Vogel v. Harbor Plaza Center, LLC, No. 16-55229 (9th Cir. 2018)
Annotate this CaseVogel, a paraplegic who uses a wheelchair, visited Harbor Plaza Shopping Center and, in the parking lot, encountered barriers that prevented him from fully enjoying the shopping center. Vogel sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, statutory damages, and attorney’s fees. Defendant filed an answer. The court scheduled trial for October 2015. In September 2014, the court approved Defendant’s request to substitute counsel, The request was signed by Defendant’s new lawyer and Defendant’s vice-president. Defendant and Defendant’s lawyer thereafter stopped appearing. Plaintiff prepared for trial. At the scheduled pretrial conference, Defendant and its lawyer failed to appear. The court noted that, in 2005, Defendant’s lawyer had been convicted of a federal corruption charge, continued the pretrial conference and ordered Plaintiff to provide notice. Plaintiff provided notice but they failed to appear at the continued conference. The court struck Defendant’s answer. Plaintiff filed an ex parte application for default, which the court entered. Plaintiff eventually moved for default judgment, seeking $36,671.25 in attorney’s fees and submitting a seven-page itemized list of his firm's work. The court granted Plaintiff default judgment; entered an injunction ordering Defendant to make specific structural changes; awarded Plaintiff statutory damages of $4,000 and costs, $3,590.83.1; and applying the local court rule’s formula, calculated fees of $600. The Ninth Circuit vacated the award. By eschewing the ordinary considerations that apply when calculating fees in ADA cases, the district court abused its discretion.
Court Description: Attorneys’ Fees. The panel vacated the district court’s award, pursuant to a local rule, of attorneys’ fees to the plaintiff following the entry of a default judgment in an action brought under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The panel held that the plaintiff was entitled to a reasonable attorney’s fee under 42 U.S.C. § 12205 because he was the prevailing party on his ADA claim. The district court declined to apply the lodestar approach. Instead, it interpreted the schedule of fees described in the Central District’s Local Rule 55-3 as prescribing a presumptively correct award of fees. The panel read the local rule to require a different procedure. The panel concluded that when a party seeks a fee in excess of the schedule and timely files a written request to have the fee fixed by the court, then the court must hear the request and award a “reasonable” fee. The court must calculate a “reasonable” fee in the usual manner, without using the fee schedule as a starting point. The panel remanded the case to the district court for reconsideration. Concurring, Judge Christen wrote that she joined the court’s opinion, which was consistent with the Supreme Court’s longstanding rule that fees are awarded to prevailing parties in civil rights cases, including ADA cases, according to the lodestar method. She wrote separately to clarify that, in her view, the correct method for calculating fees in an VOGEL V. HARBOR PLAZA CENTER 3 ADA lawsuit ending in default judgment in the Central District of California should not hinge on whether a prevailing party opts out of the local fee schedule. Dissenting, Judge Kleinfeld wrote that the district court properly used the local rule’s fee schedule for default judgments, rather than the lodestar, as the starting point and acted within its discretion to reject an increase.
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