PATRICK J. SCHILTZ, District Judge.
Seven plaintiffs — Mikhail Gurman and Ester Kruglyak ("the Gurmans") and their daughter, Svetlana Barskiy; Valeriy Babushkin and Svetlana Babushkina ("the Babushkins") and their daughter Rada Shevtsov; and Vicro Home Care, Inc. ("Vicro"), a health-care corporation owned by Barskiy and Shevtsov — brought this lawsuit against certain government agencies and employees who are responsible for administering the Section 8 housing program in the Twin Cities area. Plaintiffs' lawsuit was directed at ten defendants, divided into three groups:
The first group consisted of Metro Housing and Redevelopment Authority ("Metro HRA"), the Metropolitan Council, and four Metro HRA employees — Kathleen Shea, Tamara Peters, Beth Reetz, and Therese Smith (collectively "the Metro HRA Defendants").
The final group consisted of Metro HRA's outside counsel, Mary Dobbins, and her law firm, Landrum and Dobbins, LLC (collectively "the Dobbins Defendants").
This lawsuit arose out of a relatively straightforward dispute over Section 8 benefits, no different from hundreds of Section 8 disputes that are resolved by federal and state courts and administrative-law judges every year. Plaintiffs had several viable claims. In particular, the Gurmans and the Babushkins had viable due-process claims arising out of the reduction of their respective housing vouchers in 2009. Plaintiffs may each have had a viable defamation claim against one or two of the defendants (although those defendants likely had formidable defenses to those claims). And finally, the Babushkins conceivably had a viable claim arising out of the suspension of their housing voucher altogether in November 2010. Rather than litigating this handful of viable claims, however, plaintiffs' law firm — Saliterman & Siefferman, PC ("S & S") — brought not one, not two, but three kitchen-sink complaints, in which it asserted literally hundreds of claims against defendants, almost all of which were frivolous. Even worse, the last of these kitchen-sink complaints was filed by S & S after the firm had been clearly and emphatically warned by this Court to refrain from bringing frivolous claims.
Soon after plaintiffs filed their second amended complaint, the Metro HRA Defendants and the CCCDA Defendants moved to dismiss under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim. See ECF Nos. 39 and 41. Meanwhile, the Dobbins Defendants, who had been dropped from the second amended complaint, moved for sanctions under Fed. R.Civ.P. 11 and 28 U.S.C. § 1927. See ECF No. 45. The Court held a hearing on these motions on December 8, 2011. After nearly three and a half hours in the courtroom, the Court had covered barely half of the counts in plaintiffs' second amended complaint. The Court continued the hearing
On January 23, 2012, after two full days of mediation before Judge Graham, the parties agreed to settle this lawsuit. Over the next two months, the parties reduced their agreement to writing and, on April 13, 2012, the Court dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice and on the merits. See ECF No. 101. Here before the Court are three pending matters: (1) S & S's response to the Court's show-cause order, see ECF No. 75; (2) the Dobbins Defendants' motion for sanctions, see ECF No. 45; and (3) plaintiffs' motion for attorney's fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1988, see ECF No. 91.
The factual background was previously set forth in the Court's January 13 show-cause order and will not be repeated here. The Court addresses each of the pending matters in turn.
Under Rule 11(b)(2), an attorney must certify, after conducting a reasonable inquiry, that "the claims, defenses, and other legal contentions [asserted in the complaint] are warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or for establishing new law...." To determine whether an attorney has violated this provision, a court "must determine whether a reasonable and competent attorney would believe in the merit of an argument." Coonts v. Potts, 316 F.3d 745, 753 (8th Cir.2003) (internal quotations omitted). The attorney must further certify that the factual contentions in the complaint "have evidentiary support or, if specifically so identified, will likely have evidentiary support after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation...." Fed.R.Civ.P. 11(b)(3). Finally, the attorney must certify that the complaint is "not being presented for any improper purpose, such as to harass, cause unnecessary delay, or needlessly increase the cost of litigation...." Fed.R.Civ.P. 11(b)(1). An attorney who violates these provisions may be sanctioned. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 11(c)(1).
An attorney may also be ordered to pay the opposing party's attorney's fees under 28 U.S.C. § 1927 for "multipl[ying] the proceedings in any case unreasonably and vexatiously...." An award of fees under this section is warranted "when an attorney's conduct, viewed objectively, manifests either intentional or reckless disregard of the attorney's duties to the court." Clark v. United Parcel Serv., Inc., 460 F.3d 1004, 1011 (8th Cir.2006) (internal quotations omitted).
