Portz v. St. Cloud State University
- John Tunheim
- 0:16-cv-01115
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 7
In Portz v. St. Cloud State University, Judge Tunheim granted in part and denied in part fees, awarding $32,126.64, and granted continued sealing.
The plaintiffs received $31,585.00 in attorney fees and $541.64 in costs, while St. Cloud State University and Minnesota State Colleges and Universities opposed the requested amount. The parties’ four documents related to the fee motion remained sealed.
What happened
In Portz v. St. Cloud State University, female student-athletes who attended or recently attended St. Cloud State University sought additional attorney fees and costs after winning their first request to hold the university in contempt. The underlying case involved claims that the university violated Title IX by limiting women’s athletic opportunities and support.
The plaintiffs requested $48,930.50 in attorney fees and $541.64 in costs for work on the first contempt motion. The defendants argued that the court should limit the award to an earlier estimate or reduce it because some work involved improper new evidence. The court rejected those arguments but found that some requested fees were excessive, duplicative, or related to work with limited value.
Judge Tunheim granted in part and denied in part the fee motion, awarding $31,585.00 in attorney fees and $541.64 in costs. He also granted the parties’ joint motion to keep four documents related to the fee request sealed.
The detailed version
- Portz v. St. Cloud State University · No. 0:16-cv-01115
- John Tunheim
- Oct. 16, 2020
Background
The plaintiffs were female student-athletes who attended or recently attended St. Cloud State University and belonged to the university’s varsity women’s tennis or women’s Nordic skiing teams. They alleged that St. Cloud State violated Title IX through unequal athletic participation opportunities and sex-based discrimination. After a seven-day bench trial, the court found that, since at least 2014, St. Cloud State had not complied with Title IX in allocating athletic participation opportunities and treatments and benefits.
The plaintiffs previously received an award of $1,171,442.90 in attorney fees and costs. The court had not then decided fees related to the plaintiffs’ first motion to hold the defendants in contempt because that motion was still pending. The court later granted the first contempt motion, finding that St. Cloud State had denied or restricted financial, institutional, staffing, or facilities support for the women’s tennis and Nordic skiing teams in violation of a temporary injunction. It awarded the plaintiffs $20,000 in compensatory damages. The court denied the plaintiffs’ second contempt motion concerning the elimination of the women’s golf team.
Fee Request
The plaintiffs sought $48,930.50 in attorney fees and $541.64 in non-taxable costs related to the first contempt motion. The fee request included $22,949.50 for Van Dyck Law Firm and $25,981.00 for Fafinski Mark & Johnson, P.A.; the costs were for electronic legal research. The plaintiffs had already removed some unnecessary or duplicative entries and reduced time billed for work serving dual purposes.
The defendants argued that the plaintiffs should be limited to the court’s earlier estimate of $17,731.95. Alternatively, they sought a $23,637.00 reduction for work they characterized as improperly presenting new evidence in reply. The court rejected both arguments. It held that the earlier figure was only an estimate, not a strict limit, and found that the plaintiffs were entitled to develop the record in support of the first contempt motion.
Court’s Analysis
Under Title IX fee law, a prevailing plaintiff may receive a reasonable attorney-fee award as part of the costs of a successful case. The court used the usual lodestar approach, which calculates fees by multiplying a reasonable hourly rate by a reasonable number of hours worked, while excluding hours that were not reasonably spent.
The court found the requested hourly rates reasonable and focused on the defendants’ objections to particular work. It concluded that the total request was excessive in light of the first contempt motion’s scope compared with the litigation as a whole. The court reduced the request by $17,345.50: $6,634.50 for work related to Jeremy Frost’s declaration, $7,345.50 for research and development of thirty exhibits attached to Yvonne Viehman’s declarations, and $3,365.50 for duplicative editing and review of briefs.
Disposition
The court awarded $31,585.00 in attorney fees and $541.64 in non-taxable costs. Its order states that the plaintiffs’ motion for attorney fees was GRANTED in part and DENIED in part. The court also GRANTED the parties’ joint motion for continued sealing of four documents related to the fee motion. The combined fee and cost award was $32,126.64.
Read the full 7-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.