Bovey v. City of Lafayette, Ind.

638 F. Supp. 640, 1986 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24605
District Court, N.D. Indiana·Decided June 4, 1986·No. L 82-116·Published·Cited by 6 cases

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

ALLEN SHARP, Chief Judge.

This case is before the court on a Petition for Award of Attorney Fees filed by William K. Bennett and a Petition for Award of Attorney Fees filed by Kelly Leeman on behalf of the plaintiffs seeking an award of attorney fees pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988. Mr. Bennett requested an award of $47,368.00 and submitted Exhibit A with his petition which describes the time spent and services rendered by Mr. Bennett and other members of the law firm of Bennett, Boehning, Poynter & Clary. Exhibit A attached to Mr. Bennett's petition reflects a claimed total of 592.1 hours spent by the Bennett firm and Mr. Bennett requests an award of $80.00 per hour for the time spent. Mr. Leeman requested an award of $9,880.00 in fees for 123.5 hours and expenses in the sum of $127.37. Mr. Leeman also attached an Exhibit A to his petition which describes the time he spent and the services rendered. The defendants have filed a response thereto and the matter is ripe for ruling. For the following reasons, reasonable attorney fees will be awarded to Plaintiffs in the sum of $3,098.40.

Section 1988 of Title 42, United States Code, gives a court broad authority to award reasonable attorneys fees to a prevailing party in a federal civil rights action. See, e.g. Smith v. Robinson, 468 U.S. 992, 104 S.Ct. 3457, 82 L.Ed.2d 746 (1984); Hibma v. Odegaard, 769 F.2d 1147, 1157 (7th Cir.1985). Plaintiffs will be considered “prevailing parties” for attorneys fees pur *642 poses under § 1988 “if they succeed on any significant issue in litigation which achieves some of the benefit the parties sought in bringing suit.” Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 433, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 1939, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983), citing Nadeau v. Helgemoe, 581 F.2d 275, 278-79 (1st Cir. 1978). Once a plaintiff has been determined to be a “prevailing party,” the court must then determine what fee is “reasonable.” In the case before the court, the record discloses that the plaintiff, Richard 0. Bovey prevailed on his strip search claim in this court, having been awarded a judgment against the City of Lafayette in the sum of $2,000.00 for said claim and is thus a prevailing party within the meaning of 42 U.S.C. § 1988. See Bovey v. City of Lafayette, 586 F.Supp. 1460 (N.D.Ind. 1984). The record further discloses that the plaintiff, Michele Bovey did not prevail on any claim in this litigation. Accordingly, she is not a prevailing party within the meaning of 42 U.S.C. § 1988 and all hours directly attributable to her claims must be and hereby are excluded from the initial fee calculation hours. 1 Further, the record in this case reveals that the plaintiffs appealed this court’s decision to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and the Seventh Circuit affirmed this court’s decision by unpublished order dated July 26,1985. Accordingly, all hours expended by counsel in representing Richard 0. Bovey after entry of judgment by this court must be excluded because he was not a prevailing party within the meaning of 42 U.S.C. § 1988 with regard to the appeal. 2 This court must therefore determine what attorneys fees award is reasonable in this case, a decision entrusted to its sound discretion. Berberena v. Coler, 753 F.2d 629, 632 (7th Cir. 1985).

The starting point for determining the amount of a reasonable attorneys fees award is the “number of hours reasonably expended on the litigation multiplied by a reasonable hourly rate.” Hensley, supra, 461 U.S. at 433, 103 S.Ct. at 1939. In determining the number of hours to be compensated for the purposes of this initial calculation, the court may exclude hours that were not “reasonably expended” and may also reduce the number of hours if counsels’ hours are not adequately documented.

The determination of the number of hours reasonably expended by counsel for Plaintiffs on this litigation is difficult be-. cause of the pendency of other cases directly connected with the same factual inci *643 dents involved in this case. Those cases included a state criminal case against Richard Bovey; a civil case filed by one of the defendants in this case, namely Dennis Brady, against Richard Bovey that was pending the White Circuit Court in Monticello, Indiana under Cause No. C-619-82; and another civil case pending in this court, Bovey v. Meyers, Cause No. L 84-44. The difficulty of sorting out the services that were rendered to plaintiff in this case as distinguished from services rendered in connection with the other cases is compounded by the lack of adequate documentation with respect thereto. Further, on May 5, 1983, this court ordered that all discovery in the White Circuit Court case was to be considered discovery in this case. However, with this background in mind, this court will attempt to fairly determine the number of hours to be included in the initial fee calculation hours in this case.

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Bovey v. City of Lafayette, Ind., 638 F. Supp. 640, 1986 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24605 (N.D. Ind. 1986).

638 F. Supp. 640 (Bovey v. City of Lafayette, Ind.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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