No. 87-1485
Argued: November 28, 1988Decided: February 21, 1989
Held:
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- 1. An attorney’s fee allowed under 1988 is not limited to the amount provided in the plaintiff’s contingent-fee arrangement with his counsel. To hold otherwise would be inconsistent with the statute, which broadly requires all defendants to pay a reasonable fee to all prevailing plaintiffs if ordered to do so by the court acting in its sound judgment and in light of all the circumstances of the case. This Court’s decisions have required that the initial estimate of a reasonable court-awarded fee be calculated by multiplying prevailing billing rates by the hours reasonably expended on successful claims, which “lodestar” figure may then be adjusted by other factors. The Court has never suggested that any one such factor should substitute for the lodestar approach. In fact, the lodestar figure is entitled to a strong presumption of reasonableness and prevents a “windfall” for attorneys in 1983 actions by guaranteeing that they receive only the reasonable worth of the services rendered. Thus, as 1988’s legislative history confirms, a private fee arrangement is but one of the many factors to be considered and cannot, standing alone, impose an automatic limitation on the exercise of the trial judge’s discretion, which is central to the operation of the statute. Moreover, such a limitation might place an undesirable emphasis on the importance of the recovery of damages, whereas 1988 makes no distinction between damages actions and equitable suits but was intended to encourage meritorious claims, irrespective of their nature, because of the benefits of
- civil rights litigation for the named plaintiff and for society at large. Fee awards in 1983 damages cases should not be modeled upon the contingent-fee arrangements used in personal injury litigation, which benefits only the individual plaintiff. Pp. 91-96.
- 2. Since the Court of Appeals erred in ruling that the fee award was controlled by the contingency arrangement, it must consider the determination of the total fee award on remand. P. 97.
831 F.2d 563, reversed and remanded.
WHITE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C. J., and BRENNAN, MARSHALL, BLACKMUN, STEVENS, O’CONNOR, and KENNEDY, JJ., joined. SCALIA, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, post, p. 97.
William W. Rosen argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the brief was Charles J. Pisano.
Edmond L. Guidry III argued the cause and filed a brief for respondent. *
[ Footnote * ] Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the Advocacy Center for the Elderly and Disabled by M. David Gelfand; for Farnsworth, Saperstein & Seligman et al. by Guy T. Saperstein, Antonia Hernandez, and E. Richard Larson; and for the National Association of Legal Assistants, Inc., by John A. DeVault III.
JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.
The issue before us is whether an attorney’s fee allowed under 42 U.S.C. 1988 is limited to the amount provided in a contingent-fee arrangement entered into by a plaintiff and his counsel.
I
Petitioner Arthur J. Blanchard brought suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana alleging violations of his civil rights under 42 U.S.C. 1983. Blanchard asserted that he was beaten by Sheriff’s Deputy James Bergeron while he was in Oudrey’s Odyssey Lounge. Blanchard brought his claim against the deputy, the sheriff, and the St. Martin Parish Sheriff’s Department. He also joined with his civil rights claim a state-law negligence claim against the above defendants and against the owners and a [489 U.S. 87, 89] manager of the lounge and the lounge itself. The case was tried and a jury awarded Blanchard compensatory damages in the amount of $5,000 and punitive damages in the amount of $5,000 on his 1983 claim. Under the provisions of 42 U.S.C. 1988, which permit the award of attorney’s fees to a prevailing party in certain federal civil rights actions, 1 Blanchard sought attorney’s fees and costs totaling more than $40,000. The District Court, after reviewing the billing and cost records furnished by counsel, awarded $7,500 in attorney’s fees and $886.92 for costs and expenses. 2 [489 U.S. 87, 90]
Petitioner appealed this award to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, seeking to increase the award. The Court of Appeals, however, reduced the award because petitioner had entered into a contingent-fee arrangement with his lawyer, 3 under which the attorney was to receive 40% of any damages awarded should petitioner prevail in his suit. While recognizing that other Circuits had different views, the court held that it was bound by its prior decision in Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, Inc., 488 F.2d 714, 718 (1974), to rule that the contingency-fee agreement “serves as a cap on the amount of attorney’s fee to be awarded.” 831 F.2d 563, 564 (1987). The court further found that hours billed for the time of law clerks and paralegals were not compensable since they would be included within the contingency fee. Ibid. Accordingly, the court limited the fee award to 40% of the $10,000 damages award – $4,000.
Because other Courts of Appeals have concluded that a 1988 fee award should not be limited by a contingent-fee agreement between the attorney and his client, 4 we granted certiorari to resolve the conflict, 487 U.S. 1217 (1988). We now reverse. [489 U.S. 87, 91]
II
Section 1988 provides that the court, “in its discretion, may allow . . . a reasonable attorney’s fee . . . .” The section does not provide a specific definition of “reasonable” fee, and the question is whether the award must be limited to the amount provided in a contingent-fee agreement. The legislative history of the Act is instructive insofar as it tells us: “In computing the fee, counsel for prevailing parties should be paid, as is traditional with attorneys compensated by a fee-paying client, `for all time reasonably expended on a matter.'” S. Rep. No. 94-1011, p. 6 (1976) (citing Davis v. County of Los Angeles, 8 EPD § 9444 (CD Cal. 1974); and Stanford Daily v. Zurcher, 64 F. R. D. 680, 684 (ND Cal. 1974)).
