Manor Country Club v. Flaa

• Decision Date: 18 May 2005
• Docket Number: No. 111,111
• Citation: 874 A.2d 1020,387 Md. 297
• Parties: MANOR COUNTRY CLUB v. Betty FLAA.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

874 A.2d 1020

387 Md. 297

MANOR COUNTRY CLUB v. Betty FLAA.

No. 111, Sept. Term, 2004.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

May 18, 2005.

Charles E. Wilson, Jr. (Amy Leete Leone of McCarthy Wilson, Rockville), on brief, for Petitioner.

Linda Hitt Thatcher (David G. Ross of Thatcher Law Firm, L.L.C., Greenbelt), on brief, for Respondent.

Beth Mellen Harrison, Francis D. Murnaghan, Jr., Baltimore, on brief of amici curiae the Public Justice Center, the ACLU of Maryland, and the D.C. Employment Justice Center.

Stephen Z. Chertkof, Heller, Huron, Chertkof, Lerner, Simon & Salzman, Washington, DC; Deborah Thompson Eisenberg, Brown, Goldstein & Levy, Baltimore, on brief of Metropolitan Washington Employment Lawyers Ass'n and Maryland Employment Lawyers Ass'n as amici curiae.

Argued before BELL, C.J., RAKER, WILNER, CATHELL, HARRELL, BATTAGLIA, JOHN C. ELDRIDGE, (Retired, Specially Assigned), JJ.

CATHELL, Judge.

After some twelve years of extensive litigation, the appeal now before us seeks to determine the correct approach to be applied in calculating attorney's fees where the award of such fees is permitted and there existed, at the time this case was initiated and an award was made, a provision of the Montgomery County Code that delineated criteria to be applied to a determination of the discretionary award of attorney's fees to a prevailing party in a discrimination suit.

Betty Flaa, respondent, ("Mrs. Flaa") filed a complaint with the Montgomery County Office of Human Rights ("MCOHR"), which, at that time, was known as the Montgomery County Human Relations Commission, and prevailed in a substantial way on some aspects of her discrimination claim against Manor Country Club, petitioner, ("Manor"). The subsequent award of attorney's fees by a two-person Public Accommodations Panel of the Montgomery County Human Relations Commission ("Panel") in favor of Mrs. Flaa has been the subject of two petitions for judicial review by the Circuit Court for Montgomery County. In the second of these petitions, the Panel had awarded Mrs. Flaa $22,440.00 in attorney's fees, an award which the hearing court affirmed. Mrs. Flaa then appealed to the Court of Special Appeals, which reversed the trial court and remanded the case to the Panel to recalculate the award. Manor then filed a petition for writ of certiorari¹ which we granted on December 17, 2004. Manor Country Club v. Flaa, 384 Md. 448, 863 A.2d 997 (2004).

Manor's petition for writ of certiorari presented the following questions for our review:

1. "When a county agency exercises its discretion to award attorney's fees, as specifically allowed by a county statute, is that agency required to determine reasonable attorney's fees according to a strict application of the lodestar approach, or is it required to determine reasonable attorney's fees in accordance with the dictates of the statute that provides it with the authority to award attorney's fees?"

2. "Did the Court of Special Appeals err by refusing to apply an abuse of discretion standard to review the [Public Accommodations] Panel[ ] [of the Montgomery County Human Relations Commission's] attorney's fee award where the record shows that the Panel reviewed, in detail, each factor required by the Montgomery County Code in making a fee award and, thereby, determined an award of reasonable hours times reasonable rate?" [Alterations added.] [Emphasis added.]

We hold that, when attorney's fees are permitted by statute or ordinance, the lodestar approach to the calculation of reasonable attorney's fees is generally the correct approach, except in instances where other criteria for the calculation of such fees are provided, as in the present case, in the fee-shifting statute.² As we further explain hereafter, we address the second question only insofar as is necessary in our treatment of the first—and consistent—question presented, given the discrepancy between the second question presented by Manor in its petition for writ of certiorari and in its brief.

I. Facts and Procedural History

The longevity of this case has generated an extensive set of facts. The issue before this Court, however, is limited to the proper procedure for awarding attorney's fees under the circumstances of the present case. In similarly recognizing this focus, the Court of Special Appeals, in its reported decision, Flaa v. Manor Country Club, 158 Md.App. 483, 857 A.2d 604 (2004), confined its factual recitation of the underlying discrimination claim to those details necessary to provide context and to frame properly the issue of Mrs. Flaa's request for attorney's fees. Accordingly, we adopt in large part, the facts as set forth in the Court of Special Appeals's opinion, which states:

"On December 23, 1993, [Mrs. Flaa] filed a marital status discrimination claim with the MCOHR. She averred that [Manor's] policies, which restricted access to and use of [Manor's] golf course, were discriminatory on the basis of marital status and resulted in disparate treatment of her because of sex.[³] [After having secured legal representation, Mrs. Flaa] thereafter amended her claim [in May 1994] to add a sex discrimination claim, asserting theories of disparate impact in the membership structure and hostile environment in [Manor's] indoor restaurant, known as the Grill Room.

