Asante v. California Department of Health Care Services

237 F. Supp. 3d 933, 2017 WL 732897, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 26434
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. California
DecidedFebruary 24, 2017
DocketCase No. 14-cv-03226-EMC
StatusPublished

This text of 237 F. Supp. 3d 933 (Asante v. California Department of Health Care Services) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Asante v. California Department of Health Care Services, 237 F. Supp. 3d 933, 2017 WL 732897, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 26434 (N.D. Cal. 2017).

Opinion

ORDER GRANTING PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION FOR ATTORNEYS’ FEES; AND GRANTING IN PART AND DENYING IN PART DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR REVIEW OF TAXATION OF COSTS

EDWARD M. CHEN, United States District Judge

I. INTRODUCTION

Plaintiffs, nineteen hospitals from Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona, brought' this action challenging California’s Medi-Cal reimbursement policies for out-of-state hospitals. The Court awarded- partial summary-judgment to Plaintiffs, holding that disparities between payments to out-of-state and in-state hospitals violated the dormant commerce clause. Docket No. 65 at 44. Now pending before the Court are Plaintiffs’ Motion for Attorneys’ Fees and Costs, Docket No. 127, and Defendants’ Motion for Review of Taxation of Costs, Docket No. 143. The Court GRANTS Plaintiffs’ motion and GRANTS IN PART and DENIES IN PART Defendants’ motion.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Plaintiffs Entitlement to a Fee Award

Plaintiffs move for attorneys’ fees and costs pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988 and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54. Section 1988 provides that a court may, “in its discretion,” award a “reasonable attorney’s fee” to a “prevailing party” in a suit brought under various federal statutes, including 42 U.S.C. § 1983. “[Pjlaintiffs may be considered ‘prevailing parties’ for attorney’s fees purposes if they succeed on any-significant issue in litigation which achieves some of the benefit the [936]*936parties sought in bringing suit.” Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 433, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983) (quoting Nadeau v. Helgemoe, 581 F.2d 275, 278-79 (1st Cir. 1978)). Plaintiffs, argue that “[t]here is no. dispute that [they] have prevailed on significant issues in the litigation,” given this Court’s “Final Judgment granting plaintiffs’ request for injunctive and declaratory relief under the Commerce Clause and 42 U.S.C. § 1983.” Docket No. 127 at 1.

Defendants do not dispute that Plaintiffs’ are prevailing parties in this sense, but they nonetheless argue that Plaintiffs in this'case should not be able to recover fees, as 'a fee award in this'case would be inconsistent with the purposes Congress had in mind in enacting § 1988, and, as the Ninth-Circuit has held on more than one occasion, in determining whether to. award fees under § 1988, “a court’s discretion should be guided by factors related to the Act’s purpose,” Aho v. Clark, 608 F.2d 365, 367 (9th Cir. 1979).

As Courts have often noted, “[t]he purpose of § 1988 is to ensure ‘ef-fectivé access to the-judicial process’ for persons with civil rights grievances,” Hensley, 461 U.S. at 429, 103 S.Ct. 1933 (quoting H.R.Rep. No. 94-1558, p. 1 (1976)), and thus to “deter civil rights violations and encourage access to the courts to redress often economically unviable injuries to fundamental rights.” Bravo v. City of Santa Maria, 810 F.3d 659, 668 (9th. Cir. 2016). The typical “prevailing party” under § 1988, therefore, is a- civil rights plaintiff who, without the ability to attract counsel with the possibility of a fee award, might otherwise be impeded in seeking to redress violations of his or her rights.

By contrast, the Plaintiffs in this case, as in many dormant Commerce Clause cases, are large corporations involved in interstate commerce with revenues (as Defendants argue) “near or above hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars each year.” Docket No. 138 (“Opp.”) at 10; see also Geowaste of Georgia, Inc. v. Tanner, 875 F.Supp. 830, 834 (M.D. Ga. 1995) (“[W]hatever may be the ratio of poor to prosperous plaintiffs in the context of ‘traditional’ civil rights cases, that number is certainly inversely proportional to its companion figure for cases brought under the Commerce Clause.”). Moreover, in 1976; when Congress enacted § 1988, the dormant Commerce Clause was not understood to confer individual rights enforceable in a suit brought under § 1983. See Kraft v. Jacka, 872 F.2d 862, 869 (9th Cir. 1989), abrogated by Dennis v. Higgins, 498 U.S. 439, 111 S.Ct. 865, 112 L.Ed.2d 969 (1991) (“The Commerce Clause places restraints upon the power of the states. It divides power between the states and the federal government. We have previously stated that ‘§ 1983 was not intended to encompass those constitutional provisions which allocate .power between the state and federal government.’ ” (quoting White Mountain Apache Tribe v. Williams, 810 F.2d 844, 848 (9th Cir. 1985))).

