Weyker v. Quiles et al

Filing 36

ORDER signed by Judge Pamela Pepper on 9/4/2015 GRANTING in part and DENYING in part 25 Motion for Attorneys' Fees and Costs. (cc: all counsel) (pwm)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF WISCONSIN
TANYA WEYKER,
Plaintiff,
Case No. 14-cv-782-pp
v.
DEPUTY JOSEPH QUILES, et al.,
Defendants.

ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND DENYING IN PART PLAINTIFF’S
MOTION FOR ATTORNEYS’ FEES AND COSTS (DKT. NO. 25)

This case is before the court on plaintiff Tanya Weyker’s petition for
attorneys’ fees and costs pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §1988. For the reasons stated
below, the court grants in part and denies in part the petition.
I.

FEES INCURRED BY WEYKER’S ORIGINAL COUNSEL, ERICKSON &
OPPENHEIMER
At the outset, the court notes that Erickson & Oppenhemier has

corrected the discrepancy between the numbers of hours for which the firm
requested compensation in its fee petition (see Dkt. No. 28-2 at 23-29)
compared to the number of hours for which it requested compensation in its
response brief in support of that petition (see Dkt. No. 31 at 6). The fee petition
sought compensation for 110.75 hours, while the response brief sought
compensation for only 74.75 hours (the number of hours billed by Ms.
Maisuria, omitting the additional 25.25 hours billed by Mr. Erickson and the

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10.75 hours billed by Mr. Oppenheimer). See Dkt. No. 28-2 at 23-29. In a posthearing brief, the firm confirmed that it is seeking compensation for 110.75
hours of attorney time, amounting to $45,962.50. Dkt. No. 34.
The defendants argue that Erickson & Oppenheimer’s $45,962.50 in
requested fees is excessive, because Erickson & Oppenheimer used quarterhour billing and its hourly rates were based on Chicago-area rates, not
Milwaukee-area rates. The defendants also argue that the court should exclude
certain fees and costs related to administrative matters.
A.

Erickson & Oppenheimer’s Requested Hourly Rates Are Not
Excessive
“Fee-shifting statutes in civil rights legislation are intended to allow

litigants access to attorneys who would otherwise be inaccessible, given the low
retainers many plaintiffs can afford.” Mathur v. Bd. of Trs. of S. Ill. Univ., 317
F.3d 738, 743 (7th Cir. 2003) (citing City of Riverside v. Rivera, 477 U.S. 561,
576, 106 S. Ct. 2686 (1986). For that reason, courts prefer to “compensate
attorneys for the amount that they would have earned from paying clients, i.e.,
the standard hourly rate.” Id.
The court presumes that an attorney’s “actual billing rate for similar
litigation is appropriate to use as the market rate.” Pickett v. Sheridan Health
Care Ctr., 664 F.3d 632, 640 (7th Cir. 2011). The “next best evidence” of a
reasonable market rate is “evidence of rates similarly experienced attorneys in
the community charge paying clients for similar work and evidence of fee

