Hudson v. Dennehy, Civil Action No. 01-12145-RGS.

568 F.Supp.2d 125

Mac S. HUDSON and Derick Tyler v. Kathleen DENNEHY, in her official capacity as Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Corrections.

Civil Action No. 01-12145-RGS.

United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.

July 25, 2008.

Michael Kendall, Neal E. Minahan, Jr., McDermott, Will & Emery LLP, Boston, MA, for Mac S. Hudson.

MCI Cedar Junction, Walpole, MA, pro se.

Nancy Ankers White, Richard C. McFarland, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Correction, Charles W. Anderson, Jr., Department of Correction, Boston, MA, for Kathleen Dennehy, Michael Maloney.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER ON PLAINTIFFS' MOTION FOR ATTORNEYS' FEES AND COSTS

STEARNS, District Judge.

Plaintiffs Mac Hudson and Derick Tyler, state prison inmates, prevailed on a civil rights claim against Kathleen Dennehy, the Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Correction (DOC). After a six-day non-jury trial, the court entered partial judgment for the plaintiffs and ordered defendant to provide plaintiffs with Halal meals and access to Jum'ah services while confined in the Special Management Unit (SMU) at MCI-Cedar Junction¹ or any other similarly situated facility. Hudson and Tyler were represented by the law firm McDermott Will & Emery (McDermott), which pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988 has petitioned for an award for attorneys' fees and costs.

BACKGROUND

This case has an extensive procedural history, which is laid out in the court's March 5, 2008 Order After, a Non-Jury Trial. Hudson v. Dennehy, 538 F. Supp 2d. 400, 403-405 (D.Mass.2008). The essentials are recited below.

Hudson and Tyler originally brought this action pro se in 2001. The wide-ranging Complaint named several prison officials as defendants and alleged violations of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and 103 CMR 471.00 et seq. In addition to prospective and declaratory relief, plaintiffs sought money damages. The case languished for some three years, until McDermott offered to serve as plaintiffs' counsel on a pro bono basis.² The firm was appointed on November 9, 2004.

Within months, plaintiffs filed a motion to amend the Complaint, which was allowed on May 5, 2005. The Amended Complaint challenged three DOC institutional practices: (1) a refusal to provide Halal³ meals; (2) a ban on traditional prayer rugs; and (3) a refusal to provide access to weekly Jum'ah⁴ services to inmates confined in SMUs. Six causes of action were asserted: (1) violations of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000cc et seq. (RLUIPA); (2) a free exercise claim under the First Amendment and 42 U.S.C. § 1983; (3) an equal protection claim under the Fourteenth Amendment and 42 U.S.C. § 1983;⁵ (4) a religious freedom claim under art. 2 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights and Article XLVI of the Articles of Amendment to the Massachusetts Constitution; (5) an equal protection claim under art. 1 of the Declaration of Rights; and (6) violations of the Inmate Right of Worship Statute under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 127, § 88, and its attendant regulations.

In light of the newly asserted counts (particularly under RLUIPA, which was not in effect at the time the original Complaint was filed), plaintiffs filed a motion seeking to resuscitate the claims relating to access to prayer rugs. Defendant opposed that motion and filed for summary judgment on May 13, 2006. On August 31, 2006, the court issued an order granting plaintiffs' motion and denying defendant's motion for summary judgment. The case proceeded to trial on three issues: plaintiffs' access to Halal meals, prayer rugs, and Jum'ah services (while confined in the SMU).

A six-day bench trial began on January 8, 2007, and was completed on February 1, 2007. The court issued its decision on March 5, 2008. Hudson v. Dennehy, supra. The court determined that plaintiffs' rights under RLUIPA had been violated with regard to access to Halal meals and access to Jum'ah services.⁶ Id. at 411-412. The court also found that plaintiffs had failed to establish that using a prayer towel instead of a prayer rug substantially burdened their right to free religious exercise.⁷ Id.

Final Judgment issued on April 11, 2008. Defendant was ordered to

(i) procure pre-packaged Halal meals that have been certified by a reputable Halal-certifying organization, such as the Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of America or the Islamic Society of North America; and (ii) thereafter provide such pre-packaged Halal meals to Plaintiffs at each regularly-scheduled meal for the duration of their incarceration; or (iii) shall implement an alternative method of providing daily Halal meals to Plaintiffs, including the preparation of such meals in DOC kitchens using Halal products and procedures certified by a reputable Halal-certifying organization such as the Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of America or the Islamic Society of North America.

