MEMORANDUM OPINION
ROYCE
C. LAMBERTH UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
In
March 2000, Keith Allen sued the District of Columbia for
violating the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 20
U.S.C. § 1400-1487. In 2001, the Court granted his
motions for summary judgment and for attorneys fees. Since
then, both sides-now joined by plaintiffs in ten other
consolidated cases-have impelled an eighteen-year skirmish
over the fee amount and payment. Today, they duel themselves
to a draw.
Pending
before the Court are (hopefully) the final four motions in
the case: plaintiffs' motion [118] for fees-on-fees;
plaintiffs' motion [121] to alter the Court's June
2017 order directing D.C. to pay $18, 609.06 in post-judgment
interest; D.C.'s motion [122] to alter the same order;
and plaintiffs motion [141] to compel compliance with the
Court's August 2015 order directing D.C. to pay
plaintiffs $4000 for each action in the consolidated
cases.[1] The Court takes up each in turn.
I.
First, the Court grants plaintiffs' motion for
fees-on-fees and orders D.C. to pay fees and costs of $324,
277.78.
In
their initial motion, which incorporates previous filings in
two of the consolidated cases, plaintiffs sought fees for the
904.81 hours their counsel spent litigating their prevailing
fee claims (519 for lead counsel and 385.81 for his
associate), paid according to the USAO matrix, as well as
$1559.50 in costs.
D.C.
responded with detailed objections to 55.8 hours by lead
counsel, 205.4 hours by his associate (objecting mainly to
what it considered vague or inadequately documented entries),
and $1054.80 in PACER costs (classifying them as
unrecoverable "administrative overhead" and the
result of plaintiff s failure to maintain diligent records).
D.C. also argued that because plaintiffs did not present
specific evidence justifying payment at the full USAO rates,
the Court should award only 75% of the rates, and that the
associate counsel should be compensated as a paralegal for
work done prior to his admission to the D.C. Bar.
In
their reply, plaintiffs yielded to all but 11.1 hours of
D.C.'s objections to their lead counsel's
hours[2] and to 136.73 hours of D.C.'s
objections to their associate counsel's hours. Plaintiffs
appended new billing records with increased detail for the
associate's remaining hours. Plaintiffs also accepted
D.C.'s request to compensate the associate as a paralegal
for work done before his admission to the D.C. Bar. As for
the costs, plaintiffs fixed an arithmetic error raising their
total claim to $1625 and argued that the $1054.80 in PACER
costs were appropriate, although they indicated a willingness
to concede those charges if necessary to facilitate a prompt
award.
D.C.
sought leave to file a sur-reply, even though their only new
argument was a broadside challenge to the associate's new
timesheets as improperly reconstructed; D.C. did not object
to any timesheet entry.
So
after all the briefing, the dispute before the Court has
narrowed to:
• for plaintiffs' lead counsel, either 474.3 hours
(according to plaintiffs) or 463.2 hours (according to D.C.)
at $602 hourly[3];
• for plaintiffs' associate counsel,
248.58[4] total hours: 225 at $164 hourly,
[5] 11
at $334, [6] and 12.58 at $346[7]; and
• for costs, either $1559.50 (plaintiffs original,
mistaken request); $1625 (plaintiffs subsequent, corrected
request); or $504.70 (plaintiffs original request less PACER
costs).
Today,
the Court awards plaintiffs $324, 277.78 in fees and costs:
• $278, 846.40 comes from their lead counsel's 463.2
hours of work ...