Janet Lewis v. Michael Donley

MEMORANDUM

Plaintiff Janet Lewis (“Lewis”) prevailed in her retaliation claim against defendants Michael B. Donley, Secretary of the United States Air Force, and the United States of America (collectively, “Government”) and was awarded $100,000 by a jury. The district court in large part granted Lewis’s request for attorney’s fees as the prevailing party, awarding $274,479, but denied her motion for equitable remedies such as back pay and reinstatement. The Government appeals the attorney’s fee award and Lewis cross-appeals the denial of equitable remedies. We affirm both decisions.

The district court did not abuse its discretion by awarding Lewis nearly all the fees she requested. Although she prevailed on only one of the ten claims she alleged in her third amended complaint, her claims arose out of a “common core of facts” or were based on “related legal theories,” and thus the court reasonably concluded that “[m]uch of counsel’s time will be devoted generally to the litigation as a whole, making it difficult to divide the hours expended on a claim-by-claim basis.” Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 435 , 108 S.Ct. 1933 , 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983). The court also sufficiently…