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awards the attorney has received in similar cases.” Id. (quoting Spegon v.
Catholic Bishop of Chicago, 175 F.3d 544, 555 (7th Cir. 1999)).
The party seeking fees bears the burden of “produc[ing] satisfactory
evidence—in addition to the attorney’s own affidavits—that the requested rates
are in line with those prevailing in the community.” Id. (quoting Blum v.
Stenson, 465 U.S. 886, 895 n. 11, 104 S. Ct. 1541 (1984)). Once the fee
applicant satisfies this burden, the other party must provide “a good reason
why a lower rate is essential.” Id. (quoting People Who Care v. Rockford Bd. of
Educ., Sch. Dist. No. 205, 90 F.3d 1307, 1313 (7th Cir. 1996)).
“An attorney may charge higher than the community’s average if she
possesses an unusual amount of skill, the ability to [empathize] with the jury,
investigative abilities, or other qualities which command a premium. However,
if the district court decides that the proffered rate overstates the value of an
attorney’s services, it may lower them accordingly. Mathur, 317 F.3d at 743
(citing Chrapliwy v. Uniroyal, Inc., 670 F.2d 760, 767 (7th Cir. 1982) (“A judge
may well approach high rates with skepticism, and he may exercise some
discretion in lowering such rates. For example, an attorney may be
overqualified . . . or an attorney may bill at a high rate but rarely collect at that
rate.”).
An attorney’s reasonable hourly rate is “derived from the market rate for
the services rendered.” Pickett, 664 F.3d at 640 (quoting Denius v. Dunlap, 330
F.3d 919, 930 (7th Cir. 2003)). If an out-of-town attorney has a higher hourly
rate than local practitioners, district courts should defer to the out-of-town
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attorney’s rate when calculating the lodestar amount, though if “local attorneys
could do as well, and there is no other reason to have them performed by the
former, then the judge, in his discretion, might allow only an hourly rate which
local attorneys would have charged for the same service.” Chrapliwy, 670 F.2d
at 768.
The Seventh Circuit has “consistently recognized that an attorney’s
actual billing rate for comparable work is presumptively appropriate for use as
a market rate when making a lodestar calculation.” Jeffboat LLC v. Dir., Office
of Workers’ Comp. Programs, 553 F.3d 487, 490 (7th Cir. 2009) (citing Spegon,
175 F.3d at 555). The Jeffboat opinion explains that, while the Mathur court
held that “ ‘if an out of town attorney has a higher hourly rate than local
practitioners, district courts should defer to the out-of-town attorney’s rate
when calculating the lodestar amount,’ ”it also noted that the district judge had
discretion to “adjust an out-of-town attorney’s rate downward when calculating
the lodestar amount if local counsel could have provided comparably effective
legal services and the rate of the out-of-town practitioner was higher than the
local market rate.” Id.
In this case, Erickson & Oppenheimer petitioned the court to award
attorneys’ fees based on an hourly rate of $550 per hour for attorneys Erickson
and Oppenheimer, and $375 per hour for attorney Maisuria. The defendants
argue that the claimed rates are excessive because they are based on Chicagoarea rates, not the prevailing rates of civil rights practitioners in the Milwaukee
area. Based on the case law discussed above, the court finds that Erickson &
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Oppenheimer has adequately established the market rates of the attorneys
involved in this case, and they are not excessive.
Because the Erickson & Oppenheimer firm is located in Chicago, the
court should defer to their Chicago-area rates under Jeffboat. The court
determines that Erickson & Oppenheimer has provided ample evidence of its
actual billing rates and market rates, including affidavits from each of the
attorneys involved in Weyker’s case and several contingency fee agreements in
which clients have agreed to pay $550 per hour for attorneys Erickson’s and
Oppenheimer’s legal services (though it is not clear whether they have actually
collected that sum).
In further support of Mr. Erickson’s and Mr. Oppenheimer’s hourly rate,
Erickson & Oppenheimer cited a federal civil rights case in which the “City of
Chicago did not object to Mr. Erickson’s and Mr. Oppenheimer’s hourly rate of
$500 per hour,” contained in a 2014 fee petition and relating to time billed in
2012. Cooper v. Dailey, No. 07-cv-2144, Dkt. No. 379-1 at 59-99 (N.D. Ill.). To
support Ms. Maisuria’s hourly rate, Erickson & Oppenheimer cited a federal
civil rights case in the Northern District of Illinois in which Ms. Maisuria was
awarded fees in 2011 based on an hourly rate of $300. Carrel v. Sisk, No. 09cv-844, Dkt. Nos. 111, 113 (N.D. Ill.). The court further recognizes that Mr.
Erickson and Mr. Oppenheimer each have 25 years of litigation experience and
have substantial experience litigating criminal and civil rights cases, while Ms.
Maisuria has nine years of litigation experience, and has specialized in civil
rights litigation for much of that time.
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When considering the passage of time since those rates were awarded,
the court finds an increase of $50 per hour for Mr. Erickson and Mr.
Oppenheimer, and $75 per hour for Ms. Maisuria, is not unreasonable. See Fox
v. Barnes, No. 09-cv-5453, 2014 WL 4401802, at *3 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 15, 2013)
(Holderman, J.)( “hourly fees often increase over time, both because of inflation
and because of the increasing skill and reputation of the attorney, suggesting
that rates higher than those awarded three years ago are appropriate.”).
Accordingly, the court finds that Erickson & Oppenheimer has met its
burden of demonstrating that its requested hourly rates are not excessive.
B.

