Interfaith Community Organization v. Honeywell

426 F.3d 694

INTERFAITH COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION; Lawrence Baker; Martha Webb Herring; Margaret Webb; Rev. Winston Clarke; Margarita Navas v. HONEYWELL INTERNATIONAL, INC. formerly known as AlliedSignal, Inc.; Roned Realty of Jersey City, Inc.; Roned Realty of Union City, Inc.; W.R. Grace & Company; Ecarg, Inc.; W.R. Grace, Ltd. W.R. Grace & Company; Ecarg, Inc.; W.R. Grace, Ltd., Defendants/Third-Party Plaintiffs v. Heller-Jersey City, L.L.C.; Home Depot, U.S.A.; Seaman Furniture Company, Inc., Third-Party Defendants Hackensack Riverkeeper, Inc.; William Sheehan v. Honeywell International, Inc. f/k/a AlliedSignal, Inc.; Roned Realty of Jersey City, Inc.; Roned Realty of Union City, Inc.; W.R. Grace, Ltd. Honeywell International, Inc., Appellant.

No. 04-3702.

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Argued June 30, 2005.

Filed October 19, 2005.

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Thomas H. Milch, Daniel A. Cantor (Argued), Arnold & Porter LLP, Washington, DC, Richard G. Taranto, Farr & Taranto, Washington, DC, David W. Field, Lowenstein Sandler PC, Roseland, NJ, for Appellants.

Bruce J. Terris, Carolyn Smith Pravlik, Kathleen L. Millian (Argued), Sarah A. Adams, Lemuel B. Thomas, Terris, Pravlik & Millian, LLP, Washington, DC, for Appellees, Interfaith Community Organization, et al.

John M. Agnello, Carella, Byrne, Bain, Gilfillan, Cecchi, Stewart & Olstein, Roseland, NJ, Christopher H. Marraro, Wallace, King, Marraro & Branson, Washington, DC, for Appellees, W.R. Grace & Co., et al.

Before: RENDELL, BARRY, and BECKER, Circuit Judges.

OPINION

BECKER, Circuit Judge.

This case stems from a lawsuit filed by Interfaith Community Organization ("ICO") against Honeywell International seeking the cleanup of a heavily polluted area along the banks of the Hackensack River in Northern New Jersey. ICO prevailed at trial, and, as a result, moved for attorney fees pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 6972(e). The District Court, after holding a hearing on the motion, awarded ICO over $4.5 million in fees. Honeywell now appeals this award, raising a number of issues.

First, Honeywell argues that the District Court erred in awarding fees based on prevailing market rates in Washington, DC, where ICO's attorneys practiced, rather than in northern New Jersey, where the suit was litigated. We agree with Honeywell that, under normal circumstances, a prevailing party's attorneys should be compensated based on market rates in the vicinage of the litigation. However, if a prevailing party can show that it required the particular expertise of counsel from another vicinage, or that local counsel were unwilling to take on the litigation, then it will be entitled to compensation based on prevailing rates in the community in which its attorneys practice.

The District Court concluded that ICO had satisfied both of these exceptions. While we do not agree that ICO satisfied the first exception, we are satisfied that the District Court's finding that ICO had satisfied the second exception was not clearly erroneous. We will therefore affirm the District Court's decision to award compensation based on prevailing market rates in Washington, DC. Concomitantly, we find that ICO is entitled to compensation for the travel time of its attorneys as well as the reasonable fees of its local counsel.

Honeywell also submits that the District Court erred in its determination of prevailing market rates in Washington, DC. Specifically, Honeywell contends that the District Court erroneously awarded compensation based on a matrix of hourly rates produced by ICO's attorneys. While we question the accuracy of the matrix supplied by ICO's attorneys, we nonetheless conclude that the District Court's finding in this regard was not clearly erroneous. For this reason, we will affirm the District Court's determination of the appropriate hourly rates.

In addition, Honeywell challenges several aspects of the fee award as excessive or unjustified. Honeywell contends that ICO's attorneys and its expert witnesses devoted too many hours to a variety of tasks, and that the District Court failed to conduct a sufficiently thorough review of the hours claimed by ICO's attorneys and expert witnesses. We agree that the District Court's review was inadequate, and hence we will vacate those aspects of the award challenged by Honeywell, and remand for further proceedings. We also agree that the fee request was excessive, but do not quantify our conclusion on this point, leaving its resolution to the District Court on remand.

