Shaw v. Kelley

Background

Cecil Eugene Shaw brought a disability-rights action concerning alleged access barriers he encountered during an August 21, 2014 visit to a Burger Pit restaurant. He asserted claims under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act and California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act.

The court previously granted in part and denied in part Shaw’s motion for summary judgment. It ruled for Shaw on several barriers involving the parking lot, paths of travel, dining area, and restroom. It awarded him $4,000 in statutory damages under the Unruh Act but denied an additional $4,000 request for “ongoing deterrence” damages. The parties later settled the remaining issues concerning injunctive relief, and the court entered a consent decree requiring the defendants to ensure that the entrance-door thresholds were less than one-half inch high.

The parties could not agree on Shaw’s request for attorneys’ fees and costs. Shaw moved for $65,515.75. The defendants opposed the motion.

Legal standard

The court applied the “lodestar” method for calculating fees. Under that method, a reasonable fee generally begins with the number of hours reasonably spent on the case multiplied by a reasonable hourly rate. The court also considered whether the requested work was excessive, duplicative, clerical, inadequately documented, or unrelated to the relief Shaw obtained.

The court concluded that Shaw was a prevailing party because he obtained both injunctive relief and damages, even though he did not succeed on every alleged barrier. Because Shaw achieved only partial success, the court also considered whether all of the requested work was reasonably necessary to obtain the relief ultimately awarded.

Hourly rates

The court found that Shaw had provided limited evidence of the prevailing market rates for comparable legal work in the relevant community. It therefore reduced the requested rates. The court awarded the following rates:

- Mark Potter, Raymond Ballister, and Phyl Grace: $475 per hour each - Mary Melton, Dennis Price, Isabel Masanque, Chris Carson, Teresa Allen, Amanda Seabock, Chris Seabock, and Kushpreet Mehton: $350 per hour each - Matt Valenti, Sara Gunderson, and Elliott Montgomery: $300 per hour each

The court did not award fees for Prathima Price because Shaw’s submissions did not provide sufficient information to justify a fee for that attorney. The final fee table instead included Dennis Price.

Hours and reductions

The court declined to make an additional deduction for Potter’s 0.7 hours spent drafting the original complaint. It deducted 0.4 hours from the 0.7 hours Potter billed for drafting an amended complaint because that complaint was nearly identical to the original complaint except for the addition of one defendant.

The court deducted billed time for delegated clerical tasks, including filing, serving, retrieving, and sending documents and handling scheduling communications. It also deducted Potter’s time spent reviewing the firm’s billing statements. The court rejected a further reduction based on alleged block billing in Amanda Seabock’s time entry for preparing summary-judgment papers.

The court found that nine hours Seabock billed for preparing summary-judgment papers and reviewing related filings included work on alleged barriers that were not properly presented in Shaw’s pleadings. Because Shaw could have obtained the same relief without pursuing those barriers, and because his results were not sufficiently extensive to justify full payment for that work, the court applied a five-percent reduction. It credited 8.55 of those hours for payment.

The court did not reduce time for depositions or certain discovery because the defendants did not provide sufficient evidence that those efforts concerned the additional barriers. It also made no further reduction for partially illegible billing entries or for the attorneys’ earlier lack of admission to the Northern District of California, finding that the attorneys appeared eligible for admission and had since been admitted.

Lodestar and costs

After applying the approved rates and reasonable hours, the court calculated a lodestar fee of $37,955.00. It found no basis for increasing or decreasing that amount further.

The court awarded $400 for the filing fee, $30 for service, $2,651.50 for expert fees, $1,036.25 for deposition costs, and $800 for the investigator’s fees. The total costs awarded were $4,917.75.

Disposition

Judge Virginia K. DeMarchi granted in part and denied in part Shaw’s motion for attorneys’ fees and costs. The court awarded $37,955.00 in attorneys’ fees and $4,917.75 in costs, for a total award of $42,872.75. It directed the clerk to enter judgment and close the file.