Although S & S does not raise this argument in its response to the show-cause order, the Court notes that an attorney cannot be sanctioned under § 1927 for simply commencing a frivolous lawsuit. See, e.g., Jensen v. Phillips Screw Co., 546 F.3d 59,
Any reasonable and competent attorney would have responded to the Court's June 30 order by carefully going through the first amended complaint line-by-line and re-pleading only those claims that would pass muster under Rule 11. Instead of doing that, however, S & S chose to replead many of the same frivolous claims, thereby unreasonably and vexatiously multiplying the proceedings. To cite several examples:
First, S & S asserted malicious-prosecution and abuse-of-process claims on behalf of Barskiy, Shevtsov, and Vicro, even though it is undisputed that they were not prosecuted or subjected to legal process of any kind. See ECF No. 75 at 7-8 (citing Second Am. Compl. ¶¶ 102, 115 and ECF No. 59 at 35). In its response to the show-cause order, S & S makes a number of arguments regarding these claims that are meritless or irrelevant (or both).
S & S first contends that the claims for malicious prosecution and abuse of process were brought on behalf of Barskiy, Shevtsov, and Vicro because defendants took administrative action against Barskiy's and Shevtsov's respective parents in retaliation for the assistance that Barskiy, Shevtsov, and Vicro provided to Russian immigrants. See ECF No. 80 at 7-10. S & S argues that such claims were reasonable, and cites in support of its argument a number of cases concerning claims for third-party retaliation in the employment-law context. S & S contends that these cases stand for the proposition that an "action taken against a family member in order to coerce or threaten a person who has engaged in protected activity is an actionable claim...." Id. at 8 (citing Craig v. Suburban Cablevision, Inc., 140 N.J. 623, 660 A.2d 505, 509 (1995)). In the cases cited by S & S, however, it is the family member against whom the retaliatory action was taken who was held to have a cause of action — the person in the position of Barskiy's and Shevtsov's respective parents. Here, by contrast, it was Barskiy, Shevtsov, and Vicro — who themselves were not subjected to any kind of prosecution or legal process — who were seeking to
Next, S & S argues that administrative proceedings may give rise to claims for malicious prosecution. See ECF No. 80 at 9 (citing Donovan v. Barnes, 274 Or. 701, 548 P.2d 980, 983 (1976)). That may be true, but it is also irrelevant. The Court is not sanctioning S & S because the underlying prosecution was administrative; rather, the Court is sanctioning S & S because it brought malicious-prosecution claims on behalf of parties who were not prosecuted — administratively or otherwise.
Finally, S & S contends that the term "process" should be interpreted broadly "`to encompass the entire range of procedures incident to litigation.'" ECF No. 80 at 11 (quoting Barquis v. Merchants Collection Ass'n., 7 Cal.3d 94, 101 Cal.Rptr. 745, 496 P.2d 817, 824 n. 4 (1972)). According to S & S, the termination-of-benefits letters that were sent to the Gurmans and the Babushkins constituted process. Id. Even if that were so — and the Court is skeptical that the Minnesota Supreme Court would define "process" so broadly — those letters were not directed to Barskiy, Shevtsov, or Vicro, and thus would not give them causes of action for abuse of process.
Second, S & S asserted a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress on behalf of Vicro, even though common sense coupled with a modicum of legal research would have revealed that corporations do not have emotions and therefore cannot bring claims for emotional distress.
Fourth, S & S brought defamation claims on behalf of all plaintiffs against all defendants — and, in the course of pleading these claims, made patently false assertions of fact. See ECF No. 75 at 9-11 (citing Second Am. Compl. ¶¶ 123-24). With respect to the defamation claims brought on behalf of Barskiy, Shevtsov, and Vicro, the second amended complaint alleged the following:
Second Am. Compl. ¶ 123 (emphasis added). But the allegation that each defendant published each of the enumerated statements is indisputably false and is, in fact, contradicted by the very exhibits that were attached to the complaint.