In 1991, however, the Supreme Court held that the Commerce Clause does, in fact, provide a right enforceable by private parties in- a § 1983 action. Dennis, 498 U.S. 439, 111 S.Ct. 865, In dissent;' Justice Kennedy noted that this decision was troubling in part because it could potentially make fee awards available under § 1988 in Commerce Clause cases. Justice Kennedy noted that a fee award under § 1988 “encourages vindication of federal rights which, Congress recognized, might otherwise go unenforced because of the plaintiffs’ lack of resources and the small size of any expected monetary recovery’-’ and pointed to legislative history indicating Congress’s intent that such awards “would be ‘limited to eases arising under our civil rights laws, a category of cases in which [937]*937attorneys’ fees have been traditionally regarded as appropriate.’ ” Dennis, 498 U.S. at 464, 111 S.Ct. 865 (Kennedy, J., dissenting) (quoting S.Rep. No. 94-1011, p. 6 (1976), U.S. Code Cong. & Admin. News 1976, p. 5908). In contrast to such cases, according to Justice Kennedy, the

significant economic interests at stake in dormant Commerce Clause cases, as well as the resources available to the typical dormant Commerce Clause plaintiff, make such concerns far removed from the realities of 'dormant Commerce Clause litigation. The pages of the United States Reports testify to the ability of major corporations and industry associations to commence and maintain dormant Commerce Clause litigation without receiving attorney’s fee awards under § 1988. By making such fee awards available, the Court does not vindicate the purposes of § 1983 or § 1988, but merely shifts the balance 'of power away from the States and toward interstate businesses. Id.

The Court is mindful of the force of these considerations, but concludes that they do not justify the denial of fees. Significantly, the majority in Dennis expressly rejected the distinction, between “power-allocating” and “rights-securing” provisions of the Constitution upon which Justice Kennedy’s dissent depended.

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Related

Hughes v. Oklahoma
441 U.S. 322 (Supreme Court, 1979)
Hensley v. Eckerhart
461 U.S. 424 (Supreme Court, 1983)
Blanchard v. Bergeron
489 U.S. 87 (Supreme Court, 1989)
Dennis v. Higgins
498 U.S. 439 (Supreme Court, 1991)
H.N. Dang v. Gilbert Cross
422 F.3d 800 (Ninth Circuit, 2005)
Moreno v. City of Sacramento
534 F.3d 1106 (Ninth Circuit, 2008)
Mendez v. County of San Bernardino
540 F.3d 1109 (Ninth Circuit, 2008)
Geowaste of Georgia, Inc. v. Tanner
875 F. Supp. 830 (M.D. Georgia, 1995)
Manuel Vasquez v. Tony Rackauckas
734 F.3d 1025 (Ninth Circuit, 2013)
State of Arizona v. Asarco LLC
773 F.3d 1050 (Ninth Circuit, 2014)
Thomas v. City of Tacoma
410 F.3d 644 (Ninth Circuit, 2005)
Bravo Ex Rel. Gonzales v. City of Santa Maria
810 F.3d 659 (Ninth Circuit, 2016)
Gilbrook v. City of Westminster
177 F.3d 839 (Ninth Circuit, 1999)
Webb v. Sloan
330 F.3d 1158 (Ninth Circuit, 2003)
Aho v. Clark
608 F.2d 365 (Ninth Circuit, 1979)
Kraft v. Jacka
872 F.2d 862 (Ninth Circuit, 1989)
Herrington v. County of Sonoma
883 F.2d 739 (Ninth Circuit, 1989)

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Bluebook (online)
237 F. Supp. 3d 933, 2017 WL 732897, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 26434, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/asante-v-california-department-of-health-care-services-cand-2017.