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Full Opinion
CITY OF RIVERSIDE ET AL.
v.
RIVERA ET AL.
Supreme Court of United States.
*563 Jonathan Kotler argued the cause and filed briefs for petitioners.
Gerald P. Lopez argued the cause and filed a brief for respondents.[*]
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc., et al. by Abby R. Rubenfeld; and for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., by Julius LeVonne Chambers and Charles Stephen Ralston.
Paul M. Smith and Joseph N. Onek filed a brief for the Washington Council of Lawyers et al. as amici curiae.
*564 JUSTICE BRENNAN announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion in which JUSTICE MARSHALL, JUSTICE BLACKMUN, and JUSTICE STEVENS join.
The issue presented in this case is whether an award of attorney's fees under 42 U. S. C. § 1988 is per se "unreasonable" within the meaning of the statute if it exceeds the amount of damages recovered by the plaintiff in the underlying civil rights action.
I
Respondents, eight Chicano individuals, attended a party on the evening of August 1, 1975, at the Riverside, California, home of respondents Santos and Jennie Rivera. A large number of unidentified police officers, acting without a warrant, broke up the party using tear gas and, as found by the District Court, "unnecessary physical force." Many of the guests, including four of the respondents, were arrested. The District Court later found that "[t]he party was not creating a disturbance in the community at the time of the break-in." App. 188. Criminal charges against the arrestees were ultimately dismissed for lack of probable cause.
On June 4, 1976, respondents sued the city of Riverside, its Chief of Police, and 30 individual police officers under 42 U. S. C. §§ 1981, 1983, 1985(3), and 1986 for allegedly violating their First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The complaint, which also alleged numerous state-law claims, sought damages and declaratory and injunctive relief. On August 5, 1977, 23 of the individual police officers moved for summary judgment; the District Court granted summary judgment in favor of 17 of these officers. The case against the remaining defendants proceeded to trial in September 1980. The jury returned a total of 37 individual verdicts in favor of the respondents and against the city and five individual officers, finding 11 violations of § 1983, 4 instances of false arrest and imprisonment, and 22 instances of negligence. Respondents were awarded $33,350 in compensatory and punitive *565 damages: $13,300 for their federal claims, and $20,050 for their state-law claims.[1]
Respondents also sought attorney's fees and costs under § 1988. They requested compensation for 1,946.75 hours expended by their two attorneys at a rate of $125 per hour, and for 84.5 hours expended by law clerks at a rate of $25 per hour, a total of $245,456.25. The District Court found both the hours and rates reasonable, and awarded respondents $245,456.25 in attorney's fees. The court rejected respondents request for certain additional expenses, and for a multiplier sought by respondents to reflect the contingent nature of their success and the high quality of their attorneys' efforts.
Petitioners appealed only the attorney's fees award, which the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed. Rivera v. City of Riverside, 679 F. 2d 795 (1982). Petitioners sought a writ of certiorari from this Court. We granted the writ, vacated the Court of Appeals' judgment, and remanded the case for reconsideration in light of Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U. S. 424 (1983). 461 U. S. 952 (1983). On remand, the District Court held two additional hearings, reviewed additional briefing, and reexamined the record as a whole. The court made extensive findings of fact and conclusions of law, and again concluded that respondents were entitled to an *566 award of $245,456.25 in attorney's fees, based on the same total number of hours expended on the case and the same hourly rates.[2] The court again denied respondents' request for certain expenses and for a multiplier.