The defamation claims that S & S brought on behalf of the Gurmans and the Babushkins contained similar patently untrue allegations. The second amended complaint alleged that:
Second Am. Compl. ¶ 124 (emphasis added). The termination-of-assistance letters signed by Streich may have implied that the Gurmans and the Babushkins had violated the law. But there is nothing to suggest that each of the defendants who were sued for defamation uttered each of the allegedly defamatory statements.
S & S admits that the second amended complaint was improperly drafted and that "each alleged act of defamation should have been pled as a separate cause of action with respect to which person and/or entity was responsible...." ECF No. 80 at 15; see also ECF No. 83 at ¶¶ 36-37. Again, this mistake — if it was in fact a mistake — might be excusable if the Court had not specifically instructed S & S on how to plead defamation claims. In its June 30 order, the Court highlighted plaintiffs' defamation claims, observing that, "almost certainly, not every defendant uttered every one of the allegedly defamatory statements described in paragraphs 162 and 163 of the complaint, as the complaint alleges." 842 F.Supp.2d at 1155 (emphasis in original). The Court further reminded S & S that, under Minnesota law, defamation claims must "clearly identify who said what to whom and when" to be properly pleaded. Id. at 1155 n. 4. S & S blatantly disregarded this Court's specific instructions.
Fifth, S & S asserted discrimination claims under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA") against the employee defendants in their personal capacities, even though the law is clear that discrimination claims under the ADA can only be asserted against public entities, not individual employees of public entities. See ECF No. 75 at 11-12 (citing Second Am. Compl. ¶ 183). S & S contends that there is a split of authority concerning whether, in the public-services context, an individual may be sued in his or her individual capacity for retaliation. See ECF No. 80 at 16. While that may be true, it is also irrelevant. The Court's show-cause order was not directed at S & S's retaliation claims under Title II of the ADA, but rather at its discrimination claims.
The Court therefore finds that plaintiffs' attorneys — S & S and attorneys Saliterman, Lundgren, and Larson — violated both Rule 11 and § 1927 by filing a second amended complaint that contained a host of frivolous claims after being clearly and emphatically warned by this Court not to do so. Cf. Wages v. I.R.S., 915 F.2d 1230, 1235 (9th Cir.1990) (holding that sanctions under § 1927 were appropriate when an
The Metro HRA Defendants argue that S & S's unethical prosecution of this lawsuit forced them to incur over $110,000 in attorney's fees and costs. See ECF No. 97 at 2; see also ECF No. 93 at ¶¶ 2-4. And the Metro HRA Defendants ask that any monetary sanction that the Court deems appropriate be paid to them, rather than to the Court.
The Court agrees that S & S should be required to pay some of the defense costs that the Metro HRA Defendants incurred. When deciding on the amount of a sanction under § 1927, however, a court must "make an effort to isolate the additional costs and fees incurred by reason of conduct that violated § 1927." Lee v. First Lenders Ins. Servs., Inc., 236 F.3d 443, 446 (8th Cir.2001) (emphasis added). The Metro HRA Defendants contend that they incurred over $110,000 in connection with this lawsuit, but not all of those fees can be attributed to defending the frivolous claims that S & S asserted in the second amended complaint. It bears repeating that some of the plaintiffs did have viable claims against some of the Metro HRA Defendants; thus, the Metro HRA Defendants would have had to defend a lawsuit asserting colorable due-process and defamation claims even if S & S had fulfilled all of its ethical obligations. The Court therefore discounts the Metro HRA Defendants' fee request and awards them $15,000. This is a reasonable estimate — based on the Court's general experience ruling on requests for fees in this District, the evidence submitted by the parties in this case, and the dozens of hours that the Court has devoted to this litigation — of the additional fees that were incurred by the Metro HRA Defendants because S & S unreasonably and vexatiously multiplied these proceedings in violation of § 1927. See Lee, 236 F.3d at 446 (explaining that the task of isolating additional expenses due to violations of § 1927 "is inherently difficult, and precision is not required"). This sanction is imposed against S & S
As noted, plaintiffs' first amended complaint contained 17 counts against 10 defendants, including the Dobbins Defendants. All but one of the counts (breach of contract) were brought against all defendants. Thus, on behalf of plaintiffs, S & S sued the Dobbins Defendants for: malicious prosecution; abuse of process; intentional infliction of emotional distress; defamation; conversion; trespass; invasion of privacy; violations of the Minnesota Human Rights Act; deprivation of due process; publication of private facts; tortious interference with contract; violations of the Federal Fair Housing Act; violations of 42 U.S.C. § 1981; violations of 42 U.S.C. § 1983; violations of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act; and violations of Title II of the ADA. In total, plaintiffs' first amended complaint contained 186 separate claims against the Dobbins Defendants.