In many past cases considering the award of attorney’s fees under 1988, we have turned our attention to Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, Inc., supra, a case decided before the enactment of the Civil Rights Attorney’s Fee Award Act of 1976. As we stated in Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 429 -431 (1983), Johnson provides guidance to Congress’ intent because both the House and Senate Reports refer to the 12 factors set forth in Johnson for assessing the reasonableness of an attorney’s fee award. 5 The Senate Report, [489 U.S. 87, 92] in particular, refers to three District Court decisions that “correctly applied” the 12 factors laid out in Johnson. 6
In the course of its discussion of the factors to be considered by a court in awarding attorney’s fees, the Johnson court dealt with fee arrangements:
- “`Whether or not [a litigant] agreed to pay a fee and in what amount is not decisive. Conceivably, a litigant might agree to pay his counsel a fixed dollar fee. This might be even more than the fee eventually allowed by the court. Or he might agree to pay his lawyer a percentage contingent fee that would be greater than the fee the court might ultimately set. Such arrangements should not determine the court’s decision. The criterion for the court is not what the parties agree but what is reasonable.'” 488 F.2d, at 718 (quoting Clark v. American Marine Corp., 320 F. Supp. 709, 711 (ED La. 1970), aff’d 437 F.2d 959 (CA5 1971)).
Yet in the next sentence, Johnson says “In no event, however, should the litigant be awarded a fee greater than he is contractually bound to pay, if indeed the attorneys have contracted as to amount.” 488 F.2d, at 718. This latter statement, never disowned in the Circuit, was the basis for the decision below. But we doubt that Congress embraced this aspect of Johnson, for it pointed to the three District Court cases in which the factors are “correctly applied.” Those cases clarify that the fee arrangement is but a single factor and not determinative. In Stanford Daily v. Zurcher, 64 F. R. D. 680 (ND Cal. 1974), aff’d, 550 F.2d 464 (CA9 1977), rev’d on other grounds, 436 U.S. 547 (1978), for example, [489 U.S. 87, 93] the District Court considered a contingent-fee arrangement to be a factor, but not dispositive, in the calculation of a fee award. In Davis v. County of Los Angeles, supra, the court permitted a fee award to counsel in a public interest firm which otherwise would have been entitled to no fee. Finally, in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 66 F. R. D. 483 (WDNC 1975), the court stated that reasonable fees should be granted regardless of the individual plaintiff’s fee obligations. Johnson’s “list of 12” thus provides a useful catalog of the many factors to be considered in assessing the reasonableness of an award of attorney’s fees; but the one factor at issue here, the attorney’s private fee arrangement, standing alone, is not dispositive.
The Johnson contingency-fee factor is simply that, a factor. The presence of a pre-existing fee agreement may aid in determining reasonableness. “`The fee quoted to the client or the percentage of the recovery agreed to is helpful in demonstrating the attorney’s fee expectations when he accepted the case.'” Pennsylvania v. Delaware Valley Citizens’ Council for Clean Air, 483 U.S. 711, 723 (1987) quoting Johnson, 488 F.2d, at 718. But as we see it, a contingent-fee contract does not impose an automatic ceiling on an award of attorney’s fees, and to hold otherwise would be inconsistent with the statute and its policy and purpose.
As we understand 1988’s provision for allowing a “reasonable attorney’s fee,” it contemplates reasonable compensation, in light of all of the circumstances, for the time and effort expended by the attorney for the prevailing plaintiff, no more and no less. Should a fee agreement provide less than a reasonable fee calculated in this manner, the defendant should nevertheless be required to pay the higher amount. The defendant is not, however, required to pay the amount called for in a contingent-fee contract if it is more than a reasonable fee calculated in the usual way. It is true that the purpose of 1988 was to make sure that competent counsel was available to civil rights plaintiffs, and it is of course arguable that if a plaintiff is able to secure an attorney [489 U.S. 87, 94] on the basis of a contingent or other fee agreement, the purpose of the statute is served if the plaintiff is bound by his contract. On that basis, however, the plaintiff should recover nothing from the defendant, which would be plainly contrary to the statute. And Congress implemented its purpose by broadly requiring all defendants to pay a reasonable fee to all prevailing plaintiffs, if ordered to do so by the court. Thus it is that a plaintiff’s recovery will not be reduced by what he must pay his counsel. Plaintiffs who can afford to hire their own lawyers, as well as impecunious litigants, may take advantage of this provision. And where there are lawyers or organizations that will take a plaintiff’s case without compensation, that fact does not bar the award of a reasonable fee. All of this is consistent with and reflects our decisions in cases involving court-awarded attorney’s fees.
Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424 (1983), directed lower courts to make an initial estimate of reasonable attorney’s fees by applying prevailing billing rates to the hours reasonably expended on successful claims. And we have said repeatedly that “[t]he initial estimate of a reasonable attorney’s fee is properly calculated by multiplying the number of hours reasonably expended on the litigation times a reasonable hourly rate.” Blum v. Stenson, 465 U.S. 886, 888 (1984). The courts may then adjust this lodestar calculation by other factors. We have never suggested that a different approach is to be followed in cases where the prevailing party and his (or her) attorney have executed a contingent-fee agreement. To the contrary, in Hensley and in subsequent cases, we have adopted the lodestar approach as the centerpiece of attorney’s fee awards. The Johnson factors may be relevant in adjusting the lodestar amount, but no one factor is a substitute for multiplying reasonable billing rates by a reasonable estimation of the number of hours expended on the litigation. In Blum, we rejected, as contrary to congressional intent, the notion that fees are to be calculated on a cost-based standard. Further, as we said in Blum, “Congress did not [489 U.S. 87, 95] intend the calculation of fee awards to vary depending on whether plaintiff was represented by private counsel or by a nonprofit legal services organization.” 465 U.S., at 894 . That a nonprofit legal services organization may contractually have agreed not to charge any fee of a civil rights plaintiff does not preclude the award of a reasonable fee to a prevailing party in a 1983 action, calculated in the usual way.
It is clear that Congress “intended that the amount of fees awarded . . . be governed by the same standards which prevail in other types of equally complex Federal litigation . . . and not be reduced because the rights involved may be nonpecuniary in nature.” S. Rep. No. 94-1011, at 6. “The purpose of 1988 is to ensure `effective access to the judicial process’ for persons with civil rights grievances.” Hensley, supra, at 429, quoting H. R. Rep. No. 94-1558, p. 1 (1976). Even when considering the award of attorney’s fees under the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. 7401, the Court has applied the 1988 approach, stating: “A strong presumption that the lodestar figure – the product of reasonable hours times a reasonable rate – represents a `reasonable fee’ is wholly consistent with the rationale behind the usual fee-shifting statute . . . .” Pennsylvania v. Delaware Valley Citizens’ Council for Clean Air, 478 U.S. 546, 565 (1986).
If a contingent-fee agreement were to govern as a strict limitation on the award of attorney’s fees, an undesirable emphasis might be placed on the importance of the recovery of damages in civil rights litigation. The intention of Congress was to encourage successful civil rights litigation, not to create a special incentive to prove damages and shortchange efforts to seek effective injunctive or declaratory relief. Affirming the decision below would create an artificial dis-incentive for an attorney who enters into a contingent-fee agreement, unsure of whether his client’s claim sounded in state tort law or in federal civil rights, from fully exploring all possible avenues of relief. Section 1988 makes no distinction between actions for damages and suits for equitable relief. [489 U.S. 87, 96] Congress has elected to encourage meritorious civil rights claims because of the benefits of such litigation for the named plaintiff and for society at large, irrespective of whether the action seeks monetary damages.
It should also be noted that we have not accepted the contention that fee awards in 1983 damages cases should be modeled upon the contingent-fee arrangements used in personal injury litigation. “[W]e reject the notion that a civil rights action for damages constitutes nothing more than a private tort suit benefiting only the individual plaintiffs whose rights were violated. Unlike most private tort litigants, a civil rights plaintiff seeks to vindicate important civil and constitutional rights that cannot be valued solely in monetary terms.” Riverside v. Rivera, 477 U.S. 561, 574 (1986).
Respondent cautions us that refusing to limit recovery to the amount of the contingency agreement will result in a “windfall” to attorneys who accept 1983 actions. Yet the very nature of recovery under 1988 is designed to prevent any such “windfall.” Fee awards are to be reasonable, reasonable as to billing rates and reasonable as to the number of hours spent in advancing the successful claims. Accordingly, fee awards, properly calculated, by definition will represent the reasonable worth of the services rendered in vindication of a plaintiff’s civil rights claim. It is central to the awarding of attorney’s fees under 1988 that the district court judge, in his or her good judgment, make the assessment of what is a reasonable fee under the circumstances of the case. The trial judge should not be limited by the contractual fee agreement between plaintiff and counsel.
The contingent-fee model, premised on the award to an attorney of an amount representing a percentage of the damages, is thus inappropriate for the determination of fees under 1988. The attorney’s fee provided for in a contingent-fee agreement is not a ceiling upon the fees recoverable under 1988. Accordingly, we reverse and remand. [489 U.S. 87, 97]
III
Blanchard also complains of the failure of the court below to award fees in compensation for the time of paralegals and law clerks. Because the Court of Appeals held that recovery for legal fees was to be limited by the contingency agreement, that court never addressed the issue of separate billing for legal assistants. “[A]ny hours `billed’ by law clerks or paralegals would also naturally be included within the contingency fee.” 831 F.2d, at 564. Since we hold today that the contingency-fee arrangement does not control the award for attorney’s fees, the determination of the total fee will be considered on remand. We reserve for another day the question whether legal assistants’ fees should be included in the award.
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