Defendant also was required to "provide access to a closed circuit television set that displays, through sound and images, a live broadcast of such communal Jum'ah services as are regularly held on each and every Friday for the duration of their incarceration (absent a legitimate emergency or the unavailability' of an authorized Imam, in which case Defendant may broadcast prerecorded Jum'ah services)." On July 17, 2008, Dennehy certified compliance with the Final Judgment.⁸

DISCUSSION

Section 1988(b) provides that "[i]n any action or proceeding to enforce a provision of ... the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, ... the court, in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party, other than the United States, a reasonable attorney's fee as part of the costs." 42 U.S.C. § 1988(b). The court's discretion to grant attorney's fees is, however, somewhat narrowed if plaintiff prevails on any. significant issue in the litigation. See Williams v. Hanover Hous. Auth., 113 F.3d 1294, 1300 (1 st Cir.1997) (a statutory presumption "absent unusual situations"). A "prevailing party" is one who secures a "judicially sanctioned change in the legal relationship of the parties." Buckhannon Board & Care Home, Inc. v. W.Va. Dep't of Health & Human Res., 532 U.S. 598, 605, 121 S.Ct. 1835, 149 L.Ed.2d 855 (2001). See also Farrar v. Hobby, 506 U.S. 103, 111-112, 113 S.Ct. 566, 121 L.Ed.2d 494 (1992) ("A plaintiff prevails when actual relief on the merits of his claim materially alters the legal relationship between the parties by modifying the defendant's behavior in a way that directly benefits the plaintiff.").

When awarding fees to a prevailing party

a trial court generally should employ the lodestar method to calculate fees. Under this method, a court usually should begin with the attorneys' contemporaneous billing records. Gay Officers Action League v. Puerto Rico, 247 F.3d 288, 295 (1st Cir.2001). The court should then subtract hours that are duplicative unproductive or excessive and multiply the reasonable hours billed by the prevailing attorney rate in the community. Id.; Lipsett v. Blanco, 975 F.2d 934, 937 (1st Cir.1992). The resulting amount constitutes the lodestar. After calculating the lodestar, the court may then adjust the award further for any of several reasons, including the quantum of success achieved in the litigation. Coutin v. Young & Rubicam P.R., Inc., 124 F.3d 331, 337 n. 3 (1st Cir.1997).

Bogan v. City of Boston, 489 F.3d 417, 426 (1st Cir.2007).

Time spent on unsuccessful claims, unless woven into the successful claim by a "common core of facts," is not compensated. Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 435, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983). "Hensley makes clear that where multiple claims are interrelated, and a plaintiff has achieved only limited success, awarding her the entire lodestar amount would ordinarily be excessive. Hensley, therefore, counsels that, while `there is no precise formula for making these determinations,' a court `may attempt to identify specific hours that should be eliminated, or it may simply reduce the award to account for the limited success.' "Andrade v. Jamestown Hous. Auth., 82 F.3d 1179, 1191 (1st Cir. 1996) (upholding trial court's reduction of attorneys' fees where plaintiff prevailed on only one of five claims and three of the claims were frivolous). See also Diaz-Rivera v. Rivera-Rodriguez, 377 F.3d 119, 126 (1st Cir.2004) (affirming a 33 percent reduction in the lodestar because of plaintiff's limited success). Cf. Lipsett v. Blanco, 975 F.2d 934, 940-941 (1st Cir .1992) ("[W]here it would be an `exercise in futility' to separate out the legal services rendered for each claim, the fee should simply be determined as a function of degree of success.").

On the other hand,

[w]here a plaintiff has obtained excellent results, his attorney should recover a fully compensatory fee. Normally this will encompass all hours reasonably expended on the litigation, and indeed in some cases of exceptional success an enhanced award may be justified. In these circumstances the fee award should not be reduced simply because the plaintiff failed to prevail on every contention raised in the lawsuit. Litigants in good faith may raise alternative legal grounds for a desired outcome, and the court's rejection of or failure to reach certain grounds is not a sufficient reason for reducing a fee. The result is what matters.

Hensley, 461 U.S. at 435, 103 S.Ct. 1933 (internal citation omitted).

Because the plaintiffs in this case are prisoners, their attorneys' fee petition is further subject to the fee provision of the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1996, 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(d) (PLRA), which imposes special limitations on prisoner awards.⁹ To recover fees, the prisoner must be a prevailing party under 42 U.S.C. § 1988, and the fees must be directly and reasonably incurred in proving an actual violation of the prisoner's rights. Further, the fee...