The Dobbins Defendants move for sanctions under Rule 11 and § 1927. The Dobbins Defendants argue that, had plaintiffs and S & S conducted a reasonable inquiry as required by Rule 11, they would have known that almost all of their claims against the Dobbins Defendants were frivolous. To cite a couple of the more obvious examples, a reasonable inquiry would have disclosed that Dobbins did not trespass on plaintiffs' property, defame any of the plaintiffs, or invade the privacy of any of the plaintiffs. See ECF No. 47 at 8.
The Court agrees. All of the factual allegations in the complaint concerning the Dobbins Defendants relate solely to Dobbins's representation of Metro HRA in the administrative proceedings to terminate the Gurmans' and the Babushkins' Section 8 benefits. See e.g., First Am. Compl. ¶¶ 100-102. Plaintiffs allege that Dobbins stonewalled their attempts to obtain discovery in connection with those administrative proceedings. See First Am. Compl. ¶¶ 106, 109. But these allegations have nothing to do with the vast majority of the claims that plaintiffs asserted against the Dobbins Defendants — e.g., trespass, defamation, conversion, invasion of privacy, publication of private facts, and discrimination. Plaintiffs do not allege, for example, that Dobbins entered their property, as would be necessary to maintain a claim for trespass. Nor do plaintiffs allege that Dobbins published any statement about them, as would be necessary to maintain claims for defamation or publication of private facts. Most egregious is that, even after the Dobbins Defendants pointed out these obvious deficiencies in their motion
In its opposition to the Dobbins Defendants' motion for sanctions, S & S makes three arguments. First, S & S maintains that plaintiffs' claims for malicious prosecution and abuse of process against the Dobbins Defendants had legal and factual support. See ECF No. 67 at 5-9. Second, S & S contends that the Dobbins Defendants are not entitled to sanctions based on S & S's failure to anticipate their various immunity-based defenses. Id. at 9-10. And finally, S & S argues that sanctions are unwarranted because the Dobbins Defendants' motion is procedurally defective. Id. at 11-12. All of S & S's arguments are without merit.
As to S & S's first argument: Even if the malicious-prosecution and abuse-of-process claims of the Gurmans and the Babushkins had some factual and legal support,
As to S & S's second argument: The Court will assume for the sake of argument that plaintiffs are not required by Rule 11 to anticipate affirmative defenses such as immunity. But the thrust of the Dobbins Defendants' motion for sanctions is not that S & S should have anticipated their affirmative defenses. Rather, the Dobbins Defendants seek sanctions because S & S violated Rule 11 by bringing numerous frivolous claims against them in the first place — claims that would have been frivolous even if the Dobbins Defendants enjoyed no immunity of any kind.
Finally, as to S & S's last argument: S & S argues that the Dobbins Defendants failed to "`describe the specific conduct that allegedly violated Rule 11(b).'" ECF No. 67 at 11 (quoting Fed.R.Civ.P. 11(c)(2)). The Court disagrees. The motion that the Dobbins Defendants served on S & S pursuant to the safe-harbor rule (see Fed.R.Civ.P. 11(c)(2) and ECF No. 50 at ¶ 9) provided S & S with adequate notice of why sanctions were being sought — specifically, because S & S, on behalf of plaintiffs, asserted numerous claims against Dobbins and her law firm without having first conducted a reasonable inquiry as to the factual and legal basis for those claims. See ECF No. 47 at 8. Save for malicious prosecution and abuse of process, S & S does not dispute that plaintiffs' claims against the Dobbins Defendants were frivolous.
