Catalina SALMERON, et al., Plaintiffs, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Defendant.
Civil Action No. 13-1615 (RBW)
United States District Court, District of Columbia.
Signed January 9, 2015
204 F. Supp. 3d 201
economy and greenhouse gas emissions claims, which are increasingly important factors for consumers purchasing vehicles. The decree also furthers the goals of the CAA by taking steps to ensure cleaner air for the public. The public comments submitted in response to the EPA‘s Federal Register notice generally supported the proposed decree.
Five of the comments (three by state environmental departments and/or attorneys general and two by environmental NGOs) supported the agreement generally but requested that the settlement be renegotiated to include specific support for the promotion of electric vehicle programs, including a proposed $25 million in Supplemental Environmental Projects (“SEPs“) to be given to certain states. SEPs are programs which may be included in CAA settlements and provide for specific projects to be undertaken as part of the settlement. 63 Fed.Reg. 24,796 (May 5, 1998). The United States considered the SEP proposals identified in the comments but determined that they “did not warrant withdrawing consent to the Consent Decree in order to reopen negotiations with the parties in an attempt to craft a different and more complex settlement arrangement that would include SEPs for electric vehicle programs in certain states ... [t]he public interest would not be served by the United States’ rejection of the Decree and the concomitant delay in compliance and expenditure of resources for renegotiation of the settlement or, alternatively, further litigation.” (Mot. 9). The Court agrees. As stated above, the “general public benefit[s] from the saving of time and money that results from the voluntary settlement of litigation.” Gorsuch, 718 F.2d at 1126. While an SEP to promote electric vehicles is a laudable goal, the parties in this case negotiated a fair and reasonable settlement which addresses the public interest in promoting the purposes of the CAA and protecting consumers and the public at large. It would not benefit the public to jeopardize this agreement and potentially mire the government and Defendants in lengthy litigation with unpredictable results, while simultaneously delaying the implementation of corrective measures.
IV. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the Court finds that the consent decree is fair, adequate, reasonable, appropriate, and in the public interest. The motion to enter the consent decree is therefore GRANTED. An appropriate Order accompanies this Memorandum Opinion.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
REGGIE B. WALTON, United States District Judge
The plaintiffs brought this suit against the Government of the District of Columbia (the “District“) to recover attorneys’ fees and costs incurred during administrative proceedings conducted under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (the “IDEA“),
I. BACKGROUND
“Each [p]laintiff is a parent of a child eligible for special education or of an adult student eligible for special education.” Amended Complaint (“Am. Compl.“) ¶ 3, ECF No. 3. Between June 19, 2012, and October 16, 2013, the plaintiffs “prevailed in IDEA litigation” brought against the District, and each “receiv[ed] final relief ordered in a Hearing Officer‘s Determination (‘HOD‘).” Id. ¶¶ 10-11 (internal quotations omitted). On December 19, 2013,3 pursuant to
The plaintiffs served their Amended Complaint on “Alex Curtis, who [according to their private process server] is designated by law to accept service of process on behalf of [the] District of Columbia on [December 23, 2013].” Return of Service/Affidavit, ECF Nos. 4, 6. However, the District has failed to answer the Amended Complaint or otherwise file a defense against the plaintiffs’ Amended Complaint. Thus, on March 5, 2014, upon the plaintiffs’ request, the Clerk of this Court entered a default against the District. Clerk‘s Entry of Default, ECF No. 10. Thereafter, on April 10, 2014, the plaintiffs filed the motion now before the Court, requesting that the “Court grant them a default judgment in the amount of [$505,891.86],” Pls.’ Mot. at 1, as well as “additional fees for time reasonably devoted to obtaining attorney[s‘] fees,” Pls.’ Mem. at 7, and an “order that the District pay an additional $4,000.00 for each delay of a month or part thereof in payment,” id. The defendant has not challenged the entry of the default or opposed the plaintiffs’ motion for a default judgment. On August 8, 2014, in an abundance of caution, this Court entered an Order requiring that the defendant “show cause in writing on or before September 1, 2014, why the plaintiffs’ motion for a default judgment should not be granted.” See Order, ECF No. 13, at 3. Inexplicably, the defendant has not responded to the show cause order, and to date has not otherwise challenged the entry of a default judgment.
