Louisville Black Police Officers Organization, Inc. v. City of Louisville
| Decision Date | 04 February 1983 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 81-5466,81-5491,s. 81-5466 |
| Citation | 700 F.2d 268 |
| Parties | 30 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 1505, 31 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 33,321 LOUISVILLE BLACK POLICE OFFICERS ORGANIZATION, INC., et al., Plaintiffs- Appellants-Cross-Appellees, v. CITY OF LOUISVILLE, et al., Defendants-Appellees-Cross-Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
Robert A. Sedler (argued), Detroit, Mich., William H. Allison, Jr., Paul Soreff, Juanita Logan Christian, Louisville, Ky., Jack Greenberg, Patrick O. Patterson, Clyde E. Murphy (lead counsel), New York City, Patrick O. Patterson, Los Angeles, Cal., for plaintiffs-appellants-cross-appellees.
Winston King (argued) Henry Triplett, Louisville, Ky., for defendants-appellees-cross-appellants.
Before LIVELY and KENNEDY, Circuit Judges, and HOLSCHUH, District Judge. *
This appeal and cross-appeal challenge the district court's award of attorneys' fees following plaintiffs' successful challenge of the discriminatory employment practices of the City of Louisville Police Department. The issues raised on this appeal result, for the most part, from a misreading of this Court's decision in Northcross v. Board of Education of Memphis City Schools, 611 F.2d 624 (6th Cir.1979), cert. denied, 447 U.S. 911, 100 S.Ct. 2999, 64 L.Ed.2d 862 (1980), and from a failure to recognize that Northcross did not eliminate all discretion on the part of district courts in awarding attorneys' fees in civil rights litigation. For the reasons set forth below, we hold that in its award of attorneys' fees in the present case the district court properly exercised its discretion within the guidelines of Northcross. We therefore AFFIRM.
The underlying class action discrimination suit was brought initially under 42 U.S.C. Secs. 1981 and 1983, alleging that the City of Louisville Police Department had violated the Fourteenth Amendment rights of the plaintiffs. The complaint was later amended to allege claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e et seq. On March 7, 1977, trial commenced in the district court on the issues of recruitment, entry-level testing, selection and hiring. The case, tried in stages, took five weeks of trial time. After the final transcript of the proceedings was completed and filed in May 1978 the parties jointly requested and the district court granted additional time for filing post-trial briefs in order that settlement negotiations could take place. The negotiations were unsuccessful, and in September 1978 counsel for plaintiffs filed their post-trial brief and proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law. The defendants then filed their post-trial brief in February 1979, and plaintiffs filed their post-trial reply brief in May 1979.
On September 18, 1979, the district court issued findings of fact, conclusions of law, and a memorandum opinion, finding, inter alia, that the City had a history of racial segregation and discrimination in its police employment practices. The court entered a preliminary injunction with respect to the hiring of black police officers by the defendants. In addition, the district court held that counsel for plaintiffs were entitled to recover interim attorneys' fees, costs and expenses. On May 2, 1980, the parties signed a consent decree which substantially incorporated the remedies set out in the court's preliminary injunction. However, the decree, which was approved by the court, did not resolve the question of interim attorneys' fees, costs and expenses, and the parties were unable to reach any agreement regarding this matter.
The plaintiffs then moved for an award of attorneys' fees in the amount of $629,182. In support of the motion, plaintiffs' counsel submitted detailed time logs, affidavits of Louisville attorneys regarding prevailing hourly rates for attorneys practicing in the Louisville area, and a summary of the experience and qualifications of the attorneys who participated in the litigation. In addition to submitting the number of hours each attorney spent on the case, plaintiffs also submitted hourly rates for each of the attorneys computed on the basis of each attorney's years of experience at the time the services were rendered. Different rates were proposed for in-court as opposed to office time.
