Lillian Corder Roberta Lombardo v. Roy Brown

Opinion by Judge WIGGINS.

The district court awarded plaintiffs-appel-lees $90,333 in attorney’s fees after they prevailed in a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action. Corder v. Gates, 688 F.Supp. 1418 (C.D.Cal.1988). Both parties appealed. The Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded. Corder v. Gates (Corder I), 947 F.2d 374 (9th Cir.1991). On remand, the district court awarded plaintiffs-appellees $240,695 in attorney’s fees and denied defendant-appellant’s request for an offset. Defendant-appellant appeals. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 . We remand in part, and reverse and remand in part.

I.

The underlying lawsuit was brought by two elderly women against 41 individual law enforcement officers, two counties and two cities for violating their civil rights, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 . Specifically, plaintiffs alleged that at 3:00 a.m. on January 18,1985, defendants improperly entered and searched plaintiffs’ residence, detained plaintiffs for five hours, tear gassed the residence and shot out a ceiling. Defendant-appellant Roy Brown, then the commander of the Los An-geles County Sheriffs Department SWAT Team, authorized the entry of plaintiffs’ residence. Defendants were…