Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
After a six-day trial, a jury found Los Angeles Police Sergeant Brett Hayhoe and Officer Daryl Glover liable for civil rights violations against Jermaine Petit stemming from their use of lethal force. The jury awarded plaintiff Ashlyn Petit, Petit's successor-in-interest, $3,000,000 in damages—$1,500,000 for Petit's physical pain and suffering and $1,500,000 for his mental and emotional pain and suffering—and the court entered judgment on the verdict. Hayhoe was found liable for excessive force, denial of medical care, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and battery by a peace officer; Glover was found liable only for battery by a peace officer; and neither officer was found liable under California's Bane Act. The court subsequently denied defendants' renewed motions for judgment as a matter of law and for a new trial.
Plaintiff then moved for attorneys' fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1988, requesting $2,304,220 for four attorneys, one paralegal, and three legal support staff, with hourly rates from $150 for legal assistants to $1,500 for lead counsel Dale K. Galipo. Defendants opposed, contending that several rates and many time entries were unreasonable or duplicative and that the fee should be reduced because plaintiff prevailed on only some of her claims.
The Court’s Holding
The court granted the motion in part and awarded $2,166,670 in attorneys' fees, payable within forty-five days. Applying the lodestar method—reasonable hours multiplied by reasonable market rates—the court found plaintiff's evidence sufficient to support the requested rates for Galipo ($1,500), Rodney S. Diggs ($1,250), Renee V. Masongsong ($900), and Brandon R. Tanter ($650), relying on the Real Rate Report and the declaration of fee expert Carol Sobel. The court reduced paralegal Alice D. Williams's rate from $450 to $350 per hour, concluding that plaintiff's own cited authority supported a lower figure, and it approved the requested rates for legal assistants Gilbert, Metoyer, and Feather.
On hours, the court rejected defendants' claims that multiple attorneys preparing for and attending trial was duplicative, calling such staffing reasonable in an important case, but it excluded bulk hours that billing records did not substantiate, reducing Diggs to 811.25 hours, Tanter to 254 hours, and Williams to 269.75 hours. The court declined to reduce the lodestar based on the case's alleged simplicity, explaining that the lodestar calculation already reflects the litigation's complexity.
The court also rejected apportionment for partial success. Although plaintiff asserted eight claims and prevailed on four, all arose from the common course of conduct—the officers' shooting of Petit—so time on unsuccessful claims could not reasonably be separated from the successful ones, and the substantial verdict itself confers a public benefit by deterring future constitutional violations. The court directed plaintiff to file a supplemental fee request within seven days for work on the fee reply and post-trial oppositions, with defendants allowed seven days to respond.
Key Takeaways
- Under 42 U.S.C. § 1988, a prevailing plaintiff in civil rights litigation should ordinarily recover attorneys' fees unless special circumstances would make an award unjust.
- Reasonable fees are calculated by the lodestar method—hours reasonably expended times prevailing market rates—and the lodestar figure carries a strong presumption of reasonableness.
- When successful and unsuccessful claims share a common core of facts or arise from a common course of conduct, courts will not apportion fees claim-by-claim if the unsuccessful work contributed to the ultimate success.
- Fee applicants must substantiate hours with itemized records; bulk entries for vague activities such as internal meetings and email correspondence will be excluded.
- A substantial damages award in a civil rights action provides a meaningful public benefit through deterrence of future police misconduct, even without an express policy change.
Why It Matters
The order applies settled Ninth Circuit fee principles to a police-misconduct verdict, confirming that a $3 million judgment supports full lodestar compensation where all claims stem from one incident and that deterrence supplies public benefit even absent policy change. It also marks the evidentiary line for fee requests: market-rate surveys and expert declarations can justify premium hourly rates, while unsubstantiated bulk hours cannot.
For practitioners, the decision underscores the value of detailed timekeeping and market evidence in § 1988 litigation, and it reaffirms that partial success does not automatically shrink a fee award when the claims are intertwined.