Anderson v. City of New York

132 F.Supp.2d 239

Cedric S. ANDERSON, Jr. and Nigel Anderson, Plaintiffs, v. THE CITY OF NEW YORK; the New York City Police Department; Police Officer Andrew Carraro, shield # 2532; Police Officer Brendan Connolly, shield # 4497; and Unknown John Doe(s), all in their official and individual capacities, Defendants.

No. 98CIV.1351(SHS).

United States District Court, S.D. New York.

February 22, 2001.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Daniel Cherner, Law Offices of Daniel Cherner, New York City, Everett Hopkins, Springfield Gardens, NY, for Plaintiffs.

Isaac Klepfish, Michael D. Hess, Corporation Counsel of the City of NY, New York City, for Defendants.

OPINION AND ORDER

STEIN, District Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

Plaintiffs Cedric S. Anderson, Jr. and Nigel Anderson brought this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging violations of their Fourth Amendment rights by the defendant police officers and failure to train and supervise the officers by the City of New York, as well as related state law claims. Specifically, plaintiffs claim that the individual police officers used excessive force on them after pulling over their car without probable cause, illegally searched them and their car, and intentionally inflicted emotional distress on them.

The Court bifurcated trial against the individual defendants from trial against the City of New York pursuant to Fed. R.Civ.P. 42(b), and a trial of the claims against the individual defendants was held before a jury from February 7, 2000 to February 14, 2000. At the close of plaintiffs' case, the Court granted judgment as a matter of law against plaintiffs pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 50(a) on their claim that their car had been illegally searched because plaintiffs had failed to adduce any evidence that the individual defendants were the officers who searched their car. The remaining constitutional and state law claims went to the jury, which returned a verdict for plaintiffs on the constitutional claims and for defendants on the intentional infliction of emotional distress claims. The jury awarded Cedric Anderson compensatory damages of $2,500, and Nigel Anderson nominal damages of one dollar. The jury did not award any punitive damages.

Plaintiffs now move for their attorneys' fees and costs pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988. For the reasons set forth below, the motion is granted in part and denied in part.

II. DISCUSSION

In a section 1983 action, the court has the discretion to award "reasonable" attorneys' fees and costs to "the prevailing party," 42 U.S.C. § 1988(b), and a "prevailing party" should ordinarily be awarded attorneys' fees unless "special circumstances" would render such an award unjust. See Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 429, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983). However, where a party obtains a purely "technical" victory, such as an award of only nominal damages on a secondary claim of a multi-claim case, attorneys' fees should usually not be awarded. Farrar v. Hobby, 506 U.S. 103, 114-16 113 S.Ct. 566, 121 L.Ed.2d 494 (1992); id. at 117-18, 113 S.Ct. 566 (O'Connor, J., concurring); Pino v. Locascio, 101 F.3d 235, 239 (2d Cir.1996). In this case, defendants do not dispute that plaintiffs are "prevailing part[ies]" within the meaning of 42 U.S.C. § 1988(b). Instead, the police officers contend that plaintiffs' victory is so purely technical or "de minimis" as to preclude any award of attorneys' fees.

A. Plaintiffs' Victory Was Not Technical or "De Minimis"

Correctly noting that the United States Supreme Court has written that, in fixing an award of attorneys' fees in a civil rights action, a district court "is obligated to give primary consideration to the amount of damages awarded as compared to the amount sought," Farrar, 506 U.S. at 114, 113 S.Ct. 566, defendants contend that the award of $2,501 in this case is a mere technical victory when considered in light of a prayer for relief in plaintiffs' complaint totaling $66,000,000. However, regardless of the amount sought in the prayer for relief in the complaint, plaintiffs never asked the jury to award a specific amount at trial and the jury was never given a copy of the complaint. Cf. Adams v. Rivera, 13 F.Supp.2d 550, 553 n. 5 (S.D.N.Y.1998); Pino, 101 F.3d at 237.

Even assuming that plaintiffs' damages award should be compared to the full $66,000,000 sought in the complaint, plaintiffs' level of success in this case is markedly higher than that achieved by the plaintiffs in Farrar and Pino, relied on by defendants. In Farrar, the plaintiff sued six defendants alleging a conspiracy to deprive him of his civil rights; the jury found in his favor on only a single tangential claim against one of the six defendants. 506 U.S. at 105-07, 113 S.Ct. 566. Similarly, in Pino, the plaintiff brought three civil rights claims against two defendants and rejected a settlement offer of $75,000 plus $75,000 in attorneys' fees; the jury found in her favor on only one claim against one defendant and awarded only one dollar in nominal damages in total. 101 F.3d at 236-37. In this case, plaintiffs prevailed against both of the individually named defendants on all of their civil rights claims except for one tangential claim, and there is nothing in the record to indicate that the Andersons ever rejected any offer greatly exceeding the amount they obtained at trial.