Petitioners again appealed the fee award. And again, the Court of Appeals affirmed, finding that "the district court correctly reconsidered the case in light of Hensley . . . ." 763 F. 2d 1580, 1582 (1985). The Court of Appeals rejected three arguments raised by petitioners. First, the court rejected petitioners' contention that respondents' counsel should not have been compensated for time spent litigating claims other than those upon which respondents ultimately prevailed. Emphasizing that the District Court had determined that respondents' attorneys had "spent no time on claims unrelated to the successful claims," ibid., the Court of Appeals concluded that "[t]he record supports the district court's findings that all of the plaintiffs' claims involve a `common core of facts' and that the claims involve related legal theories." Ibid. The court also observed that, consistent with Hensley, the District Court had "considered the degree of success [achieved by respondents' attorneys] and found a reasonable relationship between the extent of that success and the amount of the fee award." 763 F. 2d, at 1582. Second, the Court of Appeals rejected the argument that the fee award was excessive because it exceeded the amount of damages awarded by the jury. Examining the legislative history of § 1988, the court found no support for the proposition that an award of attorney's fees may not exceed the amount of damages recovered by a prevailing plaintiff. Finally, the *567 court found that the District Court's "extensive findings of fact and conclusions of law" belied petitioners' claim that the District Court had not reviewed the record to determine whether the fee award was justified. The Court of Appeals concluded:
"In short, the district court applied the necessary criteria to justify the attorney's fees awarded and explained the reasons for the award clearly and concisely. As required by Hensley, the district court adequately discussed the extent of the plaintiffs' success and its relationship to the amount of the attorney's fees awarded. The award is well within the discretion of the district court." Id., at 1583 (citation omitted).
Petitioners again sought a writ of certiorari from this Court, alleging that the District Court's fee award was not "reasonable" within the meaning of § 1988, because it was disproportionate to the amount of damages recovered by respondents. We granted the writ, 474 U. S. 917 (1985), and now affirm the Court of Appeals.
II
A
In Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. Wilderness Society, 421 U. S. 240 (1975), the Court reaffirmed the "American Rule" that, at least absent express statutory authorization to the contrary, each party to a lawsuit ordinarily shall bear its own attorney's fees. In response to Alyeska, Congress enacted the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act of 1976, 42 U. S. C. § 1988, which authorized the district courts to award reasonable attorney's fees to prevailing parties in specified civil rights litigation. While the statute itself does not explain what constitutes a reasonable fee, both the House and Senate Reports accompanying § 1988 expressly endorse the analysis set forth in Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, Inc., 488 F. 2d 714 (CA5 1974). See S. Rep. No. 94-1011, p. 6 (1976) (hereafter Senate Report); H. R. *568 Rep. No. 94-1558, p. 8 (1976) (hereafter House Report). Johnson identifies 12 factors to be considered in calculating a reasonable attorney's fee.[3]
Hensley v. Eckerhart, supra, announced certain guidelines for calculating a reasonable attorney's fee under § 1988. Hensley stated that "[t]he most useful starting point for determining the amount of a reasonable fee is the number of hours reasonably expended on the litigation multiplied by a reasonable hourly rate." Id., at 433. This figure, commonly referred to as the "lodestar," is presumed to be the reasonable fee contemplated by § 1988. The opinion cautioned that "[t]he district court . . . should exclude from this initial fee calculation hours that were not `reasonably expended' " on the litigation. Id., at 434 (quoting Senate Report, at 6).
Hensley then discussed other considerations that might lead the district court to adjust the lodestar figure upward or downward, including the "important factor of the `results obtained.' " 461 U. S., at 434. The opinion noted that where a prevailing plaintiff has succeeded on only some of his claims, an award of fees for time expended on unsuccessful claims may not be appropriate. In these situations, the Court held that the judge should consider whether or not the plaintiff's unsuccessful claims were related to the claims on which he succeeded, and whether the plaintiff achieved a level of success that makes it appropriate to award attorney's fees for hours reasonably expended on unsuccessful claims:
*569 "In [some] cases the plaintiff's claims for relief will involve a common core of facts or will be based on related legal theories. Much of counsel's time will be devoted generally to the litigation as a whole, making it difficult to divide the hours expended on a claim-by-claim basis. Such a lawsuit cannot be viewed as a series of discrete claims. Instead the district court should focus on the significance of the overall relief obtained by the plaintiff in relation to the hours reasonably expended on the litigation." Id., at 435.
Accordingly, Hensley emphasized that "[w]here a plaintiff has obtained excellent results, his attorney should recover a fully compensatory fee," and that "the fee award should not be reduced simply because the plaintiff failed to prevail on every contention raised in the lawsuit." Ibid.
