Judgment Not Inclination

The Tennessee Court of Appeals remanded a fee award in a disability discrimination claim to require application of the fee factors set out in RPC 1.5

Ms. Garner sought an award of $695,660 in attorney fees for prevailing on her claim pursuant to the TDA. See Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 8-50-103, 4-21-306, and 4-21- 311(b) (stating that the court “may award to the plaintiff actual damages sustained by such plaintiff, together with the costs of the lawsuit, including a reasonable fee for the plaintiff’s attorney of record”). Ms. Garner contended that the requested fee was reasonable when analyzed pursuant to the ten factors the courts have been directed to consider in the Tennessee Rules of Professional Conduct, Tenn. Sup. Ct. R. 8, RPC 1.5. She supported her request for attorney fees with a declaration from her counsel and itemized billing statements showing 1,430.6 hours of time billed at the rate of $450 per hour, in addition to 157.7 hours of time billed at a paralegal rate of $100 per hour. She also filed four declarations from other local attorneys in support of her request. In her supporting memorandum, Ms. Garner argued that the TDA is the type of statute that is enacted for the purpose of protecting the rights of Tennessee citizens and the public interest, and therefore, any fee award under the TDA is not subject to a proportionality argument in relation to the amount of damages awarded, citing Smith v. All Nations Church of God, No. W2019-02184-COA-R3-CV, 2020 WL 6940703, at *10 (Tenn. Ct. App. Nov. 25, 2020), City of Riverside v. Rivera, 477 U.S. 561, 576-78 (1986), and Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 435 (1983).

The trial court had awarded over $500,000 in fees, 34 times the jury award

Because it does not appear that the trial court actually evaluated the amount of the fee in light of the appropriate factors, and the findings it made do not permit us to conduct a meaningful review of its decision, we vacate and remand for a new determination under the applicable factors and caselaw. We reiterate that “‘[d]iscretionary choices are not left to a court’s inclination, but to its judgment; and its judgment is to be guided by sound legal principles.’”

(Mike Frisch)