Honeywell challenges the District Court's decision to award fees for the costs of overtime and temporary workers. We conclude that the District Court's decision to do so was not an abuse of discretion, and we will therefore affirm that aspect of the award. Honeywell also submits that the District Court erroneously awarded ICO compensation for time spent by experts who did not testify at trial. Because we conclude that the relevant statute permits such awards, we reject this contention.

Honeywell argues that the District Court erroneously awarded ICO fees for certain time spent by its attorneys litigating against the other defendants in this suit. We agree with Honeywell that the District Court failed to determine whether the time in question was actually related to ICO's suit against Honeywell, and will therefore vacate this aspect of the award and remand for further consideration. Finally, Honeywell challenges the District Court's decision to award ICO nearly $150,000 in photocopying costs based on a rate of twenty cents per page. Because we conclude that this rate is excessive, and because we find that the District Court did not conduct a thorough review of the number of copies claimed by ICO's attorneys, we will vacate this portion of the award and, again, remand for further proceedings.

I. Background Facts and Procedural History¹

Mutual Chemical Company of America, at one point the largest chrome manufacturer in the world, operated a plant in Jersey City, New Jersey from 1895 to 1954. During much of this time, Mutual dumped industrial waste residue containing high concentrations of hexavalent chromium, a known carcinogen, in wetlands along the banks of the Hackensack River. Over time, Mutual dumped around 1.5 million tons of waste, which ultimately developed into a separate land mass "15 to 20 feet deep, on some 34 acres." ICO I, 399 F.3d at 252. The dumping ended in 1954 when Mutual sold the plant to the Allied Corporation. Allied was later succeeded by AlliedSignal, Inc., and then by Honeywell. No significant effort was made to clean the site for almost three decades.

In 1982, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) initiated efforts to clean up the site. After a largely unsuccessful attempt to fashion a temporary solution, NJDEP filed suit against AlliedSignal seeking to force the pursued an administrative action and entered an Administrative company to take action. In 1993, the parties agreed to a consent order under which AlliedSignal agreed to pay $60 million to clean up the site.

The cleanup was slow in getting started. As a result, ICO and five residents of the surrounding community brought suit against AlliedSignal and several other defendants under the citizen suit provisions of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), 42 U.S.C. § 6972(a)(1)(B). That section permits individuals to bring suit against any person "who has contributed or who is contributing to the past or present handling, storage, treatment, transportation, or disposal of any solid or hazardous waste which may present an imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment." Following a two-week bench trial, the District Court ruled in favor of ICO and issued an injunction requiring Honeywell (which had succeeded AlliedSignal by that time) to clean up the site. A panel of this Court affirmed the District Court's decision, see ICO I, 399 F.3d at 252, and the Supreme Court denied certiorari, see Honeywell Int'l, Inc. v. Interfaith Cmty. Org., ___U.S. ___, 125 S.Ct. 2951, 162 L.Ed.2d 869 (2005).

In its opinion granting injunctive relief, the District Court also granted ICO attorney fees pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 6972(e), which provides that, in actions brought under RCRA, the court "may award costs of litigation (including reasonable attorney and expert witness fees) to the prevailing or substantially prevailing party, whenever the court determines such an award is appropriate."² ICO then filed a Fee Application seeking reimbursement of $4,706,506.09 in fees; in a subsequent filing, it reduced its request to $4,587,990.22. Following extensive briefing and a hearing, the District Court found that ICO was entitled to $4,530,327.00 in fees. See Interfaith Cmty. Org. v. Honeywell Int'l, Inc., 336 F.Supp.2d 370, 404 (D.N.J.2004) Honeywell then filed a timely notice of appeal.

II. Appellate Jurisdiction

The District Court properly exercised jurisdiction pursuant to the RCRA, 42 U.S.C. § 6972. The parties submit that the August 26, 2004, order of the District Court was a "final decision" and that we therefore may exercise jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, which grants us jurisdiction to review "all final decisions of the district courts." A fee award is not appealable until it is reduced to a definite amount. See Polonski v. Trump Taj Mahal Assocs., 137 F.3d 139, 144 (3d Cir.1998). There is no dispute that the August 26, 2004, order reduced ICO's fee award to a definite amount for the period leading up to the verdict in this case. However, in two subsequent orders dated August 30, 2004, and June 15, 2005, the District Court granted ICO additional fees to cover the expenses of litigating the first fee application.

In the June 15, 2005, order, the District Court granted ICO an additional $362,505.44 in fees. Moreover, the District Court indicated in its August...