Authors: Patricia Hamill, Lorie Dakessian, Chris Lucca, Lindsay McDonald and Jonathan Cohen
In this long-running suit against the University of Michigan by a male student accused of sexual assault in 2018, the Court awarded plaintiff $65,067.55 in attorney fees (out of $210,558.15 requested) and $3,982.37 in costs. The plaintiff filed suit while the University’s investigation was pending, before any discipline had been issued, and the complainant ultimately decided not to pursue the matter. As noted by the Court, the case has a lengthy procedural history, including “significant motion practice and three separate appeals to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, the last of which held that Doe was the prevailing party only as to his due process claim seeking release of his transcript, and remanding for recalculation of attorney fees . . . taking into account Doe’s very limited success in this lengthy litigation.” Noting that the claim related to Doe’s transcript was resolved “within two weeks of his filing this lawsuit,” the Court held that “Doe did not achieve the level of success sufficient to justify his requested attorneys’ fees in the amount of $210,558.15 and that such an award would be a windfall to his attorneys.”
The Court awarded plaintiff all requested fees relating to “attempts to resolve the fee issue on remand and filing the instant motion for fees (9/20/23 through 1/2/24) ($28,694.90).” Plaintiff also sought fees for the earlier stages of the litigation (5/23/18 through 8/21/23). According to the Court, plaintiff did not “attempt to parse out his claimed attorney fees related to the transcript-hold claim as opposed to his other due process claims,” arguing that the legal claims were interconnected. The Court said that even when claims are interconnected, nonfrivolous, and raised in good faith, fees may be reduced if success is limited, and exercised its discretion by reducing the remaining fee request by 80% across the board. “While Doe’s counsel will receive only approximately 30% of the fees requested, the Court notes that fee-shifting statutes ‘were not designed as a form of economic relief to improve the financial lot of attorneys, nor were they intended to replicate exactly the fee an attorney could earn through a private fee arrangement with his client.’ . . . Rather, ‘the aim of such statutes was to enable private parties to obtain legal help in seeking redress for injuries resulting from the actual or threatened violation of specific federal laws.’ In the Court’s opinion, a fee award of $65,067.55 to secure removal of a hold on Doe’s transcript 10 days after this lawsuit was filed aptly meets that aim.” Doe v. University of Michigan, No. 2:18-CV-11776-TGB-EAS, 2024 WL 5239441 (E.D. Mich. Dec. 27, 2024).
We highlight this case because so often Title IX or due process claims are litigated alongside other claims (such as breach of contract or tort-based claims) that do not ordinarily allow for fee shifting. As such, courts will carefully parse fee petitions to award reasonable fees in connection with successful efforts tied to the claims allowing for fee shifting.
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