Plaintiffs' entitlement to fees is strengthened by consideration of the other factors set forth in Justice O'Connor's concurring opinion in Farrar: "the significance of the legal issue on which the plaintiff claims to have prevailed" and whether the litigation "accomplished some public goal." See Farrar, 506 U.S. at 121-22, 113 S.Ct. 566 (O'Connor, J., concurring).¹ In that opinion, Justice O'Connor found that the issue of liability — i.e., whether defendants violated plaintiffs' rights — is "significant." Id. She continued, however, that the "victory" achieved on this significant issue by the Farrar plaintiff was, at best, hollow, because he did not prevail on his conspiracy claim but instead "recover[ed] one dollar from the least culpable defendant." Id. As noted above, plaintiffs in this case prevailed against all of the individual defendants on their most significant constitutional claims — far from the "hollow" victory of the plaintiff in Farrar. Accordingly, plaintiffs prevailed on a significant legal issue in this case, which weighs in favor of the Court awarding attorneys' fees.

Although this case created no new rule of liability, see Pino, 101 F.3d at 239, it nonetheless served "some public goal." Even a modest award of damages in an excessive force case against police officers confers an "overall benefit to society," because "an individual damage action to redress instances of police misconduct is often the only tool reasonably available to vindicate society's interest in ensuring that those who enforce the law also abide by it." Milwe v. Cavuoto, 653 F.2d 80, 84 (2d Cir.1981). But see Adams, 13 F.Supp.2d at 553; but cf. Haywood v. Koehler, 885 F.Supp. 624, 629 (S.D.N.Y.1995).

In sum, plaintiffs are "prevailing parties," and their victory is not so "hollow," "technical," or "de minimis" as to preclude an award of attorneys' fees pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988. Accordingly, the Court now turns to the computation of an appropriate award.

B. Calculation of Attorneys' Fees

In this circuit, the starting point for determining a reasonable fee is the calculation of the lodestar amount — the product of the number of hours reasonably expended by counsel on the litigation times a reasonable hourly rate. See Quaratino v. Tiffany & Co., 166 F.3d 422, 424-25 (2d Cir.1999) (Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964); Lawson v. City of New York, No. 99 Civ. 10393, 2000 WL 1617014, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 27, 2000) (42 U.S.C. § 1983). In calculating the lodestar, the district court should exclude "excessive, redundant or otherwise unnecessary hours, as well as hours dedicated to severable unsuccessful claims." Quaratino, 166 F.3d at 425; see also Hensley, 461 U.S. at 433-35, 440, 103 S.Ct. 1933.

1. Hourly Rate

"A reasonable hourly rate is one `in line with those prevailing in the community for similar services by lawyers of reasonable comparable skill, experience, and reputation.'" Knoeffler v. Town of Mamakating, 126 F.Supp.2d 305, 310 (S.D.N.Y.2000) (quoting Blum v. Stenson, 465 U.S. 886, 895 n. 11, 104 S.Ct. 1541, 79 L.Ed.2d 891 (1984)). Plaintiffs seek an hourly rate of $300 for lead attorney Daniel Cherner, a civil rights litigator with six years' experience, and an hourly rate of $250 for Everett Hopkins, an attorney with 10 years' litigation experience during 18 years of practice.

Although $300 per hour is "well within reason" for those with extensive experience, see Knoeffler, 126 F.Supp.2d. at 310-11 (collecting cases); Ginsburg v. Valhalla Anesthesia Assocs., No. 96 Civ. 6462, 1998 WL 19997, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 20, 1998), given Mr. Cherner's six years' in the well, the Court concludes that an hourly rate of $250 is appropriate in this action. Cf. Lawson, 2000 WL 1617014, at *4 (awarding $225 per hour to an attorney with "extensive litigation experience" who had not tried a section 1983 action before).

Based on the records before it and the Court's active supervision of the pretrial proceedings in this case, as well as presiding at the trial itself, the Court concludes that Cherner essentially prepared and tried this action alone and certainly handled the more difficult issues that arose. Accordingly, the Court finds that $200 per hour is appropriate for the time Mr. Hopkins expended during this case. Cf., e.g., Knoeffler, 126 F.Supp.2d. at 311-12; Williams v. New York City Housing Authority, 975 F.Supp. 317, 323 (S.D.N.Y. 1997).

2. Number of Hours Spent

Plaintiffs request a total of 390.75 hours for Cherner and 136.5 hours for Hopkins. Defendants do not dispute the reasonableness of the hours spent. Nevertheless, the Court has reviewed plain...