The Court therefore finds that S & S filed a complaint against the Dobbins Defendants that contained numerous claims that were not "warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or for establishing new law" in violation of Rule 11(b)(2). Because S & S has provided no explanation for how it could reasonably have believed that plaintiffs had 16 different causes of action against the Dobbins Defendants, the Court further concludes that S & S brought these claims to "harass, cause unnecessary delay, [and]
District courts have "broad discretion" in fashioning an appropriate sanction under Rule 11, see Coonts, 316 F.3d at 753, and may order an attorney who violates the rule to pay some or all of the moving party's attorney's fees, see Fed.R.Civ.P. 11(c)(4). Here, the Dobbins Defendants seek reimbursement of all of their defense costs, totaling $32,284.50. See ECF No. 50 at ¶ 14. The Court agrees that S & S should pay some of those fees. But a sanction imposed under Rule 11 "must be limited to what suffices to deter repetition of the conduct or comparable conduct by others similarly situated." Fed.R.Civ.P. 11(c)(4). In light of the fact that S & S voluntarily (if belatedly) withdrew all claims against the Dobbins Defendants, the fact that S & S acknowledged and apologized for at least some of its misconduct, and the fact that S & S is unlikely to be compensated for any of the time that it devoted to pursuing claims against the Dobbins Defendants, a sanction totaling over $32,000 would, in the Court's view, exceed the amount necessary to deter S & S and others from engaging in similar misconduct in the future. After carefully reviewing the record, the Court finds that a sanction of $15,000 is warranted under Rule 11 to deter S & S and others from engaging in similar misconduct in the future. See Kirk Capital Corp. v. Bailey, 16 F.3d 1485, 1490 (8th Cir.1994) ("[T]he primary purpose of Rule 11 sanctions is to deter attorney and litigant misconduct, not to compensate the opposing party for all of its costs in defending.").
On January 23, 2012, following the dedicated efforts of Judge Graham, plaintiffs agreed to settle their lawsuit against the Metro HRA Defendants and the CCCDA Defendants. Judge Graham read the material terms of the settlement into the record that evening, although the final terms of the settlement agreement were not finalized until sometime in April. Broadly speaking, Metro HRA agreed to reinstate the Gurmans' and the Babushkins' Section 8 benefits and pay plaintiffs a cash settlement in connection with the Gurmans' and the Babushkins' due process claims. See ECF No. 110 at 5-7. Plaintiffs, in turn, agreed to dismiss all of the claims in their second amended complaint with prejudice and on the merits. Id. at 9. The parties also agreed that plaintiffs could seek up to $50,000 in attorney's fees against the Metro HRA Defendants under 42 U.S.C. § 1988,
The Metro HRA Defendants do not dispute that plaintiffs are "prevailing parties" with respect to the due-process claims
As to the first argument: Prevailing parties in actions governed by § 1988 "`should ordinarily recover an attorney's fee unless special circumstances would render such an award unjust.'" Hatfield v. Hayes, 877 F.2d 717, 719 (8th Cir.1989) (quoting Newman v. Piggie Park Enters., Inc., 390 U.S. 400, 402, 88 S.Ct. 964, 19 L.Ed.2d 1263 (1968)). The Metro HRA Defendants contend that S & S's handling of this litigation — specifically, its unreasonable and vexatious multiplication of the proceedings — justifies the denial of all attorney's fees.
S & S's conduct in this case undoubtedly caused the Metro HRA Defendants to incur additional defense costs, but that alone does not, in the Court's view, constitute a "special circumstance" justifying the complete denial of attorney's fees. See Hatfield, 877 F.2d at 720 ("Because the language of § 1988 does not include the `special circumstances' exception, this judicially created exception should be narrowly construed."); Jenkins v. Missouri, 127 F.3d 709, 716 (8th Cir.1997) ("[A] district court's discretion to deny attorneys' fees to a prevailing plaintiff is narrow."). It is true that S & S acted unreasonably and vexatiously in the course of this litigation, but that should not obscure the fact that the Metro HRA Defendants deprived both the Gurmans and the Babushkins of property without due process. The Court has already addressed S & S's violation of § 1927 by awarding attorney's fees to the Metro HRA Defendants. The Court must now address the Metro HRA Defendants' violation of the constitutional rights of the Gurmans and the Babushkins. In the Court's view, the Gurmans and the Babushkins are entitled to recover the attorney's fees and costs that were reasonably incurred to vindicate those rights.