A 5% Reduction in Erickson & Oppenheimer’s Time Reasonably
Accounts for Potential Time Inflation Based on Quarter-Hour Billing
The defendants challenge Erickson & Oppenheimer’s use of quarter-hour

billing, arguing that use of quarter-hour increments, as opposed to tenth-hour
increments, unreasonably inflates attorney time. Erickson & Oppenheimer
responds that quarter-hour billing is not per se unreasonable, and that it
routinely bills in quarter-hour increments.
The defendants rely heavily on LaSalvia v. City of Evanston, No. 10-C3076, 2012 WL 2502703 (N.D. Ill., June 28, 2012). That court held that
“[q]uarter-hour billing is not per se unreasonable, but may be unreasonable
under the facts and circumstances of a given case.” Id. at 3 (internal citations
omitted). In that case, an attorney’s billing records contained “163 separate
entries, 91 of which are for .25 hours, often on account of phone calls or emails.” Id. The court explained that nine minutes is the greatest amount of

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time that quarter-hour billing can inflate attorney time over the use of tenthhour billing, which can inflate a bill by a maximum of only five minutes. Using
that calculation, the court found that “the greatest possible amount by which
the quarter-hour convention inflated [the billing attorney’s] time is 24.45 hours
(163 entries multiple by 9 minutes per entry), 8.4% of the 290 total hours that
Plaintiff claims for [the attorney].” Id. The court recognized, however, “that not
each of these .25 entries inflate[d] [the attorney’s] time by 9 minutes,” and
exercised “its discretion to reduce [the attorney’s] time by 5% on account of his
use of quarter-hour billing.” Id. (citing Harper v. City of Chicago Heights, 223
F.3d 593, 605 (7th Cir. 2000).
The time entries in this case are similar to those at issue in LaSalvia.
Here, the defendants argue that “Erickson & Oppenheimer’s billing records
contain 166 separate entries, 90 of which are for .25 hours, often for reviewing
or drafting emails or phone calls.” Dkt. No. 27 at 5. The number of entries at
issue in this case is almost identical to the number at issue in LaSalvia.
LaSalvia, 2012 WL 2502703, at *3 (163 separate entries, 91 of which were for
.25 hours). For reasons that were not explained in their brief, the defendants
ask the court “to reduce Erickson & Oppenheimer’s time by 20% on account of
its use of quarter-hour billing,” even though the LaSalvia court reduced the
attorney’s time by only 5%. Erickson & Oppenheimer responds that such a
reduction is “extreme.”
The court finds the defendants’ requested 20% reduction is excessive,
and likely overstates the amount of time inflation that might have occurred in
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this case. Using the LaSalvia court’s method of calculation (which, admittedly,
was art, not science), the court finds that if each of Erickson & Oppenheimer’s
166 time entries inflated its time by nine minutes, the total increase would be
24.9 hours, or 22.5% of the firm’s total billed time of 110.75 hours. A 20%
reduction of the firm’s total billed time eliminates 22.15 hours. So, by asking
for a 20% reduction in Erickson & Oppenheimer’s total billed time, the
defendants effectively are asking the court to conclude that almost all of
Erickson & Oppenheimer’s time entries overstate the attorney’s actual time by
nine minutes. As the LaSalvia court noted, this is statistically unlikely to be the
case.
The defendants’ request lacks any justification in the record.1 The court
finds that the proposed 20% reduction is too great, and adopts instead the
LaSalvia court’s rough cut of a 5% reduction of Erickson & Oppenheimer’s fees.
The court concludes that a 5% reduction reasonably accounts for potential
time inflation due to quarter-hour billing.

At the hearing on the fee petition, the defendants argued that the proposed
20% reduction was warranted due to a higher proportion of .25 hour entries in
this case versus LaSalvia. The court disagrees with that analysis. In this case,
as the defendants themselves argued in their brief, “Erickson & Oppenheimer’s
billing records contain 166 separate entries, 90 of which are for .25 hours
. . . .” Dkt. No. 27 at 5. In LaSalvia, the plaintiff’s billing records contained “163
separate entries, 91 of which are for .25 hours.” LaSalvia, 2012 WL 2502703,
at *3. The amount of total entries and quarter-hour entries in this case is
virtually identical to LaSalvia, and the court finds no basis for the defendants’
request to eliminate 20% of Erickson & Oppenheimer’s total billed time due to
its use of quarter-hour billing.
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C.

