Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria v. United States Department of the…

Background

Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria (FIGR) sued several federal officials over alleged violations of the tribal-consultation requirements of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) concerning the proposed Koi Nation casino project. The court had previously granted FIGR’s temporary restraining-order motion, denied its preliminary-injunction motion without prejudice, granted FIGR summary judgment on its NHPA claim, and entered judgment for FIGR on that claim.

FIGR then sought attorneys’ fees and certain expert costs under the NHPA provision allowing a court to award reasonable attorneys’ fees, expert-witness fees, and other costs to a party that substantially prevails in an action enforcing the statute. The federal officials did not dispute that FIGR substantially prevailed; they challenged the reasonableness and amount of the request.

Motion to Stay

The federal officials asked the court to postpone consideration of FIGR’s fee motion until appeals connected to the case were resolved. By the time of this order, the federal officials had voluntarily dismissed their own appeal, but Koi Nation’s appeal remained pending.

The court applied four stay factors: the likelihood of success on the merits, irreparable harm without a stay, harm to other parties, and the public interest. The federal officials made no showing that Koi Nation was likely to succeed on appeal. The court held that this alone justified denying the stay. It also found that neither side had shown irreparable or substantial injury and that the federal officials had not shown that a stay would serve the public interest. The motion to stay was therefore denied.

Attorneys’ Fees

The court rejected the federal officials’ general objections to FIGR’s billing. It found that the challenged entries were not sufficiently block-billed or vague to make the hours or staffing difficult to evaluate. It also found that FIGR supported its associate and paralegal rates with declarations and survey information, and that the rates were below the 50th percentile reported for San Francisco law firms. The court declined to reduce fees because partners performed much of the work, reasoning that the work’s difficulty, required skill, and results—not whether different staffing would have been cheaper—controlled.

The court also rejected objections to the time spent on the complaint; the temporary-restraining-order and preliminary-injunction motions; supporting declarations; the supplemental complaint; the summary-judgment motion; and the fee motion. It found the hours adequately supported and reasonable given the case’s factual and legal complexity. The court awarded fees for work on the declarations of Jonodev Chaudhuri and Greg Sarris. It denied fees for work on Alex DeGeorgey’s declaration because FIGR had not shown why approximately six hours of attorney work were necessary for that short declaration, which primarily authenticated a report.

Expert Costs and Disposition

FIGR requested $7,929.83 in expert fees for DeGeorgey’s work on the expert declaration supporting the temporary-restraining-order motion. The court found that FIGR had not shown why DeGeorgey and a geographic-information-system specialist needed 38.5 hours to prepare the short declaration and related materials. The court therefore awarded no fees for that expert work.

The court granted FIGR’s attorneys’ fee motion and awarded $598,072.67. That amount was FIGR’s requested $612,529.00, reduced by a $1,776.50 arithmetic overcalculation, $4,750.00 in attorney fees associated with DeGeorgey’s declaration, and $7,929.83 in DeGeorgey’s expert costs.