Dream Palace v. Maricopa County

MEMORANDUM *

Plaintiffs Dream Palace and several of its employees appeal the amount of the district court’s attorney’s fees award to Dream Palace as a prevailing party pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988 . We affirm in part, vacate in part, and remand.

We review the district court’s fee award, including its determination regarding Dream Palace’s degree of success in the underlying civil rights litigation, for abuse of discretion. See Harris v. Marhoefer, 24 F.3d 16, 18-19 (9th Cir.1994). Dream Palace prevailed on just four of its original sixteen claims. Given the sheer volume of losses as compared with wins, the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that Dream Palace’s success was limited. The district court watched this case “unfold before [it]” and was thus in the best position to determine the significance of these wins “in comparison to the scope of the litigation as a whole.” Harris, 24 F.3d at 18-19 ; see Romberg v. Nichols, 970 F.2d 512, 523-24 (9th Cir.1992), vacated on other grounds by Nichols v. Romberg, 506 U.S. 1075 , 113 S.Ct. 1038 , 122 L.Ed.2d 348 (1993).

Dream Palace challenges various aspects of the district court’s lodestar calculation. With…

dissenting:

I respectfully dissent.

While I largely agree with my colleagues’ description of the legal framework controlling our analysis, I feel that the majority’s reasoning is flawed in two respects. First, the majority relies heavily on the fact that “Dream Palace prevailed on just four of its original sixteen claims” to conclude that Dream Palace’s success was limited, thereby justifying a reduced fee award. Second, the majority fails to acknowledge that those four successful claims represented the most important elements of Dream Palace’s complaint, and that success on those claims represented a significant achievement in light of the litigation as a whole.

As the majority notes, the district court is granted broad discretion in calibrating compensable hours based upon a successful outcome. See Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 437 , 103 S.Ct. 1933 , 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983). However, the district court must be guided by the Supreme Court’s instruction that “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…