Marion Sinclair v. Andrew Meisner

Summary

The Sixth Circuit vacated the district court's $1,361,476.51 attorney-fee award in two consolidated Takings Clause suits against Oakland County, holding that counsel's request — more than 4,800 hours seeking $4.2 million — was pervasively unreasonable and contained “not a trace” of the billing judgment that fee-shifting demands. The panel directed categorical exclusion of 573 hours spent on doomed class-certification motions, 189 hours litigating claims against non-County defendants, and 32.5 hours billed to a never-filed motion; capped appellate hours at 75 of 1,643 and one lawyer's hours at 10 of 999; upheld the district court's 40% reduction and 1.1 multiplier for the remainder; and set a $325 blended hourly rate, holding that the district court abused its discretion by ignoring the County's $300 blended-rate argument. Judge Bush concurred separately, writing that the cuts were relatively lenient and that the court could have excluded all fees incurred after the defendants' November 2024 settlement offers and up to 80% of hours billed after May 2023, though he treated those additional grounds as forfeited.