Cisneros v. Vangilder
- Haywood Gilliam
- 4:16-cv-00735
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 4
In Cisneros v. Vangilder, Judge Gilliam denied Cisneros’s request to undo the order denying his lawyers’ fee motion.
Daniel Cisneros and his counsel, Reed Smith LLP, were affected because the court denied the request to vacate the earlier order and did not award Cisneros attorneys’ fees.
What happened
In Cisneros v. Vangilder, Daniel Cisneros’s lawyers asked the court to undo its earlier decision denying Cisneros attorneys’ fees. The earlier decision had awarded fees to another plaintiff in a related case but denied Cisneros’s request.
The lawyers argued that because Cisneros had succeeded in the case, the court was required to award the same $259,237.50 in fees awarded to the other plaintiff. They relied on a California appellate decision involving fee calculations for public-interest lawyers.
The court explained that it had considered the case’s modest verdict, the public benefit, the lawyers’ risks, and their performance—not simply their pro bono status. Judge Gilliam denied the motion.
The detailed version
- Cisneros v. Vangilder · No. 4:16-cv-00735
- Haywood Gilliam
- May 4, 2021
Background
Counsel for Daniel Cisneros moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) to vacate, or undo, the court’s February 3, 2021 order denying Cisneros’s motion for attorneys’ fees. The earlier order granted in part another plaintiff’s fee motion and awarded that plaintiff $259,237.50 under California Code of Civil Procedure § 1021.5, while denying Cisneros’s fee motion.
The opinion states that a jury had returned a verdict for Cisneros and another plaintiff in related cases. Final judgments awarded Cisneros $1,000 against Defendant Vangilder and $1,500 against Defendant Vasquez. The court’s fee order treated Cisneros as a successful party but exercised its discretion not to award him attorneys’ fees.
Arguments and Analysis
Cisneros’s counsel argued that the court had made a legal error. In counsel’s view, once the court found Cisneros to be a successful party under § 1021.5, it had to award him the same $259,237.50 awarded to the other plaintiff. Counsel cited a California Court of Appeal decision, Rogel v. Lynwood Redevelopment Agency, which rejected reducing a lodestar—the calculation of reasonable hours multiplied by reasonable rates—because lawyers had worked pro bono.
The court distinguished Rogel. It stated that it had not denied Cisneros fees because his lawyers represented him pro bono. The court’s earlier order expressly said that pro bono representation, by itself, does not prevent counsel from recovering fees. Instead, the court considered the total circumstances to balance fairness and proportionality. Those circumstances included the modest jury verdict and the scale of the public benefit, the risks counsel took in representing Cisneros, and counsel’s performance during the litigation.
The court also rejected the suggestion that Reed Smith LLP had received disparate treatment compared with the Singleton Law Firm, A.P.C. The court said that Reed Smith’s having spent approximately 95 more hours did not establish that the firms faced the same relative risks, and it noted that Singleton attorney Brody McBride performed exceptionally during trial, particularly during closing argument.
Ruling
The court reiterated its appreciation for Reed Smith’s willingness to represent Cisneros pro bono but again declined to award attorneys’ fees after considering the totality of the circumstances. Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. denied the motion to vacate the February 3, 2021 attorneys’ fees order.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.