Fobbs v. Wilson

Background

William B. Fobbs brought Title VII claims alleging race discrimination and retaliation in connection with his work as a civilian police officer for the United States Air Force. The parties later resolved the case through a Rule 68 offer of judgment. The Secretary offered judgment for $20,001, costs, and reasonable attorneys’ fees through May 4, 2021, with the amount of fees to be determined by the court. Fobbs accepted the offer, and the Clerk entered judgment on July 26, 2021.

Fobbs moved for $98,361 in attorneys’ fees based on nearly 300 hours of work. He sought hourly rates of $575 for Jocelyn Burton, $230 for Scott Nakama and Mara Sackman, and $135 for paralegal Helen O’Keefe. The Secretary argued that the award should be limited to $36,676, challenging fees for work after the offer, administrative proceedings, certain billing entries, and the overall amount requested.

Court’s analysis

The court treated the accepted Rule 68 offer as a settlement agreement and interpreted it under ordinary contract principles. The offer promised reasonable attorneys’ fees “to the date of this offer” but did not expressly limit recoverable fees to work performed only in the federal court action. Because the offer was ambiguous and the Secretary drafted it, the court construed the ambiguity in Fobbs’s favor.

The court held that fees for Department of Defense security-clearance proceedings were recoverable because those proceedings were central to Fobbs’s ability to continue working as an Air Force civilian police officer and critical to settlement discussions. The court did not reduce the award for Merit Systems Protection Board proceedings because Fobbs stated that he was not seeking fees for those proceedings and the Secretary did not identify billing records attributable to them. The court also noted that Fobbs had already received a fee award in that forum.

The court found the requested hourly rates reasonable based on the cases cited, the attorneys’ experience, and the court’s familiarity with local market rates. Fobbs conceded that he could not recover fees incurred after the offer of judgment, so the court denied the motion as to $10,614.50 in those fees.

The court rejected the Secretary’s challenges to fees for internal attorney communications, communication with a union representative, communication with opposing counsel, and two attorneys’ attendance at a settlement conference. The court found that the limited block billing did not significantly interfere with assessing reasonableness. However, it found other entries—such as “Pleadings,” “Services,” and “Written Motions and Submissions”—too vague to show how much time was reasonably spent or which proceeding the work concerned. The court reduced the $11,672.50 in challenged entries by 50 percent, resulting in a $5,836.25 reduction.

Finally, the court considered Fobbs’s degree of success. It found that he obtained more than nominal monetary relief but only $20,001 and, based on the record, was entirely unsuccessful in challenging the revocation of his security clearance. The court therefore reduced the remaining compensable fees by 20 percent for limited success.

Disposition

The court reduced the initial request by $10,614.50 for post-offer work and $5,836.25 for vague billing entries. It then reduced the remaining $81,910.25 by 20 percent and ordered the Secretary to reimburse Fobbs $65,528.20 in reasonable attorneys’ fees. The order did not decide Fobbs’s separate bill of costs; it directed the Clerk to address that issue later.