The Court Excludes 2.25 Hours Billed by Mr. Erickson After the Date
the Plaintiff Accepted the Defendants’ Rule 68 Offer of Judgment
Mr. Erickson’s billing records reflect that on March 3, 2015 and

March 13, 2015, he spent a total of 2.25 hours in connection with the
plaintiff’s fee petition. Dkt. No. 28-2 at 24. But by that time, the plaintiff had
accepted the defendants’ February 19, 2015 Rule 68 offer of judgment. The
plaintiff’s notice of acceptance of the offer, filed on the court’s docket, is dated
February 26, 2015. Dkt. No. 28-1 at 1. Fed. R. Civ. P. 68(a) allows a defendant
to serve “an offer to allow judgment on specified terms, with the costs then
accrued.” Further, the language of the settlement offer itself states that the
plaintiff could have a judgment against the defendants, plus costs, “said costs
to include reasonable attorneys fees incurred to date as allowed under 42 U.S.C.
§1988 . . . .” Id. at 2 (emphasis added). Both Rule 68 and the Rule 68
agreement make clear that the plaintiff was entitled to attorneys’ fees through
the date of the offer; the 2.25 hours Mr. Erickson put in on March 3 and 13
occurred after that date. The court will reduce the award of fees by those 2.25
hours.
D.

Erickson & Oppenheimer Withdrew its Requests for Administrative
Fees and Costs Related to Admission to the Eastern District of
Wisconsin
Erickson & Oppenheimer has withdrawn its request for $356.25 in

attorneys’ fees related to 4.75 hours spent completing administrative tasks,
and $687.00 of costs associated with admission to the Eastern District of
Wisconsin. Dkt. No. 31 at 5. Taking into account those reductions, Erickson &

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Oppenheimer requests $447.99 in administrative costs, which the defendants
do not oppose. Dkt. No. 29 at 2.
E.

Lodestar Calculation
Based on the discussion above, the court arrives at the following lodestar

calculation with regard to Erickson & Oppenheimer’s fee petition.

Attorney or
Timekeeper

Requested
Hours

Reductions

Awarded
Hours

Awarded Lodestar
Rate/Hour Amount
Or Costs

Rule 68(a) 1/4 Hour
Billing

Admin.
Tasks

Bar
Admission
Costs

2.25

1.25

—

—

21.75

$550.00

$11,962.50

Oppenheimer 10.75

—

0.50

—

—

10.25

$550.00

$5,637.50

74.75

—

3.75

—

—

71.00

$375.00

$26,625.00

4.75

$687.00

0

$447.99

$447.99

Erickson
Maisuria

25.25

Administrative 4.75

$44,672.99

TOTAL

The court exercises its discretion to grant Weyker’s motion for attorneys’
fees in the amount of $44,672.99 as to work performed by Erickson &
Oppenheimer, which the court determines is a reasonable amount under the
circumstances of this case, and to deny the motion as to any amount in excess
of $44,672.99.
II.

FEES INCURRED BY WEYKER’S SUCCESSOR COUNSEL, MARTIN
LAW OFFICE
The defendants ask the court to exclude a significant amount of time

billed by Weyker’s successor counsel, Martin Law Office, as duplicative of work
already performed by Erickson & Oppenheimer, unnecessary in light of the
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settlement negotiations that were underway at the time Weyker discharged
Erickson & Oppenheimer, or unrecoverable under Fed. R. Civ. P. 68(a) because
the work was performed after Weyker accepted the defendants’ Rule 68 offer of
judgment.
A.

The Court Excludes 40.5 Hours of Time Billed by Martin Law Office
as Duplicative of Work Performed by Erickson & Oppenheimer
After taking over Weyker’s representation in mid-December 2014, the

Martin Law Office billed over 110 hours through March 5, 2015. Dkt. No. 28-2
at 47-50. Martin Law Office’s billing records show that its attorneys and
professional staff spent a substantial amount of reviewing the file, including
the pleadings, deposition transcripts, and other discovery materials. Id. The
defendants argue that the court should exclude 79.6 hours (comprised of 58.4
hours of duplicative time and 15.2 hours of time incurred after the date of the
defendants’ Rule 68 offer of judgment) billed by Martin Law Office.
Weyker contends that Martin Law Office had an ethical duty to learn the
facts of her case and conduct research quickly in order to “competently
analyze” her claims. Dkt. No. 26 at 21. She concedes that Martin Law Office’s
“ethical duty necessitated the duplication of some of the work conducted by
Erickson & Oppenheimer.” Id. Weyker posits, however, that the court should
not reduce Martin Law Office’s fees, because a reasonable client would expect
her new lawyer “to abide by their ethical duties of competence and diligence”
and to do so under the circumstances would result in a considerable
investment of time and money. Dkt. No. 26 at 21-22.

