Quint v. A.E. Staley Manufacturing Co. , 84 F. App'x 101 ( 2003 )

Not for Publication in West's Federal Reporter
Citation Limited Pursuant to 1st Cir. Loc. R. 32.3
United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 03-1268
JACQUELYN M. QUINT,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
A.E. STALEY MANUFACTURING COMPANY,
Defendant, Appellee.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE
[Hon. George Z. Singal, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Torruella, Circuit Judge,
Cyr, Senior Circuit Judge,
and Oberdorfer*, Senior District Judge.
Dana A. Curhan for appellant.
David G. Webbert, Johnson & Webbert, LLP, Stephen A. Roach,
and Roach & Wise, LLP, on brief for appellee.
December 19, 2003
*
Of the United States District Court for the District of
Columbia, sitting by designation.
Per Curiam. Jacquelyn Quint commenced a civil action
against her employer, A.E. Staley Manufacturing Co., alleging
employment discrimination based on disability. Following a jury
trial, an appeal, and a settlement following remand, Quint
recovered a $485,000 award for back pay, compensatory damages, and
future wages. See Quint v. A.E. Staley Mfg. Co., 172 F.3d 1 (1st
Cir. 1999). At issue in the instant appeal are the fees received
by two attorneys Quint retained to litigate her case. Attorney
David Webbert accepted Quint's case pursuant to a contingent fee
agreement, wherein he agreed (i) to accept a 25% contingency fee,
rather than his customary 40% contingency fee, as well as any
statutory fees awarded Quint under the pertinent fee-shifting
statute. Attorney Stephen Roach in turn negotiated a 15%
contingency fee, plus statutory fees. Attorney Webbert's
contingent fee award amounted to $156,079.80; Attorney Roach's
contingent fee award came to $80,648.42. Finally, Attorney Webbert
was awarded $99,363.69 in statutory fees; Attorney Roach
$52,811.92. Quint v. A.E. Staley Mfg. Co., 245 F. Supp. 2d 162,
182 (D. Me. 2003).
Quint contends on appeal that the district court erred in
declining to reduce (i.e., offset) the contingent fees, awarded to
her former attorneys, by the amount of the statutory fees they
received, and that the fee award unfairly accorded Webbert and
Roach “windfall” compensation exceeding their customary hourly
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rates. Quint's contentions fail.
First, unlike statutory fees, which normally are
delimited to “reasonable” compensation, fee awards predicated upon
fee agreements privately negotiated between attorney and client are
reviewed more deferentially; in the sense that we will exercise our
supervisory power to reduce a fee award predicated upon a fee
agreement only in those “exceptional circumstances” where the fee
assessed by counsel is “unethically excessive.” Sargeant v. Sharp,
579 F.2d 645, 648 n.4 (1st Cir. 1978); see Gobert v. Williams, 323
F.3d 1099, 1100 (5th Cir. 2003) (“‘[T]here is nothing in [the fee-
shifting statute] to regulate what plaintiffs may or may not
promise to pay their attorneys [in contingent fees] if they lose or
if they win.’”) (quoting Venegas v. Mitchell, 495 U.S. 82, 87-88
(1990)).
The record on appeal in the instant case discloses no
such exceptional circumstances. At the time she retained her
former attorneys, Quint voluntarily agreed not only to compensate
them with a substantially lower contingent fee, but to assign them
her rights to any statutory fees as well. The record further
reveals that Attorney Webbert's able representation enabled Quint
to surmount several significant legal obstacles – such as Quint’s
conceded failure to mitigate damages – which contributed
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substantially to Quint’s $485,000 recovery.1 In turn, Attorney
Roach skillfully prosecuted the first appeal Quint brought before
this court, and succeeded not only in increasing the back-pay award
to Quint, from $8,000 to $46,000, but in securing a remand to the
district court to adjudicate her previously dismissed reinstatement
claim, which ultimately garnered Quint an additional $100,000. As
the record on appeal plainly discloses, the instant appeal is
utterly meritless.
Affirmed; double costs are awarded to the appellee. SO
ORDERED.
1
Attorney Webbert acknowledges on appeal that, were he to
receive litigation expenses as part of his statutory and contingent
fee awards, he might be realizing an impermissible double recovery
of litigation expenses. In reliance upon Webbert’s representation
to us that he will eschew such double reimbursement (if any), we
affirm, subject to the district court’s prerogative to revisit this
aspect of the fee award should Webbert fail to honor this
representation.
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