William Howe v. City of Akron, 705 F. App'x 376

Background

Plaintiffs: 23 Akron firefighters sued the City for race- and age-based failure-to-promote; a jury found liability for plaintiffs who remained in the federal case.
Post-verdict events: District court ordered a new trial on damages; renewed discovery included divergent back-pay calculations and discovery conduct that led to a vacated but cautionary sanctions finding against plaintiffs’ counsel.
Plaintiffs moved for attorney fees under 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(k) and § 1988, submitting a lengthy but often vague bill of costs and invoices.
District court awarded fees but reduced the lodestar by 35% (across-the-board) for excessive/duplicative billing, overstaffing, and vague/block entries; it reduced or denied certain expert-fee requests for inadequate documentation and applied historical hourly rates.
Plaintiffs appealed, arguing (inter alia) impermissible parsing of the record, inadequate explanation for the 35% cut, improper treatment of expert fees, and use of historical rather than current rates.
Sixth Circuit majority affirmed: district court did not abuse its discretion reviewing fee award, reductions, or expert-fee rulings; concurrence partially dissented as to the sufficiency of the 35% explanation and some expert-fee denials.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether district court impermissibly parsed the record to deny fees for non-prevailing plaintiffs and unrelated work (state-court suit; sanctions defense)	Court erred by focusing on individual claims/parties and excluding work tied to sanctions and state action	Prevailing-party status must be determined party-by-party; fees for separate state suit and sanctions defense are not compensable	Affirmed: district court properly limited fees to prevailing parties and excluded unrelated state-court and sanctions-defense work
Whether 35% across-the-board reduction was arbitrary/unsupported	Reduction was punitive and unexplained; court failed to tie percentage to specific billing defects	Reduction justified by vague entries, block billing, overstaffing, duplication; district court need not perform line-by-line audit and may apply an across-the-board cut	Affirmed: reduction within discretion; explanation and record support rough-justice reduction (majority); concurrence disagrees as insufficiently specific
Whether expert fees for CentrusPS, Dr. Jacobs, Dr. Jeanneret were improperly reduced/denied	Plaintiffs provided invoices showing services; court abused discretion by not awarding full expert fees	Invoices were vague; plaintiffs failed to direct court to specific documentation; reduction/denial reasonable	Affirmed: reductions/denials not an abuse of discretion given inadequate documentation (majority); concurrence would remand some expert fees
Whether historical rather than current hourly rates violated fee award standards	Plaintiffs sought current rates because award came years after litigation; historical rates undercompensate	Historical rates are permissible; courts may use either and district court acted within discretion	Affirmed: district court permissibly used historical rates though use of current rates would also have been acceptable

Key Cases Cited

Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424 (1983) (lodestar method and focus on overall relief obtained relative to hours expended)
Perdue v. Kenny A. ex rel. Winn, 559 U.S. 542 (2010) (district courts must reasonably explain percentage adjustments to lodestar)
Fox v. Vice, 563 U.S. 826 (2011) (district courts need not achieve auditing perfection; may administer "rough justice")
Paschal v. Flagstar Bank, 297 F.3d 431 (6th Cir. 2002) (abuse-of-discretion standard for fee awards)
Ne. Ohio Coal. for the Homeless v. Husted, 831 F.3d 686 (6th Cir. 2016) (degree of deference to district courts on fee findings; requirement for reasonably specific explanation)
DiLaura v. Twp. of Ann Arbor, 471 F.3d 666 (6th Cir. 2006) (prevailing-party status threshold and focus on overall relief rather than individual claim success)