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A federal district court in Massachusetts recently decided that courts
“may reduce attorneys’ fees based on duplication of effort or unreasonable
expenditure of time.” Roggio v. Grasmuck 18 F. Supp. 3d 49, 57 (D. Mass.
2014) (a civil action involving violations of the Massachusetts Criminal
Offender Record Information). Although the circumstances in Roggio that led
the plaintiff to change counsel are not clear, that court concluded that “[a]ny
duplication of effort by plaintiff’s attorneys after he switched legal teams should
not be awarded as attorneys’ fees. Id.
A court in the Southern District of New York reached the same
conclusion in an employment discrimination case in which the plaintiff
prevailed. Watson v. E.S. Sutton, Inc., No. 02 Civ. 02739(KMW), 2006 WL
6570643, *7 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 11, 2006) (“Fees for services rendered by successive
attorneys may be reimbursed under the fee-shifting statute so long as the fees
do not reflect duplicative or otherwise unreasonable work.”) (quoting Paulino v.
Upper W. Side Parking Garage, Inc., No. 96 Civ. 4910(MGC), 1999 WL 325363,
at *3 (S.D.N.Y. May 20, 1999). “However, where a plaintiff has made a decision
to replace counsel during the course of a litigation, courts in this district have
reduced the amount of attorneys’ fees recovered where the replacement caused
unnecessary duplication of efforts.” Id. (citing Annis v. Cnty. of Westchester,
939 F. Supp. 1115, 1123 (S.D.N.Y.1996)).
The Supreme Court held in 2011 that “[t]he essential goal in shifting fees
(to either party) is to do rough justice, not to achieve auditing perfection. So
trial courts may take into account their overall sense of a suit, and may use
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estimates in calculating and allocating an attorney’s time.” Fox v. Vice, 131 S.
Ct. 2205, 2216 (2011).
The court agrees that Martin Law Office had an ethical duty to represent
Weyker competently. Part of that duty was becoming acquainted with her case
by reviewing the file to learn the history of the litigation, and Martin Law Office
can recover a reasonable amount of fees for that purpose. The court finds,
however, that a portion of Martin Law Office’s fees is not reasonable to charge
to the defendants. Many of the firm’s billing entries—representing a substantial
amount of the firm’s total hours—relate to time spent reviewing what Erickson
& Oppenheimer already had done.
Based on Martin Law Office’s (at times) vague time descriptions, it is
difficult for the court to precisely parse the amount of time that Martin Law
Office spent reviewing Weyker’s file versus conducting new work. Nonetheless,
it is clear that Martin Law Office spent a lot of time reviewing the file during the
month of January 2014, and the court agrees with the defendants that Martin
Law Office’s fees must be reduced to some extent to account for the duplication
of efforts between Erickson & Oppenheimer and Martin Law Office.
Upon review of Martin Law Office’s time descriptions, the court finds that
7 hours billed by Mr. De Vinney and 4.5 hours billed by a paralegal associated
with Martin Law Office should be excluded because that time duplicates the
efforts of Erickson & Oppenheimer or was spent reviewing Weyker’s file.

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B.

The Plaintiff Is Not Entitled to Recover Fees and Costs Incurred by
Martin Law Office After The Effective Date of The Offer of Judgment
The court agrees with the defendants that the fees and costs incurred by

Martin Law Office after February 19, 2015 must be excluded in accordance
with Fed. R. Civ. P. 68(a) and the language of the Rule 68 offer. Martin Law
Office argues that the Rule 68 offer is ambiguous as to whether it allows for the
recovery of fees between the date of the offer and the date Weyker accepted it.
The court sees no such ambiguity. The Rule 68 offer’s statement that the
plaintiff would not be able to recover fees “from this date forward”—the date of
the offer, February 19, 2015—is unambiguous, and by accepting the
agreement, Weyker agreed not to seek fees after that date.
The court will not exclude, however, the costs Martin Law Office had
accrued but which had not actually been paid before the date of the Rule 68
offer. Accordingly, the court excludes 14.7 hours billed by Mr. De Vinney, .3
hours billed by Mr. Martin, and .2 hours billed by a paralegal after February
19, 2015, along with $4.00 in costs that Martin Law Office accrued on
February 25, 2015. Dkt. No. 28-2 at 50. The court allows the remainder of
Martin Law Office’s costs.
C.

