Plaintiffs’ Award of Attorneys’ Fees Deemed Excessive in Lengthy Suit Achieving “Some” Success

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that a district court’s award of $216,528 in attorneys’ fees was excessive in light of the plaintiffs succeeding early in a long litigation on only one of many claims and remanded the case to the district court to reassess the appropriate fees.

Marlene Springer, a former president at the College of Staten Island (“CSI”), voided a student government election due to an alleged inequality of campaign expenses through the school newspaper’s support of certain candidates. Eight former CSI students subsequently filed suit in district court against Springer and twenty-five others, raising various claims and seeking an injunction, compensatory and punitive damages and possibly other relief. Following over nine years of litigation, the district court awarded the plaintiffs nominal damages against Springer, the only remaining defendant. The plaintiffs sought attorneys’ fees and costs and the district court awarded them significantly less than they had requested. All of the parties appealed, the defendant arguing that no fees were warranted. On August 29, 2014, the appellate court held that the plaintiffs were entitled to fees, but only in proportion to the plaintiffs’ sole success against Springer, and on remand to the district court, the fees should be recalculated.

The plaintiffs filed their suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, prior to March 2000. At that time, a magistrate judge recommended proscribing Springer’s conduct and Springer consented to repeal the rules that led to her voiding students’ election. Consequently, the district court dismissed the plaintiffs’ request for injunctive relief as moot.

Approximately nine years later, after numerous filings, including a petition for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court, the district court awarded the plaintiffs $9 in nominal damages against Springer – the other twenty-five defendants having previously been dismissed. As the plaintiffs had prevailed, they sought $832,409.32 in attorneys’ fees and costs. The district court, however, reduced the award to $233,239.20, $216,528 of the award making up the fees. The plaintiffs appealed this reduction while Springer appealed the grant of any fee award.

The appellate court found that the plaintiffs were entitled to some award, but that even this reduced award was excessive. Ordinarily, according to federal law, a prevailing party is not entitled to recover attorneys’ fees when awarded nominal damages, which indicates “the plaintiff’s failure to prove actual, compensable injury.” Nevertheless, injunctive relief may suffice. The appellate court determined that the plaintiffs’ were entitled to fees based on the following: (1) their nominal damages award satisfied their nominal compensatory damages request and (2) they had received the primary relief sought, through Springer’s “agree[ment] to repeal the offending student election rules,” which “would not likely have occurred but for this litigation.”

Finding the district court’s award of attorneys’ fees excessive, the appellate court first stated that the plaintiffs’ “case following [Springer’s] voluntary policy reversal met with a significant lack of success,” citing that all of the issues against the other twenty-five defendants were “lost or abandoned.”

Next, the appellate court concluded that the sum of attorney hours calculated by the plaintiffs - 2,741.4 hours— was “extravagant” as the “litigation established no new principle of law.” The attorney hours calculated on the fee application, unfiled motions and other unsupported claims were further unjustified.

The case was therefore remanded to the trial court for a recalculation of attorneys’ fees. See: Husain v. Springer, 579 Fed. Appx. 3 (2d Cir. N.Y. 2014).

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