The attorneys for whom fees were claimed are as follows: The principal attorney for the plaintiffs at the time the suit was filed in 1974 was William Allison of Louisville. In 1974-75 he was assisted by Henry Hinton of Louisville. Paul Soreff, who first became involved in the case in 1975 while still a law student, joined Mr. Allison in this case in 1976 when he was admitted to practice. After being denied assistance in litigating the case by the United States Department of Justice, attorneys Allison and Soreff asked the NAACP Legal Defense Fund to assist them. The Legal Defense Fund (LDF) agreed to participate, and LDF attorneys entered the case as counsel for plaintiffs in 1976. Patrick O. Patterson was the primary LDF attorney assigned to the case. He was assisted by Deborah M. Greenberg in 1977, by Kristine S. Knaplund, a volunteer LDF attorney, and by paralegals and other members of the LDF staff. Juanita Logan Christian performed services for plaintiffs while serving as an Earl Warren Fellow at the LDF in 1977 and then served as additional counsel for plaintiff when she entered private practice in Louisville. Frederic Cowden of Louisville also performed some work in 1977.
The City of Louisville challenged the application for attorneys' fees, contending that plaintiffs' attorneys were entitled to recover no more than $136,336 as interim attorneys' fees and submitting affidavits of other Louisville attorneys on the question of prevailing rates for legal services in the Louisville area in support of the City's contention.
On February 12, 1981, the district court issued its findings of fact, conclusions of law and memorandum opinion on plaintiffs' motion for attorneys' fees, costs and expenses and entered a judgment thereon. On March 17, 1981, the district court issued a memorandum opinion clarifying its judgment. The court's second opinion set forth in detail the computations it used in calculating the awards. In this Court's review of the district court's decision, the two opinions will be treated as one.
The district court's computation of fees consisted of three principal elements: (1) a determination of the number of hours to be compensated, (2) a determination of a reasonable dollar compensation for those hours, and (3) the addition of a 33.33% contingency factor to the product of the first two. In determining the number of hours to be compensated, the court accepted the hours submitted by the applicants but made the following adjustments. The court concluded that the time sought to be approved for preparing the plaintiffs' post-trial brief (327.90 hours) was excessive by 25% and that the time sought to be approved for preparing the reply brief (511.15 hours) was excessive by 50%. The court, therefore, reduced by 25% and 50%, respectively, the hours each attorney claimed as having been spent on the post-trial brief or the reply brief. In addition, in accordance with the small percentage reduction to eliminate duplication of services approved in Northcross, the court reduced by 5% all remaining hours.
The more difficult task before the district court was the assignment of reasonable hourly rates to the approved hours of service. The court prefaced its determination by noting that neither Northcross nor other authorities provide specific guidance as to the relationship between a lawyer's experience and his or her ability to charge higher rates based on that experience.
As to Ms. Greenberg's fee, the court compared her experience and skill to that of Mr. Lucas, one of the attorneys in Northcross, and determined that the hourly rate of $75 per hour for office work and $106 for trial work would adequately compensate Ms. Greenberg who participated in the litigation in 1977 only.
As to the fees for Ms. Knaplund and Mr. Cowden, the court found that the $40 per hour rate established for Mr. Cowden in another civil rights action in the same court, Lanier v. City of Louisville, Civil Action No. C77-0455L(A), represented a reasonable fee for both Mr. Cowden and Ms. Knaplund for services rendered in their first two years of practice.
With regard to the hourly rates of the other attorneys, the court established three categories. An attorney with zero to two years experience was labeled "inexperienced," one with two to seven years experience was labeled "intermediate," and one with more than seven years experience was labeled "fully experienced." In addition, for all attorneys, the court adopted an increase of roughly 40% over the base rate for work done in the courtroom. Based on this formula and taking into account the affidavits of Louisville attorneys on the issue of prevailing rates, the court determined the following rates would reasonably compensate plaintiffs' attorneys:
Admitted Years Service Basic In-Court
Attorney to Practice Rendered Rate Rate
--------- ----------- ------------- ----- ------------
Allison 1969 1974-76 $ 50
1977-79 $ 65 $ 90
Patterson 1972 1976-79 $ 50 $ 70
Soreff 1976 1975 $ 20*
1976-78 $ 40 $ 56 (1977)
1978-79 $ 60
Hinton 1971 1974-75 $ 50
Christian 1977 1977 $ 20*
1977-79 $ 40 $ 56
Knaplund 1977 1978-79 $ 40
Cowden 1975 1977 $ 40
Greenberg 1957 1977 $ 75 $106
* before admission to bar
Finally, as noted earlier, after computing a total based on the number of approved hours multiplied by the...
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