B
Petitioners argue that the District Court failed properly to follow Hensley in calculating respondents' fee award. We disagree. The District Court carefully considered the results obtained by respondents pursuant to the instructions set forth in Hensley, and concluded that respondents were entitled to recover attorney's fees for all hours expended on the litigation. First, the court found that "[t]he amount of time expended by counsel in conducting this litigation was reasonable and reflected sound legal judgment under the circumstances." App. 190.[4] The court also determined that *570 counsel's excellent performances in this case entitled them to be compensated at prevailing market rates, even though they were relatively young when this litigation began. See Johnson, 488 F. 2d, at 718-719 ("If a young attorney demonstrates the skill and ability, he should not be penalized for only recently being admitted to the bar").
The District Court then concluded that it was inappropriate to adjust respondents' fee award downward to account for the fact that respondents had prevailed only on some of their claims, and against only some of the defendants. The court first determined that "it was never actually clear what officer did what until we had gotten through with the whole trial," App. 236, so that "[u]nder the circumstances of this case, it was reasonable for plaintiffs initially to name thirty-one individual defendants . . . as well as the City of Riverside as defendants in this action." Id., at 188. The court remarked:
"I think every one of the claims that were made were related and if you look at the common core of facts that we had here that you had total success. . . . There was a problem about who was responsible for what and that problem was there all the way through to the time that we concluded the case. Some of the officers couldn't agree about who did what and it is not at all surprising that it would, in my opinion, have been wrong for you *571 not to join all those officers since you yourself did not know precisely who were the officers that were responsible." Id., at 235-236.
The court then found that the lawsuit could not "be viewed as a series of discrete claims," Hensley, 461 U. S., at 435:
"All claims made by plaintiffs were based on a common core of facts. The claims on which plaintiffs did not prevail were closely related to the claims on which they did prevail. The time devoted to claims on which plaintiffs did not prevail cannot reasonably be separated from time devoted to claims on which plaintiffs did prevail." App. 189.
The District Court also considered the amount of damages recovered, and determined that the size of the damages award did not imply that respondents' success was limited:
"[T]he size of the jury award resulted from (a) the general reluctance of jurors to make large awards against police officers, and (b) the dignified restraint which the plaintiffs exercised in describing their injuries to the jury. For example, although some of the actions of the police would clearly have been insulting and humiliating to even the most insensitive person and were, in the opinion of the Court, intentionally so, plaintiffs did not attempt to play up this aspect of the case." Id., at 188-189.[5]
The court paid particular attention to the fact that the case "presented complex and interrelated issues of fact and law," *572 id., at 187, and that "[a] fee award in this civil rights action will . . . advance the public interest," id., at 191:
"Counsel for plaintiffs . . . served the public interest by vindicating important constitutional rights. Defendants had engaged in lawless, unconstitutional conduct, and the litigation of plaintiffs' case was necessary to remedy defendants' misconduct. Indeed, the Court was shocked at some of the acts of the police officers in this case and was convinced from the testimony that these acts were motivated by a general hostility to the Chicano community in the area where the incident occurred. The amount of time expended by plaintiffs' counsel in conducting this litigation was clearly reasonable and necessary to serve the public interest as well as the interests of plaintiffs in the vindication of their constitutional rights." Id., at 190.
Finally, the District Court "focus[ed] on the significance of the overall relief obtained by [respondents] in relation to the hours reasonably expended on the litigation." Hensley, supra, at 435. The court concluded that respondents had "achieved a level of success in this case that makes the total number of hours expended by counsel a proper basis for making the fee award," App. 192:
"Counsel for plaintiffs achieved excellent results for their clients, and their accomplishment in this case was outstanding. The amount of time expended by counsel in conducting this litigation was reasonable and reflected sound legal judgment under the circumstances." Id., at 190.
