April 14, 1994 [NOT FOR PUBLICATION]
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
No. 93-2158
COLLEEN FRAZIER, ET AL.,
Plaintiffs, Appellants,
v.
COMMISSIONER, MAINE DEPT. OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES,
Defendants, Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE
[Hon. Gene Carter, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Breyer, Chief Judge,
Boudin and Stahl, Circuit Judges.
Thomas H. Kelly, on brief for appellant.
Michael E. Carpenter, Attorney General, and Mary B.
Najarian, Assistant Attorney General, on brief for appellee.
Per Curiam. Appellants, a class of Aid to Families with
Dependent Children recipients, appeal the district court's
reduction of their request for attorneys' fees, pursuant to
42 U.S.C. 1988. We reverse the award and remand to the
district court for further proceedings consistent with this
opinion.
I
Appellants brought a class action suit against appellee,
Commissioner of the Maine Department of Human Services [the
Commissioner], seeking declaratory and injunctive relief
pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 651 et seq., 42 U.S.C. 1983, and
the fifth and fourteenth amendments to the United States
Constitution. Appellants alleged that the Commissioner
violated her statutory and/or constitutional obligations in
various situations where the Commissioner collected child
support owed by a noncustodial parent to more than one
family. They alleged in particular that the Commissioner (1)
had no policies or procedures to ensure that amounts of child
support paid by a noncustodial parent were equitably and
proportionately divided between families when the
Commissioner received less than the total amount of support
due; (2) had no policies or procedures to insure that the
child support orders were not inequitable in arbitrarily and
capriciously awarding disproportionate amounts to different
families; and (3) had failed to follow federally mandated
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child support review and modification procedures. The first
two issues were settled by consent decrees, entered into by
the parties in May 1992 and March 1993. The consent decree
also provided that the final claim would be dismissed by
appellants without prejudice.
After approval of the consent decree, appellants sought
attorneys' fees of $12,210.91 pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1988.
The district court found that appellants were "prevailing
parties" but reduced the amount of the award to $3,620.00.
The only issue on appeal is the reasonableness of the amount
awarded.
II
Although the district court possesses broad discretion
in fee setting matters, see, e.g., Segal v. Gilbert Color
Systems, Inc., 746 F.2d 78, 86 (1st Cir. 1984), the court
must "make concrete findings and explain its reasoning,"
Weinberger v. Great Northern Nekoosa Corp., 925 F.2d 518, 527
(1st Cir. 1991) (citing cases). This court has long held
that, unless an alternative method is required by law, it is
best to calculate attorneys' fees based on the number of
hours reasonably expended multiplied by a reasonable hourly
rate. Id.; see also Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 436
(1983) (approving this method for awards pursuant to 1988).
Once the court has ascertained the "lodestar" amount, it may
adjust this figure as appropriate. Segal 746 F.2d at 87.
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This approach is recommended both because it limits the
danger of arbitrariness in fee setting, Weinberger, 925 F.2d
at 526, and because it allows for "meaningful review" of the
award by an appellate court, Furtado v. Bishop, 635 F.2d 915,
920 (1st Cir. 1980).
In the instant case, the district court did not use the
"lodestar" approach. Instead, the court found that $3,620.00
represents reasonable compensation to the
Plaintiffs' counsel in this case, taking into
account, on balance, the difficulty of the issues
contested, the significance of the result obtained
in the settlement of the case, and the level of
professional diligence and experience brought to
the task of representing Plaintiffs' interests
herein by their counsel.
The court made no findings as to the reasonable number of
hours expended on the case or the reasonable hourly rate for
counsel.
Appellee asserts that the court was not required to use
the lodestar approach in this case because appellants
achieved only de minimis success on their claims. Appellee
calls attention to the Supreme Court ruling in Farrar v.
Hobby, 113 S.Ct. 566 (1992), which stated that "'the most
critical factor' in determining the reasonableness of a fee
award 'is the degree of the success obtained,'" id. at 574
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(quoting Hensley, 461 U.S. at 436), and that, in some cases
where a plaintiff has obtained only minimal success, the
court may award low fees without "multiplying 'the number of
hours reasonably expended . . . by a reasonably hourly
rate,'" id. at 575 (quoting Hensley, 461 U.S. at 433).
We do not find the reasoning in Farrar applicable in the
instant case. Farrar was a damage action in which the
indisputably de minimis success of plaintiff was evidenced by
his having been awarded only $1 of the $17 million in damages
he sought. See id. The instant case, on the other hand, is
an action for injunctive and declaratory relief in which the
degree of success is not obvious, not discussed in any detail
by the district court, and very much disputed by the parties.
Moreover, the district court has not made clear how the
degree of success affected its overall fee assessment. In
these circumstances, we think it necessary that the district
court first calculate the lodestar amount, and then, after
determining appellants' degree of success, see Culebras
Enterprises Corp. v. Rivera-Rios, 846 F.2d 94, 102 (1st Cir.
1988) (district court in best position to determine degree of
success), adjust the lodestar amount in light of that
determination, see, e.g., id. (no abuse of discretion where
district court reduced lodestar figure by 50 percent in light
of plaintiff's lack of success on claim for damages and
limited success on claim for injunctive relief). There may
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be situations apart from Farrar where adequate explanation
for dispensing with the lodestar might excuse any attempt to
compute the lodestar as a starting point; but no such
explanation has been attempted in this case and we think that
it will be more efficient here for the district court to
compute the lodestar and then make any adjustments it thinks
warranted.
Appellee also asserts that the district court, in
reducing appellants' request, did not abuse its discretion
because appellants did not provide a proper basis for
determining how much time was spent on their successful and
unsuccessful claims. The failure to particularize time may
in some cases restrict an appellant's right to challenge an
award on appeal. See Nadeau v. Helgemoe, 581 F.2d 275, 279
(1st Cir. 1978) (court will not view with sympathy claim that
court awarded unreasonably low fees where plaintiff was only
partially successful and records do not provide basis for
distinguishing time spent on particular claims). However, in
this case, appellants did provide the district court with
detailed specific documentation of how their time was spent.
Moreover, appellants' claims arguably involved a "common core
of facts" and were "based on related legal theories" which
made the division of time on a claim to claim basis
difficult. See Hensley, 461 U.S. at 435. In such a
situation, a reasonable fee "may include compensation for
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legal work performed on the unsuccessful claims." Id.;
Garrity v. Sununu, 752 F.2d 727, 734 (1st Cir. 1984). The
determination of whether or not appellants' claims were
"interrelated" is again best made by the district court. See
Lipsett v. Blanco, 975 F.2d 934, 941 (1st Cir. 1992).
For these reasons, we vacate the award and remand to the
district court for further proceedings. In remanding this
case, we do not suggest that the dollar amount awarded by the
district court was unreasonable. We only require that
(absent unusual circumstances and an explanation) the court
adhere to the normal lodestar procedures in calculating the
award.
The award of attorneys' fees is vacated and remanded.
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