of its "superior understanding of the litigation and the desirability of avoiding frequent appellate review of what essentially are factual matters." Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 437, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 1941, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983). The Supreme Court in Hensley further stated that "[a] request for attorney's fees should not result in a second major litigation." Id. at 437, 103 S.Ct. at 1941.

The Supreme Court has adopted the "lodestar" approach as the starting point in determining a reasonable attorney's fee under section 1988. The lodestar is a base figure arrived at by multiplying the hours reasonably expended on the litigation by a reasonable hourly rate. City of Riverside v. Rivera, 477 U.S. 561, 568, 106 S.Ct. 2686, 2691, 91 L.Ed.2d 466 (1986); Hensley, 461 U.S. at 433, 103 S.Ct. at 1939. The lodestar figure may then be increased or decreased in light of factors articulated in Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, Inc., 488 F.2d 714, 717-19 (5th Cir.1974), and incorporated into the Riverside analysis. 477 U.S. at 568, 106 S.Ct. at 2691. ² Despite the district court's wide latitude in determining a fee award, if the requested hourly rate or number of hours is reduced, a clear explanation must be provided. Tomazzoli v. Sheedy, 804 F.2d 93, 97 (7th Cir.1986). That was done here--a lengthy and detailed justification for the reduction of plaintiffs' attorney's fee award was included in the district court's opinion.

Plaintiffs requested attorney's fees in the amount of $97,649.81 and costs in the amount of $2,248.56. This amount represented 709.45 hours claimed by three attorneys. Following a careful evaluation of plaintiffs' attorney's fee request, the district court found the number of hours to be "clearly unreasonable" in light of the relative simplicity of the case and the brevity of the trial--three and one-half days--and reduced the total number of hours to 485.45. One example of the court's reduction involved the disallowance of 41.4 hours claimed for drafting a trial brief. The district court found that the trial brief, written by an inexperienced attorney, was simply a summary of the plaintiffs' complaint, a list of witnesses, and a brief recitation of the legal issues which bore "an interesting resemblance" to the trial judge's order denying defendants' motion for summary judgment.

Two other factors were appropriately considered by the district court in its fee award: (1) the existence and terms of a contingent fee contract; and (2) the relationship between the fees sought by counsel and the relief obtained. Lenard v. Argento, 808 F.2d 1242, 1247 (7th Cir.1987). Under the contingent fee contract, plaintiffs' attorneys would be entitled to forty percent of $33,000, that is, $13,200. However, the district court found that a higher award was justified because the judgment could yield benefits in excess of monetary damages by "alert[ing] Indiana jailers to their duties toward prisoners in their care ..." and even after the district court's reduction the plaintiffs' attorneys received $44,833.13. Because of the great deference accorded to a district court's fee award, Hensley, 461 U.S. at 437, 103 S.Ct. at 1941, and in view of the specificity employed here in reducing the award, we find that the district court did not abuse its discretion.

The hourly rate requested by the three plaintiffs' attorneys was also reduced by the district court. The reasonable hourly rate to be used in computing the lodestar figure should be based on the "market rate" for the attorney's work. Tomazzoli, 804 F.2d at 96. The district court determined that the hourly rate requested by two of plaintiffs' attorneys was unreasonable because it exceeded the rate they had agreed to in a similar section 1983 case settled shortly before the trial in this case. The rate for the third attorney for plaintiffs was reduced to the amount which, by his own admission, was the usual hourly rate in his community. The trial judge is in a better position than this court to determine the reasonableness of an hourly rate, Jardien v. Winston Network, Inc., 888 F.2d 1151, 1159 (7th Cir.1989), and we find that the reduction of the hourly rate requested by plaintiffs was not an abuse of discretion.

B. Award of Attorney's Fees to Commissioners

At the close of plaintiffs' case the district court granted the Commissioners' motion for a directed verdict. The Commissioners sought payment of their attorney's fees as section 1988 prevailing defendants. Concluding that the claim against the Commissioners was frivolous, the district court awarded attorney's fees and expenses to the Commissioners in the amount of $16,834.88.

A prevailing defendant, as well as a prevailing plaintiff, may be awarded attorney's fees under section 1988. Unity Ventures v. County of Lake, 894 F.2d 250, 253 (7th Cir.1990). In order to collect attorney's fees, a prevailing defendant "must demonstrate that the plaintiff brought her action in subjective bad faith, or that 'the plaintiff's action was frivolous, unreasonable, or without foundation, even though not brought in subjective bad faith.' " Id. (quoting Christianburg Garment Co. v. EEOC, 434 U.S. 412, 421, 98 S.Ct. 694, 700, 54 L.Ed.2d 648 (1978)). In Hughes v. Rowe, 449 U.S. 5, 14, 101 S.Ct. 173, 178, 66 L.Ed.2d 163 (1980), the Supreme Court vacated an attorney's fee award to a prevailing defendant and held that "[t]he fact that a plaintiff may ultimately lose his case is not in itself a sufficient justification for the assessment of fees." Vigorous enforcement of civil rights laws is the policy underlying the stringent standard required of prevailing defendants who seek payment of their attorney's fees. Christianburg, 434 U.S. at 422, 98 S.Ct. at 700.

The Commissioners contend that the district court properly awarded their attorney's fees because plaintiffs' joinder of them as defendants constituted a frivolous claim. However, the mere fact that the cause of action against the Commissioners did not survive a motion for directed verdict does not compel an award of attorney's fees against plaintiffs. In order to warrant the grant of section 1988 prevailing defendant attorney's fees, "[t]he plaintiff's action must be meritless in the sense that it is...