Based on our review of the record, we agree with the Court of Appeals that the District Court's findings were not clearly erroneous. We conclude that the District Court correctly applied the factors announced in Hensley in calculating respondents' fee award, and that the court did not abuse its *573 discretion in awarding attorney's fees for all time reasonably spent litigating the case.[6]
III
Petitioners, joined by the United States as amicus curiae, maintain that Hensley's lodestar approach is inappropriate in civil rights cases where a plaintiff recovers only monetary damages. In these cases, so the argument goes, use of the lodestar may result in fees that exceed the amount of damages recovered and that are therefore unreasonable. Likening such cases to private tort actions, petitioners and the United States submit that attorney's fees in such cases should be proportionate to the amount of damages a plaintiff recovers. Specifically, they suggest that fee awards in damages cases should be modeled upon the contingent-fee arrangements commonly used in personal injury litigation. In this case, assuming a 33% contingency rate, this would entitle *574 respondents to recover approximately $11,000 in attorney's fees.
The amount of damages a plaintiff recovers is certainly relevant to the amount of attorney's fees to be awarded under § 1988. See Johnson, 488 F. 2d, at 718. It is, however, only one of many factors that a court should consider in calculating an award of attorney's fees. We reject the proposition that fee awards under § 1988 should necessarily be proportionate to the amount of damages a civil rights plaintiff actually recovers.
A
As an initial matter, we reject the notion that a civil rights action for damages constitutes nothing more than a private tort suit benefiting only the individual plaintiffs whose rights were violated. Unlike most private tort litigants, a civil rights plaintiff seeks to vindicate important civil and constitutional rights that cannot be valued solely in monetary terms. See Carey v. Piphus, 435 U. S. 247, 266 (1978). And, 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. . . ." Hensley, 461 U. S., at 444, n. 4 (BRENNAN, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). 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. In this case, for example, the District Court found that many of petitioners' unlawful acts were "motivated by a general hostility to the Chicano community," App. 190, and that this litigation therefore served the public interest:
"The institutional behavior involved here . . . had to be stopped and . . . nothing short of having a lawsuit like this would have stopped it. . . . [T]he improper motivation which appeared as a result of all of this seemed to *575 me to have pervaded a very broad segment of police officers in the department." Id., at 237.[7]
In addition, the damages a plaintiff recovers contributes significantly to the deterrence of civil rights violations in the future. See McCann v. Coughlin, 698 F. 2d 112, 129 (CA2 1983). This deterrent effect is particularly evident in the area of individual police misconduct, where injunctive relief generally is unavailable.
Congress expressly recognized that a plaintiff who obtains relief in a civil rights lawsuit " `does so not for himself alone but also as a `private attorney general,' vindicating a policy that Congress considered of the highest importance.' " House Report, at 2 (quoting Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., 390 U. S. 400, 402 (1968)). "If the citizen does not have the resources, his day in court is denied him; the congressional policy which he seeks to assert and vindicate goes unvindicated; and the entire Nation, not just the individual citizen, suffers." 122 Cong. Rec. 33313 (1976) (remarks of Sen. Tunney).
Because damages awards do not reflect fully the public benefit advanced by civil rights litigation, Congress did not intend for fees in civil rights cases, unlike most private law cases, to depend on obtaining substantial monetary relief. Rather, Congress made clear that it "intended that the amount of fees awarded under [§ 1988] be governed by the same standards which prevail in other types of equally complex Federal litigation, such as antitrust cases and not be reduced because the rights involved may be nonpecuniary in nature." Senate Report, at 6 (emphasis added). "[C]ounsel for prevailing parties should be paid, as is traditional with attorneys compensated by a fee-paying client, `for all time reasonably expended on a matter.'" Ibid. (quoting Van Davis *576 v. County of Los Angeles, 8 EPD ¶ 9444 (CD Cal. 1974) (emphasis added)). The Senate Report specifically approves of the fee awards made in cases such as Stanford Daily v. Zurcher, 64 F. R. D. 680 (ND Cal. 1974); Van Davis v. County of Los Angeles, supra; and Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 66 F. R. D. 483 (WDNC 1975). In each of these cases, counsel received substantial attorney's fees despite the fact the plaintiffs sought no monetary damages. Thus, Congress recognized that reasonable attorney's fees under § 1988 are not conditioned upon and need not be proportionate to an award of money damages. The lower courts have generally eschewed such a requirement.[8]