II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
When a defendant fails to respond or defend against a case or otherwise engages in dilatory tactics, the plaintiff may invoke the Court‘s power to enter a default judgment by first seeking the entry of a default. See
Despite the plaintiffs’ ability to acquire a judgment by default, there are “strong policies favoring the resolution of genuine disputes on their merits....” Jackson, 636 F.2d at 835; see Peak, 236 F.R.D. at 15 (noting the inherent unfairness of awarding judgment against a party for mere filing delays). “However, while courts do not favor default judgments and will only resolve cases in this manner when the adversary process has been halted because of an essentially unresponsive party[,] the diligent party must be protected lest [that party will] be faced with interminable delay and continued uncertainty as to [that party‘s] rights.” Teamsters Local 639-Emp‘rs Health Trust v. Boiler & Furnace Cleaners, Inc., 571 F. Supp. 2d 101, 107 (D.D.C. 2008) (first alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted) (citations omitted).
III. LEGAL ANALYSIS
A. Whether a Default Judgment is Warranted
The plaintiffs filed their Amended Complaint in this action on December 19, 2013. See Am. Compl., ECF No. 3. Based on the representations of the plaintiffs’ private process server, the District was served with the Amended Complaint on December 23, 2013, in compliance with
Under the IDEA, federal district courts have the authority to “award reasonable attorneys’ fees as part of the costs to a prevailing party who is the parent of a child with a disability.”6
1. The Plaintiffs Are the Prevailing Parties
Here, by virtue of the entry of a default judgment, the District is deemed to have “admit[ted] every well-pleaded allegation in the complaint.” See Robinson v. Ergo Solutions, LLC, 4 F. Supp. 3d 171, 178 (D.D.C. 2014). The District has failed to challenge the plaintiffs’ allegation that “[e]ach [p]laintiff prevailed in IDEA litigation [and] receiv[ed] final relief ordered in a Hearing Officer‘s Determination,” Am. Compl. ¶ 10, and thus has effectively conceded that the plaintiffs are prevailing parties entitled to attorneys’ fees. See Order, ECF No. 13, at 2 (cautioning the District that “if it does not respond to this order by [September 1, 2014], the Court will view this as an ‘admi[ssion of] every well-pleaded allegation in the [plaintiffs’ amended] complaint’ “) (second and third alterations in original) (citation omitted). Therefore, this Court‘s analysis is confined to the reasonableness of the plaintiffs’ fee requests.
2. The Reasonableness of the Plaintiffs’ Requested Fees
Although the Court concludes by virtue of the default judgment that the plaintiffs are the prevailing parties, the Court must still conduct an independent determination as to “whether the attorney[s‘] fees sought are reasonable.” Jackson, 696 F. Supp. 2d at 101. “Reasonable” attorneys’ fees are calculated by multiplying the reasonable number of hours expended by the hourly rate found to be reasonable. See Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 433 (1983). Importantly, the plaintiffs bear the burden of demonstrating that both the hourly rate and the number of hours expended on particular tasks are reasonable. In re North, 59 F.3d 184, 189 (D.C. Cir. 1995). To establish the reasonableness of the hours expended, the plaintiffs “may submit an invoice that is sufficiently detailed to permit [a] District Court to make an independent determination of whether or not the hours claimed are justified.” Young v. District of Columbia, 893 F. Supp. 2d 125, 130 (D.D.C. 2012) (citations and internal quotations omitted). To show the reasonableness of their hourly rates, the plaintiffs “must submit evidence on at least three fronts: the attorney‘s billing practices, the attorney‘s skill, experience, and reputation; and the prevailing market rates in the relevant community.” Jackson, 696 F. Supp. 2d at 101 (citing Covington v. District of Columbia, 57 F.3d 1101, 1107 (D.C. Cir. 1995)) (internal quotation marks omitted). “Once [the] plaintiffs have provided such [evidence], there is a presumption that the number of hours billed and the hourly rates are reasonable.” Jackson, 696 F. Supp. 2d at 101 (citation omitted). Consequently, “the burden then shifts to the defendants to rebut [the] plaintiffs’ showing that the amount of time spent was reasonable and that the hourly rates for the attorneys who worked on the matter were reasonable, considering their various skill levels and experience for this kind of case.” Id. (citation omitted).