As to the second argument: Prevailing parties are entitled to only a "reasonable attorney's fee." 42 U.S.C. § 1988(b). "The most useful starting point for determining the amount of a reasonable fee is the number of hours reasonably expended on the litigation multiplied by a reasonable hourly rate." See Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 433, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983). But in cases such as this, in which plaintiffs prevailed on some but not all of their claims, a court must determine whether the issues on which plaintiffs lost are related to those on which plaintiffs won. "[U]nrelated issues must be treated as if they were separate cases and no fees can be awarded." Jenkins, 127 F.3d at 716 (citing Hensley, 461 U.S. at 434-35, 103 S.Ct. 1933). The court should also consider plaintiffs' success in the litigation. If plaintiffs achieved limited success, the court "should award only that amount of fees that is reasonable in relation to the results obtained." Hensley, 461 U.S. at 440, 103 S.Ct. 1933.
Plaintiffs contend that they incurred a total of $225,081.69 in attorney's fees during the two years that they were represented by S & S. See ECF No. 86 at 2. According to S & S, $110,514.75 of that
The Court agrees with the Metro HRA Defendants that plaintiffs' $50,000 fee request is unreasonable. To begin with, plaintiffs' due-process claims had little or no relationship to the hundreds of other claims asserted by plaintiffs.
In addition, it is simply not credible to claim, as S & S does, that nearly half of their $225,081.69 in fees was incurred in pursuing the due-process claims. In the first amended complaint, S & S brought a total of 938 claims. Of those 938 claims, only 80 — the (duplicative) due-process and § 1983 claims brought by the two Gurmans and the two Babushkins against all 10 defendants — could possibly be characterized as due-process claims. Not only did the due-process claims comprise less than 10 percent of the claims filed, but the due-process claims were among the easiest claims to prosecute. No one disputed that the benefits of the Gurmans and the Babushkins had been reduced, and no one disputed the nature of the process that had been afforded to the Gurmans and the Babushkins in connection with those reductions. The only real question was a legal one: Did the Gurmans and the Babushkins receive the process that they were due? Under these circumstances, it is impossible to believe that nearly half of S & S's time was devoted to the due-process claims. Cf. Hensley, 461 U.S. at 440, 103 S.Ct. 1933 ("A reduced fee award is appropriate if the relief, however significant, is limited in comparison to the scope of the litigation as a whole.")
Putting aside the unreasonableness of the overall fee request, many of S & S's individual billing entries reflect work that is not compensable. To take just one example: According to S & S's billing entries, plaintiffs and S & S first discussed filing a lawsuit on June 9, 2010 — approximately seven months before S & S filed suit in state court. See ECF No. 87-1 at 16. Yet S & S submits 15 pages of billing entries — totaling nearly $24,000 — for work that it performed prior to June 9, 2010. Id. at 1-15. Most of those billing entries relate to S & S's representation of the Gurmans and the Babushkins during the administrative proceedings in which defendants attempted to terminate their Section
Even for the compensable tasks such as drafting the complaint, responding to the motions to dismiss, and attending hearings, it is impossible for the Court to divide S & S's time between the (compensable) due-process claims and the (non-compensable) other claims.
Much the same can be said with respect to plaintiffs' first amended complaint and their responses to the motions to dismiss. Had plaintiffs brought only due-process claims, for example, they would not have needed to: (1) file a 62-page, 226-paragraph amended complaint with over 150 pages of exhibits; (2) file a second amended complaint after being admonished by this Court; and (3) defend a second round of motions to dismiss.
The Court will therefore award plaintiffs attorney's fees and costs in the amount of $30,000. Although the Court has no trouble concluding that plaintiffs' $50,000 demand is unreasonable, it is impossible for the Court to determine the precise amount of fees and costs that were reasonably incurred in connection with the due-process claims. See Philipp v. ANR Freight Sys., Inc., 61 F.3d 669, 675 (8th Cir.1995) (explaining that the party seeking fees "bears the burden of establishing an accurate and reliable factual basis for an award of attorneys' fees ... and that the district court has wide discretion in making a fee award determination" (internal citations omitted)). Based on the Court's considerable experience with similar cases in this District, the Court concludes that had reasonable plaintiffs retained reasonable attorneys to reasonably pursue the due-process claims of the Gurmans and the Babushkins — and had those attorneys pursued those claims to a successful conclusion prior to engaging in substantial discovery — the plaintiffs would have incurred no more than $30,000 in attorney's fees and costs.
Based on the foregoing, and on all of the files, records, and proceedings herein, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED THAT:
The Court recognizes that some of plaintiffs' costs — such as the filing fee — are compensable, but the Court has taken those costs into account in determining that plaintiffs should recover a total of $30,000.
