McNeil v. Dist. of Columbia

• Decision Date: 02 February 2017
• Docket Number: Civil Action No.: 14–1981 (RC)
• Citation: 233 F.Supp.3d 150
• Parties: Jaden MCNEIL, et al., Plaintiffs, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

233 F.Supp.3d 150

Jaden MCNEIL, et al., Plaintiffs,

v.DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Defendant.

Civil Action No.: 14–1981 (RC)

United States District Court, District of Columbia.

Signed February 2, 2017

Diana Marjorie Savit, Savit & Szymkowicz, LLP, Bethesda, MD, for Plaintiffs.

Aaron Josiah Finkhousen, Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, Washington, DC, for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

GRANTING IN PART AND DENYING IN PART PLAINTIFFS' MOTION FOR AN AWARD OF ATTORNEY'S FEES AND COSTS

RUDOLPH CONTRERAS, United States District Judge

I. INTRODUCTION

Plaintiffs Jaden McNeil, Patrick Canavan, and Daniel McNeil ("Plaintiffs") successfully established through an administrative proceeding that the District of Columbia Public Schools ("the District") failed to provide Jaden McNeil with a free and appropriate public education in violation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ("IDEA"), 20 U.S.C. § 1400 et seq. After the success of their administrative proceeding, Plaintiffs initiated an action in this Court to recover their attorney's fees and costs and were awarded $44,815.73 in legal fees and $2,252.74 in costs on December 29, 2015. See McNeil v. District of Columbia , No. 14–1981 (RC), 2015 WL 9484460, at *21–24 (D.D.C. Dec. 29, 2015), ECF No. 20.

Pending before the Court is Plaintiffs' motion requesting an award of attorney's fees and costs incurred in their previous fee action—commonly known as "fees-on-fees." Upon consideration of the memoranda and exhibits submitted in connection with this Motion, the opposition thereto, and Plaintiffs' reply, for the reasons set forth below, Plaintiffs' Motion is granted in part and denied in part. An appropriate Order accompanies this Memorandum Opinion.

II. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

Jaden McNeil, Patrick Canavan, and Daniel McNeil prevailed administratively on their IDEA claims. Plaintiffs then filed an action on November 23, 2014 seeking to recoup their legal fees and expenses from the underlying administrative IDEA proceeding, as permitted under 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(3)(B)(i)(I). See Am. Compl., ECF No. 3. Plaintiffs requested $52,343 in legal fees and $2,252.74 in expenses in that action, after amending their initial request to correct a billing error, and were awarded $44,815.73 in attorney's fees and the full amount of expenses. Order, Dec. 29, 2015, ECF No. 19. The Court arrived at the reduced fee award by setting the hourly rate at 75% of the United States Attorney's Office Laffey matrix rate¹ because the Court concluded that amount accurately reflected the prevailing market rate, see McNeil , 2015 WL 9484460, at *3–7, and then reducing the resulting fees by 10% because Plaintiffs had limited success in the underlying administrative complaint. Id. at *7–10.

The instant motion was filed by Plaintiffs to recoup attorney's fees and costs that Plaintiffs incurred in their previous fee proceeding. Pls.' Mot. Att'y Fees (Pls.' Mot.) at 1–2, ECF No. 21. This is commonly known as "fees-on-fees" litigation. Plaintiffs request an award of $36,335.75 in legal fees² and $414.59 in costs,³ or non-fee expenses. Pls.' Mot. at 1, 17–18. Plaintiffs have been represented throughout this action by Ms. Diana Savit. During the period of the representation at issue here, her general billing rate was $425 an hour, Pls.' Mot. at 3–4, although Plaintiffs were historic clients and were thus actually billed at $390 an hour, Savit Decl. ¶¶ 4, 5, ECF No. 21–1, Ex. 1. The District argues that Plaintiffs should only receive fees through December 29, 2015, when summary judgment was entered in the initial fee action, and that the amount Plaintiffs seek for that period should be reduced from $21,546.50 to $13,234.73 to accord with 50% of the Laffey matrix rate. Def.'s Opp'n Pls.' Mot. Att'y Fees (Def.'s Opp'n) at 1, 9, ECF No. 22. The District argues Plaintiffs should not receive any attorney's fees for work performed after this Court's resolution of the initial fee action because that work constitutes fees-on-fees-on-fees litigation, which is too far removed in scope from the underlying IDEA litigation to be compensable. Def.'s Opp'n at 1, 7. The District does not directly address Plaintiffs' request for $1,245 in legal assistant fees, and accepts Plaintiffs' request for $414.59 in costs. Def.'s Opp'n at 9.

