Field v. Metropolitan Transportation Authority

Background

Daniel Field brought a civil-rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the Long Island Rail Road Company, and ten police officers, detectives, train conductors, transportation managers, department chiefs, or supervisors employed by those entities. He alleged unlawful search and seizure, false arrest, false imprisonment, and excessive force under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, along with violations of New York law.

Field accepted the defendants’ Rule 68 offer of judgment. The court entered judgment for $15,000, plus reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs incurred through the date of the offer. The case was resolved about three months after filing. Other than Field’s deposition, which lasted less than one hour, the parties conducted no discovery, and the case involved no substantive motions or conferences.

Field then moved for $44,790.13 in attorneys’ fees and costs. His lead counsel stated that counsel had billed $39,487.50 for 82.5 hours on the case, and Field also sought compensation for time spent preparing the fee motion. The defendants offered $5,000 and argued that the requested rates and hours were unreasonable, while not disputing Field’s entitlement to fees or $552.63 in costs.

Hourly rates

Because Field obtained a judgment through the Rule 68 offer, the court treated him as the prevailing party in the § 1983 action. Under 42 U.S.C. § 1988(b), a prevailing party may recover a reasonable attorneys’ fee as part of the costs. The court determined reasonable rates by considering the rates that paying clients would accept and comparable awards in the Southern District of New York.

The court approved a $500 hourly rate for Sang J. Sim, an experienced civil-rights attorney with more than twenty years of practice. It approved a $400 hourly rate for Samuel DePaola, who had been admitted to practice for nine years and had experience as an assistant district attorney and in civil-rights litigation. It approved a $300 hourly rate for Markus Wilson, a senior associate with eight years of civil-rights litigation experience, rather than the requested $375 rate.

Hours worked

The court found that some of the 82.5 hours claimed for the underlying litigation were excessive because the case settled quickly and required limited litigation. As an example, counsel billed 3.5 hours for attending and summarizing a hearing that lasted less than one hour. The court found that Field had not adequately justified the total hours claimed.

Using a reduction the court described as common in the district, it reduced the claimed hours by 30% and calculated the fee award using 57.75 hours.

Fees for preparing the fee motion

The court declined to award fees for the time spent bringing the fee motion. It explained that when a Rule 68 offer and resulting judgment expressly limit recoverable fees to those incurred by the offer date, the court cannot award fees for preparing a later fee application. The judgment in this case authorized reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs only through the date of the Rule 68 offer.

Disposition

The court granted Field’s motion for attorneys’ fees and costs, subject to those modifications. The award shown in the court’s concluding calculation was $25,467.63, including $552.63 in costs. The Clerk of Court was directed to terminate the pending motion.