C.M. v. New York City Department Of Education

Background

C.M., individually and on behalf of her minor child J.M., brought this action against the New York City Department of Education to recover attorneys’ fees and costs related to an administrative hearing conducted under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The statute permits a plaintiff who prevails in such a hearing to seek reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs in federal court.

C.M. moved for an award of fees and costs and moved to strike certain submissions by the Department of Education. Magistrate Judge Barbara Moses issued a Report and Recommendation recommending $25,506.26 in attorneys’ fees and $402 in costs, for a total of $25,908.26. The Report also denied C.M.’s motion to strike. Neither party objected to the denial of that motion.

Court’s Analysis

C.M. objected to the recommended fee award. Judge Broderick found that the objections largely repeated arguments that Magistrate Judge Moses had already considered and rejected. The court therefore reviewed the Report for clear error and found none.

The court upheld the calculation of the reasonable hourly rates, reasonable hours, and costs. It also upheld the Report’s across-the-board 50% reduction in the hours billed for the federal case. The court rejected C.M.’s argument that the fees should not have been reduced because the Department of Education allegedly prolonged the proceedings. The court explained that the Second Circuit had rejected that interpretation of the fee statute and that, even if the Department had unreasonably prolonged the proceedings, the statute would not prevent a fee reduction.

The court also rejected C.M.’s arguments concerning documents obtained through Freedom of Information Law requests and arguments that the court should have used fee rates approved in another case. The court agreed with the Report that those materials and the cited fee decision did not support the requested rates in this case.

Disposition

Judge Broderick adopted Magistrate Judge Moses’s Report and Recommendation in its entirety. The court ordered that C.M.’s motion for summary judgment was granted in part and awarded C.M. $25,908.26: $17,077.75 for legal fees from the underlying administrative proceeding, $8,428.51 for fees incurred in this federal action, and $402 in costs. The Clerk was directed to terminate the pending motions at Documents 20 and 41 and close the case.