Lodestar Calculation
Based on the discussion above, the court arrives at the following lodestar

calculation with regard to Martin Law Office’s fee petition.

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Attorney or
Timekeeper

Requested
Hours or
Costs

Reductions

Awarded
Hours

Awarded Lodestar
Rate/Hour Amount
Or Costs

Duplicative Rule 68(a)
Efforts
De Vinney

79.8

7.0

14.7

58.1

$250.00

$14,525.00

Martin

4.5

—

0.3

4.2

$250.00

$1.050.00

Paralegal

26.1

4.5

0.2

21.4

$150.00

$3,210.00

—

$4.00

—

$1,781.34

$1,781.34

Administrative $1,785.34

82.7

TOTAL

$20,566.34

The court exercises its discretion to grant Weyker’s motion for attorneys’
fees in the amount of $20,566.34 as to work performed by Martin Law Office,
which the court determines is a reasonable amount under the circumstances of
this case, and deny the motion to the extent that it requests fees in excess of
that amount.
III.

THE AMOUNT OF DAMAGES WEYKER RECOVERED DOES NOT
LIMIT THE AMOUINT OF REASONABLE ATTORNEYS’ FEES IN THIS
CASE
The defendants argue that the fees Wyker seeks are unreasonable in

light of the relatively small dollar amount of the recovery her attorneys
obtained. This argument ignores the substantial non-monetary value of the
result those attorneys obtained.
In City of Riverside v. Rivera, 477 U.S. 561, 584-86, 106 S. Ct. 2686
(1986), the Supreme Court held that the amount of damages a plaintiff
recovers is relevant to the amount of attorneys’ fees to be awarded under
§1988, but it does not limit the amount of attorneys’ fees that can be recovered
in a civil rights action. The defendants do not expressly argue that the court
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should award attorneys’ fees in an amount less than $30,000, but they note
that Weyker’s counsel, collectively, have sought over $73,000 in fees in a case
that the parties settled for $30,000. The defendants argued that a reasonable
amount of attorneys’ fees would have been about $19,000.
The court is aware that the award of attorneys’ fees in this case exceeds
the amount that Weyker recovered, but the court finds that the purposes
served by this civil rights case justify an award of attorneys’ fees greater than
the damages recovered. As the Supreme Court stated in City of Riverside:
Congress has determined that the public as a whole
has an interest in the vindication of the rights
conferred by the statutes enumerated in § 1988, over
and above the value of a civil rights remedy to a
particular plaintiff. Regardless of the form of relief he
actually obtains, a successful civil rights plaintiff often
secures important social benefits that are not reflected
in nominal or relatively small damages awards.
Id. (internal quotation marks, citation, and alteration omitted).
In this case, Weyker was arrested and charged with driving a vehicle
while intoxicated, allegedly because a Milwaukee County sheriff’s deputy
wanted to escape blame and liability for a traffic collision—and serious
injuries—that he caused after failing to stop at a stop sign and crashing into
Weyker’s car. After video evidence surfaced proving that the sheriff’s deputy
had made inaccurate statements about the collision, both as to his role in the
collision and Weyker’s, the criminal charges against Weyker were dismissed.
But they never should have been filed in the first place.

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Citizens have a right to expect that they will not be falsely prosecuted.
Citizens have a right to expect that law enforcement officers will not make false
statements to cover up their own mistakes and to escape liability for injuries
they cause to citizens. The court hopes (and believes) that the result of this
case will have salutary effects on the truthfulness of police officers, and the
court concludes that the dollar amount of damages Weyker recovered should
not mitigate the amount of reasonable attorneys’ fees the court has discretion
to award. After all, the fee-shifting statute is “an integral part of the remedies
necessary to obtain compliance with civil rights laws.” Evans v. Jeff D., 475
U.S. 717, 731, 106 S. Ct. 1531 (1986).
The court concludes that the social benefits potentially resulting from
this case justify an award of attorneys’ fees in excess of the damages Weyker
recovered.
IV.

CONCLUSION
The court ORDERS that the plaintiff’s motion for attorneys’ fees is

GRANTED in the total amount of $65,239.33, representing an award of
$44,672.99 in attorneys’ fees to Erickson & Oppenheimer, and an award of
$20,566.34 in attorneys’ fees to Martin Law Office. The court ORDERS that the

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plaintiff’s motion is DENIED to the extent that it requests fees in excess of that
amount.
Dated in Milwaukee, Wisconsin this 4th day of September 2015.

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