a. The Number of Hours Billed by the Plaintiffs’ Counsel
The plaintiffs argue that the hours documented are reasonable because, “[a]s specialists in this field, the firm attorneys were able to work efficiently” and adjustments “to eliminate excessive, redundant, or otherwise unnecessary hours” have already been made. Pls.’ Mem. at 5. To satisfy their burden of proof as to the reasonableness of the hours expended, the plaintiffs submit a detailed itemization of tasks performed, the hours expended, and the rates that were charged. See generally Pls.’ Mot., Exhibit (“Ex.“) 1 (Itemized Invoice for Plaintiffs (“Invoice“)). Additionally, the plaintiffs have included a verified statement from one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys detailing his billing decisions and the steps taken to limit the amount of fees being requested. See generally Pls.’ Mot., Ex. 2 (Verified Statement of Kiran Hassan (“Hassan Decl.“)). However, while the invoice provided by the plaintiffs constitutes forty-two pages of individual line items as well as a total price accounting for each case,7 the invoice does not aggregate the total number of hours performed by each attorney in each specific case. See Pls.’ Mot., Ex. 1 (Invoice). It is, therefore, impossible for the Court to determine whether the total number of hours billed in each case were reasonable without expending what would be unnecessary time and resources tabulating forty-two pages of individual line items. Thus, the invoice submitted is not “sufficiently detailed to permit [this] Court to make an independent determination of whether or not the hours claimed are justified.” Young, 893 F. Supp. 2d at 130. Accordingly, the plaintiffs must resubmit a revised invoice that permits the Court to assess the total number of hours each attorney performed in each case.
b. The Plaintiffs’ Requested Hourly Billing Rates
As already noted, the plaintiffs seek fees for the services provided by two lawyers, to be paid at the following rates: $ 640.00 per hour for Kiran Hassan, an attorney with approximately eleven years of litigation experience during the relevant time period; and $ 567.00 per hour for Juan Fernandez, an attorney with approximately thirteen years of litigation experience during the relevant time period. See Pls.’ Mot., Ex. 2 (Hassan Decl.) ¶¶ 11-12. As previously noted, the plaintiffs have submitted a verified statement from their counsel that outlines the firm‘s billing practices, the attorneys’ skill and experience, and the nature of the firm‘s practice. See generally id. Notably, absent from the plaintiffs’ filings is any information concerning the rates their attorneys customarily charge and receive from their other clients. See Nat‘l Ass‘n of Concerned Veterans v. Sec‘y of Def., 675 F.2d 1319, 1325 (D.C. Cir. 1982) (“The best evi-dence
The rates plaintiffs’ counsel is requesting are considerably in excess of those rates established by Laffey v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., 572 F. Supp. 354 (D.D.C. 1983), rev‘d on other grounds, 746 F.2d 4 (D.C. Cir 1984), and now updated by the United States Attorney‘s Office for the District of Columbia (“U.S. Attorney‘s Office Laffey Matrix“).8 Almost all members of this Court have consistently declined to approve as reasonable the inflated rates that comprise the Adjusted Laffey Matrix used by the plaintiffs, see Pls.’ Mot., Ex. 3 (“Adjusted Laffey Matrix“), electing instead to use the U.S. Attorney‘s Office‘s Laffey Matrix as the presumptively highest hourly rate in IDEA cases. See, e.g., McAllister v. District of Columbia, 21 F. Supp. 3d 94, 106-09 (D.D.C. 2014); Rooths v. District of Columbia, 802 F. Supp. 2d 56, 61-63 (D.D.C. 2011), Irving v. Dist. of Columbia Pub. Sch., 815 F. Supp. 2d 119, 128-130 (D.D.C. 2011); Blackman v. District of Columbia, 677 F. Supp. 2d 169, 176 (D.D.C. 2010). In an effort to demonstrate the reasonableness of their requested fees, the plaintiffs rely on one exception, Eley v. District of Columbia, 999 F. Supp. 2d 137 (D.D.C. 2013), as support for their contention that the Adjusted Laffey Matrix rates are an appropriate representation of the prevailing market rates for IDEA litigation, Pls.’ Mem. at 5-6. The Eley Court largely based its award on the plaintiff‘s attorney‘s representation that he “always matche[s] [his] hourly rates to those in what is commonly known as ‘the adjusted Laffey [M]atrix,‘” and her expert‘s representations
Here, given the plaintiffs’ failure to provide any information as to their attorneys’ normal billing practices coupled with a near-unanimous rejection of the Adjusted Laffey Matrix rates by other members of this Court for the type of services performed, this Court too finds that the plaintiffs have failed to satisfy their burden of demonstrating that the rates proposed by their attorneys reasonably approximate the rates that are charged in the District of Columbia metropolitan area by lawyers litigating IDEA cases solely at the administrative level. See e.g. McAllister, 21 F. Supp. 3d at 107-09 (finding the Adjusted Laffey Matrix rates inappropriate). The Court therefore does not consider the Adjusted Laffey Matrix rates as reflective of the prevailing market rates and instead, in its discretion, uses the U.S. Attorney‘s Office Laffey Matrix as the highest hourly rate that the plaintiffs’ attorneys are entitled to receive in this case.
