Leland Stauch v. Columbia Heights

12 F. App'x 435

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
• Decided: June 22, 2001
• Docket: 00-2123, 00-2245
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

The City of Columbia Heights appeals from an order of the district court 1 awarding attorneys’ fees to the Stauehs. The City claims that the district court erred in awarding $275,000 in attorneys’ fees in this action where plaintiffs recovered only $120,000 in damages. See Stauch v. City of Columbia Heights, 212 F.3d 425 (8th Cir.2000) (affirming judgment). We affirm the judgment of the district court.

The order of the district court contains a very detailed recitation of the facts. The City did not dispute fee rates of $200 and $165 per hour for the attorneys, $80 per hour for a law clerk, and $80 per hour for legal assistants. The Stauehs claimed that 2,074.95 hours were spent prosecuting the action, and they sought a total fee award of $350,662.25. The court held that certain categories of tasks, such as photocopying, picking up documents, or delivering documents, are frequently done by outside vendors for much less than a paralegal’s hourly rate. The court eliminated these items or allowed messenger rates for them. Other specific items were also deducted from the time. The court rejected the City’s argument that the plaintiffs had obtained only a technical or pyrrhic victory and held that the victory served the important public purpose of encouraging the City to take seriously its obligation to properly notify citizens of their procedural rights before depriving them of property. The court also rejected the City’s argument that the fee award should be reduced by seventy-five percent because the Stauehs only succeeded on twenty-five percent of their claims. The court found that it could not extract from the billing records what time was spent on the unsuccessful claims and reduced the award by twenty percent, resulting in a fee award of $275,580.70. The court rejected plaintiffs’ request for an enhancement based on risk and awarded costs in the amount of $22,477.90, but denied prejudgment interest.

The district court has thoroughly and in detail analyzed the issues supporting the award of fees and costs. Its discussion indicates convincingly that no error of law or abuse of discretion infects the proceedings, nor are the court’s findings of fact clearly erroneous.

We affirm the judgment of the district court in all respects on the basis of its carefully reasoned opinion.

1 . The Honorable John R. Tunheim, United States District Judge for the District of Minnesota.