Judge Refuses to Apply a Multiplier and Denies Costs to Successful City in Same Lawsuit.
Robert C. Heston, Jr. died after Tasers were deployed against him by Salinas police officers, death resulting in the aftermath of cardiac arrest. His mother/father and estate executor sued Salinas, the individual police officers, and TASER International (the manufacturer of the Taser, claiming negligent failure to provide warnings that repeated applications of the electrical current in a Taser can cause cardiac arrest). The jury found for Salinas but against TASER, awarding estate executor $21,000 in compensatory damages and $200,000 in punitive damages and awarding parents $1,000,000 in compensatory damages and $5,000,000 as well as finding decedent was 85% at fault—which reduced the respective compensatory damages to $3,150 and $150,000. In post-trial motion proceedings, U.S. District Judge James Ware found that the punitive damages were inappropriate for both executor and parents, meaning that the remaining compensatory damage recovery totaled $153,150.
That brings us to the juncture that this blog lives and breathes for: plaintiffs’ motion for attorney’s fees and Salinas’ motion for costs.
In Heston v. City of Salinas, Case No. C 05-03658 JW (N.D. Cal.), District Judge Ware awarded plaintiffs $1,423,127 in attorney’s fees as against TASER and denied Salinas’ motion for costs against plaintiffs. See 1/30/09 Order Granting Plaintiffs’ Motion For Attorney Fees; Denying Defendant Salinas’ Motion For Costs, Document 401 filed in N.D. Cal. Case 05-cv-03658-JW.
The basis for the fees award? Answer: California Code of Civil Procedure section 1021.5 (the private attorney general statute). After noting the four conjunctive requirements that must be satisfied per Vasquez v. State, 2008 WL 4936884 at *4 (Cal. 2008), District Judge Ware appeared to have little difficulty in finding fees were appropriate under the circumstances:
- Important right affecting the public interest—this was satisfied given the increasingly widespread use of Tasers as law enforcement weapons, such that warnings about their use is an issue of significant societal importance;
- Significant benefit to the public or a large class of persons—this was met because (1) plaintiffs produced evidence that law enforcement officials all over the world were reconsidering and reforming their usage and training policies for Tasers as a result of the verdict, and (2) “the specter that further liability could result from [TASER’s] inaction remains a conceptual benefit to the public” (Slip Opn, at p. 8);
- Financial burden of private enforcement—this was the first verdict by a jury against TASER for negligence, such that the prospect that plaintiffs would recover nothing (especially in light of evidence that decedent contributed to his own death through drug abuse) and the actual recovery of only $153,150 showed the financial burden transcended plaintiffs’ personal interest in the outcome; and
- Interest of justice—this was satisfied because the non-fee litigation expenses of plaintiffs’ counsel exceeded the recovery such that it would be unfair not to compensate them for fee work that resulted in a significant public benefit.
Plaintiffs requested a lodestar enhancement of 2, but this was denied by District
Judge Ware after he applied the multiplier factors in Ketchum v. Moses, 24 Cal.4th 1122, 1132 (2001) [one of our Leading Cases]. Awarding the full amount of plaintiffs’ lodestar was deemed adequate compensation.
Salinas moved for costs from plaintiffs under Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(d)(1). Although costs are presumptively available to a prevailing party like Salinas, a district judge does have discretion to deny costs where a case is not “ordinary” and where it would be inappropriate/inequitable to award costs. (Assoc. of Mexican-American Educators v. California, 231 F.3d 572, 593 (9th Cir. 2000).) District Judge Ware found this was an extraordinary case, with an award to Salinas being contrary to the goal of section 1021.5 to incentivize private litigants to bring public interest actions that offer little personal reward. Costs were denied to Salinas.
BLOG UNDERVIEW—Some readers may want to know why the punitive damage awards were found to be improper. Earlier, District Judge Ware granted TASER’s motion for JNOV because he found no basis in the jury verdict to award punitive damages to the estate executor and also found no punitive damages could be awarded to plaintiffs under the wrongful death claim. See Document 374, 10/24/08 Order Granting Defendant TASER’s Renewed Motion For Judgment; Denying Defendant TASER’s Alternative Motion For A New Trial.