Friend
Friend v. Kolodzieczak
Opinion
Lead Opinion
ORDER
We affirm the district court’s order on remand for the reasons stated in the district court’s Memorandum and Order Re Attorneys’ Fees and Costs (On Remand), filed September 14,1993, attached as Appendix A.
APPENDIX A
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
Jack Wayne Friend, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Ronald Kolodzieczak, et al., Defendants.
No. C 87-0161 MHP
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER RE ATTORNEYS’ FEES AND COSTS (ON REMAND)
This ease is back before this court on remand from the Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for reexamination of the reasonableness of the attorneys’ fees award in light of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Farrar v. Hobby, — U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 566 (1992). Plaintiffs also seek fees and costs for time spent defending the fee award and seek interest on the fee award.
Having considered the submissions of the parties, the court re-affirms its original award, orders that plaintiffs be awarded fees and costs for time expended defending the fee award, and orders that all fee awards be paid with interest.
BACKGROUND
The facts of this case are treated in detail in this court’s previous order of September 29, 1989.…
Dissenting Opinion
Ferguson, J.
dissenting:
The majority, in affirming the district court’s award of attorneys’ fees in this case, has created an unexplained conflict with our case of Bryant v. Gomez, 46 F.3d 948 (9th Cir.1995), by implicitly granting rights to Roman Catholics which are denied to other religious denominations. It must be understood that at no time during the course of this litigation has any authority of the Catholic Church maintained that the defendants deprived inmates of access to any tenet or belief mandated by the Catholic Church. Here, despite the fact that the legal relationship between the parties was not materially altered by the settlement of the case and despite the fact that the inmates did not win any right to Catholic denominated services or to unsupervised access to rosary beads or scapulars, the district court found that the plaintiffs were “prevailing parties” in their 42 U.S.C. § 1983 suit against the jail. As a result of the district court’s holding and the majority’s order, the taxpayers of Alameda County will now be forced to pay thousands of dollars in attorneys’ fees for a civil rights case in which no civil rights were violated; therefore, I dissent.