Attorney fees; 42 USC § 1988(b); Reasonable fee; Lodestar; Hensley v Eckerhart; Categorical exclusions; Binta B ex rel SA v Gordon; Class-certification hours; Tarrify Props, LLC v Cuyahoga Cnty; Fees for claims against other defendants; Unfiled motion to reopen; Appellate hours; Hubbell v FedEx SmartPost, Inc; Attorney billing records; Vague & excessive entries; Fox v Vice; Hourly rates; Blended hourly rate; Companion case; Taylor v County of Oakland (Unpub ED MI); Abuse of discretion; Garner v Cuyahoga Cnty Juvenile Court

[This appeal was from the ED-MI.] The court held that the district court abused its discretion by awarding more than $1.36 million in attorney fees and that the award had to be sharply reduced. Plaintiffs brought two Takings Clause suits after defendant-Oakland County foreclosed on their homes, and eventually obtained a global $500,000 settlement after prevailing on appeal. They then sought more than $4.2 million in fees based on more than 4,800 claimed hours. The district court reduced the claimed hours by 40%, applied a 1.1 multiplier, and awarded $1,361,476.51. On appeal, the court first held that plaintiffs’ counsel failed to satisfy Hensley’s billing-judgment requirement, noting there was “not a trace of any good-faith effort” to exclude excessive or unnecessary hours. It held that all 573 class-certification hours should be excluded because the individual plaintiffs were counsel’s only clients, the motions would not benefit them, and certification was “nearly certain” to fail after Tarrify required individualized valuation of each property. The court next held that 189 hours spent pursuing claims against defendants other than the County had to be excluded under Binta B, and 32.5 hours for an unfiled motion to reopen also were noncompensable. The court then held that of 1,643 hours billed during the appeals, no more than 75 were reasonable because the Pacific Legal Foundation (not involved in this appeal) handled the successful appeal in one of these cases pro bono, the later appeal in the other largely copied that briefing, and counsel’s claimed appellate fees “almost shock[ed] the conscience.” It also found that no more than 10 of one attorney’s 999 hours were properly billed because his entries lacked “concrete work.” The court left intact the district court’s 40% reduction for remaining vague or excessive entries and its 1.1 multiplier, but held that the district court abused its discretion by not addressing the County’s argument for a blended hourly rate based on Taylor. It set a reasonable blended rate of $325 and remanded with calculation instructions. Vacated and remanded.