We all know that attorneys' fees are available to prevailing plaintiffs in a civil rights case. The courts have said they don't want the fees portion of the case to turn into a second major litigation, but fee petitions are often hotly contested by the losing party, requiring extensive motion practice and sometimes even appellate work. The problem for plaintiffs is that a bad fee ruling is very difficult to challenge on appeal, as the appellate judges will defer to the trial court's judgment on how much money the plaintiff is entitled, based on the trial court's familiarity with the case. So most of these appeals are unsuccessful. But not all. This appeal succeeds.
The case is Raja v. Burns, issued on August 1. I would say this case is a must-read for civil rights practitioners, as it provides the most guidance I've seen in a published attorneys' fees case in years.
After litigating this procedural due process case, the parties settled and plaintiff was allowed to move for attorneys' fees. The trial court reduced plaintiff's fee entitlement by 40%, reasoning that plaintiff did not succeed on certain claims, and that plaintiff's attorney had used "block billing" in his fee records, making it difficult for the district court to know precisely what kind of work the attorney was performing. Forty percent is a mighty large reduction. I have seen this before, as some judges will even reduce by 50% depending on the circumstances. Are these decisions worth appealing? The consensus is they are not always worth an appeal since the appellate courts, as I mentioned, are instructed by the Supreme Court to defer to the trial court's judgment on these issues.
Plaintiff appealed from the 40% reduction. The Court of Appeals (Carney, Calabresi and Robinson) says the 40% reduction was an abuse of discretion. Starting with the block-billing issue, the Court says it was not so bad. Bear in mind that courts frown on block-billing, which can look something like this: "10.50 hours -- reviewing Defendant's brief, conducting legal research, organizing the file, and phone call with client." That time entry does not itemize the work, making it difficult for the court to know if you reasonably billed for the work. On the other hand, courts don't need such precision in billing that you spend half your time organizing your time entries. District courts have said that block-billing for a few hours at a time is generally not objectionable, and in noting that plaintiff's block-billing was not too voluminous, this case recognizes for the first time at the appellate level that short block-billing entries are not enough to reduce the fee award. The entries in this case do not justify a 40% reduction, though some smaller reduction may be in order. The Second Circuit also deems it relevant that plaintiff only had one lawyer on the case, making it less likely that the block-billing might obscure redundant or unreasonable billing practices.
What about the reduction for plaintiff's lack of success on all his claims? That does not justify the reduction, either. Plaintiff's primary claim was that his due process rights were violated in the way the City of New York adversely affected his employment. The claims that plaintiff lost were secondary to his primary claim, and it shared a common core of facts with the successful claims. It also does not appear that plaintiff's lawyer spent much time on one unsuccessful claim in particular, devoting only three pages of his summary judgment brief to that issue. Simply put, the unsuccessful claims do not justify the steep 40% reduction in the overall fee award.
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