III. ANALYSIS

A. Legal Standard for Awarding Fees

The IDEA creates an avenue for prevailing parties to recover attorney's fees, and also allows "[p]arties who prevail at the administrative level [to] recover fees-on-fees ... for time reasonably devoted to obtaining attorney's fees." Kaseman v. District of Columbia , 444 F.3d 637, 640 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (internal quotation marks omitted). The general paradigm for attorney's fees in this jurisdiction⁴ is determined by "the number of hours reasonably expended on the litigation multiplied by a reasonable hourly rate." Jackson v. District of Columbia , 696 F.Supp.2d 97, 101 (D.D.C. 2010) (quoting Hensley v. Eckerhart , 461 U.S. 424, 433, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983) ). The District does not dispute that Plaintiffs are prevailing parties and that some award to them is appropriate. This Court must thus determine (1) the appropriate hourly rate for Plaintiffs' counsel and (2) the reasonableness of the hours billed by Plaintiffs' counsel. Because the "results obtained" in the underlying action are also a factor, Hensley , 461 U.S. at 434, 103 S.Ct. 1933, the Court must also consider whether Plaintiffs' fees should be reduced due to their limited degree of success in the previous fee action. Where a prevailing party has achieved only partial success, this Court has discretion to exercise its equitable judgment to "identify specific hours that should be eliminated, or ... simply reduce the award to account for the limited success." Id. at 436, 103 S.Ct. 1933. The plaintiff bears the burden of establishing the reasonableness of a fee request. In re North , 59 F.3d 184, 189 (D.C. Cir. 1995). After laying out the applicable law for each issue in greater detail, the Court will consider each issue in turn.

B. Hourly Rate

Plaintiffs contend that $425 per hour, the rate charged by their counsel, is reasonable and supported by their counsel's billing practices, skill, experience, reputation, and the prevailing market rates. The District argues that the prevailing market rate in the community IDEA fee litigation is 50% of the Laffey matrix rate. Although both parties thus invite the Court to reopen its consideration of the prevailing rate, which was already established in the Court's prior memorandum opinion in this case, McNeil , 2015 WL 9484460, at *3–7, the Court declines to do so. Neither the Plaintiffs nor the District have adequately shown that the fee litigation and underlying proceeding are so distinct as to constitute different "markets" and justify different compensation. The Court thus instead continues to calculate the appropriate fee at 75% of the applicable Laffey rate.

Other courts in this jurisdiction have concluded that "a successful fee applicant seeking fees-on-fees [need not] demonstrate anew the reasonableness of her proposed rate for time expended in her successful fee application." Kelsey v. District of Columbia , No. CV 13–1956 (BAH), 219 F.Supp.3d 197, 205, 2016 WL 7017252, at *5 (D.D.C. Dec. 1, 2016) (quoting Jones v. District of Columbia , 153 F.Supp.3d 114, 123 (D.D.C. 2015) ). This approach also finds support in the D.C. Circuit's recent guidance on fees-on-fees in the IDEA context. In Reed v. District of Columbia , the D.C. Circuit affirmed the district court judge's decision to award fees-on-fees at the same rate as attorney's fees on the original proceeding without " 'enter[ing] the labyrinth' of determining the appropriate rate anew."⁵ 843 F.3d 517, 523 (D.C. Cir. 2016) (quoting the district court opinion); see also Jones , 153 F.Supp.3d at 123 (awarding the same hourly rate for fees-on-fees and fees in the underlying proceeding because of "the principle that the fees petition and the administrative action in an IDEA case are part of the same action. Likewise, though in a different context, the D.C. Circuit has observed that a follow-on IDEA fee application should be treated as 'part of the same "action" as the underlying educational dispute, ... such that 'the parent's entitlement to fees arises out of the same controversy and depends entirely on the administrative hearing for its existence.' (quoting Kaseman , 444 F.3d at 641–42 ) (other internal quotation marks and citations omitted)).

The District requests that this Court depart from its prior determination of the appropriate hourly rate in this case and instead use 50% of the Laffey matrix. See Def.'s Opp'n at 4 & n.2, ECF No. 22. (collecting cases in which fees-on-fees were calculated at 50% of the Laffey matrix rate). The Court finds the weight of authority from other courts in this jurisdiction unpersuasive, as the courts are split and do not agree on a consistent rate for either IDEA litigation or subsequent fee proceedings.⁶ SeeKelsey , 219 F.Supp.3d at 205, 2016 WL 7017252, at *5 ("[T]here exists a lack of unanimity among judges on this Court regarding the reasonable rate for attorneys' fees stemming from IDEA litigation ..." (internal quotation marks and citations omitted)). Other courts in this district have concluded that fees-on-fees are appropriately awarded at above 50% of the Laffey matrix rate. See, e.g. , Kelsey , 219 F.Supp.3d at 205–06, 2016 WL 7017252, at *6 (awarding both fees-on-fees and initial attorney's fees at an amount near 75% of the Laffey matrix rate); Eley v. District of Columbia , No. CV 11–309 (BAH), 201 F.Supp.3d 150, 165–66, 2016 WL 4435187, at *11 (D.D.C. Aug. 22, 2016) (awarding both fees-on-fees and initial attorney's fees at the full Laffey matrix rate); Memorandum and Opinion, Reed v. District of Columbia , No. 14–cv–1887, ECF No. 30, at 2 (awarding both fees-on-fees and initial attorney's fees at 75% of the Laffey matrix), aff'd...