The Court notes additionally that although the legal work in this case was performed from April 2012 through November 2013, the plaintiffs’ attorneys have increased the rates they seek to recover as commensurate with current market rates as opposed to the market rates applicable at the time their services were rendered. See Pls.’ Mem. at 6; Pls.’ Mot., Ex. 1 (Invoice). The plaintiffs argue that this is appropriate in this case because “[w]hen awarding fees under a federal fee-shifting statute, courts should make ‘an appropriate adjustment for delay in payment[-]whether by the application of current rather than historic hourly rates or otherwise.” Pls.’ Mem. at 6 (quoting and citing Missouri v. Jenkins, 491 U.S. 274, 284 (1989)). However, the plaintiffs neither provide an explanation as to why current rates are appropriate in this case,10 nor do they provide any examples of courts awarding current rates for services provided in the past in other IDEA cases, and thus, they have failed to satisfy their burden of proving the reasonableness of their application of current market rates. See McAllister v. District of Columbia, No. 11-cv-2173, 2014 WL 2921020, at *5 (D.D.C. June 27, 2014) (finding an award of current rates inappropriate).
The Court notes also that the undersigned generally rejects an award of the full U.S. Attorney‘s Office Laffey Matrix rate in non-complex IDEA cases litigated solely at the administrative level,
Accordingly, the plaintiffs shall submit to the Court for its review an updated final invoice with the appropriate fee applicable for each service for which compensation is sought. Because both attorneys had between eleven and nineteen years of experience at the time their legal services were rendered, each attorney‘s hourly fee shall be the following: $420.00 per hour for all work performed from June 1, 2011 through May 31, 2012; $435.00 per hour for all work performed from June 1, 2012 through May 31, 2013; and $435.00 per hour for all work performed from June 1, 2013 through May 31, 2014. Additionally, the plaintiffs’ attorneys shall submit to the Court a separate bill for each case delineating how many hours were individually billed by Mr. Hassan and by Mr. Fernandez, along with an aggregation of the total number of hours performed by each attorney in each case.
C. The Plaintiffs’ Fees on Fees Request
“Parties who prevail at the administrative level can also recover fees-on-fees, as [the] general rule [in this Circuit] is that the court may award additional fees for time reasonably devoted to obtaining attorney[s‘] fees.” Kaseman v. District of Columbia, 444 F.3d 637, 640 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (internal quotations omitted). The Court has already determined that by failing to respond to the plaintiffs’ Amended Complaint, the District has conceded that the plaintiffs are prevailing parties, and thus, pursuant to the IDEA they are entitled to the additional fees incurred pursuing this action to recover their attorneys’ fees. See Garvin v. Government of the Dist. of Columbia, 910 F. Supp. 2d 135, 138-39 (D.D.C. 2012) (Walton, J.) (“Nothing in the statutory language of the IDEA fee-shifting provision prohibits ‘fees on fees’ requests“); but see id. at 140-41 (finding fees on fees litigation straightforward and not sufficiently complex to warrant the U.S. Attorney‘s Office Laffey Matrix rates and instead awarded an hourly rate of one half the maximum applicable Laffey rate). However, their requests should be limited to the rate of compensation this Court found awardable in Garvin. Id.
D. The Plaintiffs’ Request for a Penalty for Delay in Paying the Attorneys’ Fees
The plaintiffs argue that “[b]ecause of the District‘s long history of ig-noring
IV. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the Court will grant the plaintiffs’ motion for entry of default judgment, grant in part and deny in part the plaintiffs’ requested relief, and hold in abeyance the awarding of any fees until the plaintiffs provide the Court with the requisite information.
SO ORDERED this 9th day of January, 2015.11
REGGIE B. WALTON
United States District Judge
INTEX RECREATION CORPORATION, Plaintiff, v. TEAM WORLDWIDE CORPORATION, Defendant.
Civil Action No. 04-1785 (PLF)
United States District Court, District of Columbia.
Signed January 9, 2015