However, Ninth Circuit Did Agree The District Court, On Remand, Could Find Use of Recycled Work And Errors In The Fee Petition Would Justify A Reduction On Reasonableness Grounds.
In Price v. Diab, No. 25-713 (9th Cir. July 13, 2026) (published), the district court granted an American with Disability Act (ADA) plaintiff a default injunction and injunctive relief against defendant store/its owner, ordering them to update the store’s premises to provide great accessibility for disabled persons visiting the premises. However, the district judge denied plaintiff attorney’s fees under the rationale that she was not the prevailing party because the injunction only required the defendant to do what federal law already required. The wholesale denial of fees was reversed, because injunctive relief—even under a default judgment—does change the legal relationship between the parties, with the district court misreading language in Fischer v. SJB-P.D. Inc., 214 F.3d 1115 (9th Cir. 2000).
However, on remand, the district judge was entitled to consider if the fee request was reasonable given that plaintiff’s attorneys may have used recycled work and made errors in the fee request paper, given that a straightforward default request without opposition and quality of lawyering are factors to be considered in adjudging fee requests.