"At about the same time, [respondent], with others, filed a complaint with the Office of the Attorney General of Maryland, identifying the same claims and setting forth the same legal theories as those alleged in the MCOHR complaint. After the Attorney's General Office launched an investigation into [Mrs. Flaa's] claims, [Manor] modified numerous club policies to avoid potential prosecution for unlawful discriminatory practices. No formal charges were ever brought against [Manor] by the State.

"On January 6, 1997, following an investigation, MCOHR found reasonable grounds to believe that [Manor] was a place of public accommodation and had violated Montgomery County Code, § 27-8 (1987) by engaging in unlawful discriminatory practices on the basis of marital status and gender.

"MCOHR referred the matter to the Office of Zoning and Administrative Hearings for a public hearing."

Id. at 487-88, 857 A.2d at 607 (alterations added). Six months later, on July 11, 1997, Mrs. Flaa's counsel submitted her first attorney's fees application seeking $11,699.20 in fees and $946.29 in expenses. Fourteen months later, in September 1998, she submitted to opposing counsel an updated statement showing total attorney's fees of $32,579.50 and expenses of $1,836.46.

"After five postponements, the parties appeared before a hearing examiner on May 17, 1999, for the first day of what became a ten-day public hearing in which 33 witnesses testified and 158 exhibits were submitted as evidence."

Id. at 488, 857 A.2d at 607. On July 9, 1999, Mrs. Flaa, through counsel, submitted a statement of damages as well as a request for damages, attorney's fees, and expenses in the amounts of $1,000.00, $138,024.00, and $4,282.31, respectively.

"On September 30, 1999, the hearing examiner issued a 141-page Report and Recommendation to the Public Accommodation Panel ["Panel"] of the MCOHR. The report stated the hearing examiner's findings that [Manor] was a place of public accommodation; that [Manor] had engaged in sex discrimination (disparate treatment) against [respondent] during the golf course incident; and that [Manor] had engaged in gender-based discriminatory practices, creating a hostile environment. The hearing examiner did not find that [Manor's] practices had resulted in a disparate impact on women. The hearing examiner recommended the award to [Mrs. Flaa] of $1,000.00 in damages (the statutory limit), $120,481.00 in attorney's fees, and $4,282.31 in expenses. [Mrs. Flaa] filed a brief seeking modification by the Panel of the hearing examiner's recommendation on the disparate impact claim. [Manor] filed a response to [Mrs. Flaa's] request for modification, and separately requested that the Panel modify the hearing examiner's recommendations with respect to jurisdiction and the hostile environment claim.

"On March 1, 2000, the Panel held a public hearing on the matter and allowed both parties to make oral arguments."

Flaa, 158 Md.App. at 488, 857 A.2d at 606-07 (alterations added).

In an eight-page Memorandum Opinion and Order issued May 8, 2000, the Panel adopted the hearing examiner's findings that Manor was a place of public accommodation and that Mrs. Flaa had endured harsh treatment when she was ejected from the golf course at the time of the spring 1993 incident, but found that Manor's membership practices resulted in no disparate impact between male and female members. In addition, the Panel "rejected the hearing examiner's finding that [Manor] had engaged in sex discrimination by creating a hostile environment, concluding that such theories are reserved for employment cases." Id. at 489, 857 A.2d at 607 (alteration added). The Panel noted that even if such theories were available to Mrs. Flaa, the facts surrounding her claim were insufficient to rise to the level of creating a hostile environment.

The Panel looked to Montgomery County Code § 27-7 in awarding Mrs. Flaa $750.00 (of a maximum $1,000.00) in damages for humiliation and embarrassment and generally invoked the criteria of Montgomery County Code § 27-7(k)(1) in awarding attorney's fees of $3,000.00 (i.e., four times the damages award). The Panel's opinion did not provide an analysis of each § 27-7(k)(1) criterion. Rather, in reaching its attorney's fees figure, the Panel explained that it "recognize[d] that some of the time billed was also related to a proceeding before the Attorney General's office, and therefore not directly related to this case," and it echoed the hearing examiner's opinion that "`Counsel's time is difficult to evaluate because several functions are bundled together in a manner that precludes evaluation of their...