B
A rule that limits attorney's fees in civil rights cases to a proportion of the damages awarded would seriously undermine Congress' purpose in enacting § 1988. Congress enacted § 1988 specifically because it found that the private market for legal services failed to provide many victims of civil rights violations with effective access to the judicial process. See House Report, at 3. These victims ordinarily cannot afford to purchase legal services at the rates set by the private market. See id., at 1 ("Because a vast majority of the victims of civil rights violations cannot afford legal counsel, they are unable to present their cases to the courts"); Senate Report, at 2 ("In many cases arising under our civil rights laws, the citizen who must sue to enforce the law has little or no money with which to hire a lawyer"); see *577 also 122 Cong. Rec. 35127 (1976) (remarks of Rep. Holtzman) ("Plaintiffs who suffer discrimination and other infringements of their civil rights are usually not wealthy people"); id., at 35128 (remarks of Rep. Seiberling) ("Most Americans. . . cannot afford to hire a lawyer if their constitutional rights are violated or if they are the victims of illegal discrimination"); id., at 31832 (remarks of Sen. Hathaway) ("[R]ight now the vindication of important congressional policies in the vital area of civil rights is made to depend upon the financial resources of those least able to promote them"). Moreover, the contingent fee arrangements that make legal services available to many victims of personal injuries would often not encourage lawyers to accept civil rights cases, which frequently involve substantial expenditures of time and effort but produce only small monetary recoveries. As the House Report states:
"[W]hile damages are theoretically available under the statutes covered by [§ 1988], it should be observed that, in some cases, immunity doctrines and special defenses, available only to public officials, preclude or severely limit the damage remedy. Consequently, awarding counsel fees to prevailing plaintiffs in such litigation is particularly important and necessary if Federal civil and constitutional rights are to be adequately protected." House Report, at 9. (emphasis added; footnote omitted).
See also 122 Cong. Rec., at 33314 (remarks of Sen. Kennedy) ("[C]ivil rights cases unlike tort or antitrust cases do not provide the prevailing plaintiff with a large recovery from which he can pay his lawyer"). Congress enacted § 1988 specifically to enable plaintiffs to enforce the civil rights laws even where the amount of damages at stake would not otherwise make it feasible for them to do so:
"[F]ee awards have proved an essential remedy if private citizens are to have a meaningful opportunity to vindicate *578 the important Congressional policies which these laws contain.
". . . If private citizens are to be able to assert their civil rights, and if those who violate the Nation's fundamental laws are not to proceed with impunity, then citizens must have the opportunity to recover what it costs them to vindicate these rights in court." Senate Report, at 2.
See also Kerr v. Quinn, 692 F. 2d 875, 877 (CA2 1982) ("The function of an award of attorney's fees is to encourage the bringing of meritorious civil rights claims which might otherwise be abandoned because of the financial imperatives surrounding the hiring of competent counsel").
A rule of proportionality would make it difficult, if not impossible, for individuals with meritorious civil rights claims but relatively small potential damages to obtain redress from the courts. This is totally inconsistent with Congress' purpose in enacting § 1988. Congress recognized that private sector fee arrangements were inadequate to ensure sufficiently vigorous enforcement of civil rights. In order to ensure that lawyers would be willing to represent persons with legitimate civil rights grievances, Congress determined that it would be necessary to compensate lawyers for all time reasonably expended on a case.[9]
*579 This case illustrates why the enforcement of civil rights laws cannot be entrusted to private-sector fee arrangements. The District Court observed that "[g]iven the nature of this lawsuit and the type of defense presented, many attorneys in the community would have been reluctant to institute and to continue to prosecute this action." App. 189. The court concluded, moreover, that "[c]ounsel for plaintiffs achieved excellent results for their clients, and their accomplishment in this case was outstanding. The amount of time expended by counsel in conducting this litigation was reasonable and reflected sound legal judgment under the circumstances." Id., at 190. Nevertheless, petitioners suggest that respondents' counsel should be compensated for only a small fraction of the actual time spent litigating the case. In light of the difficult nature of the issues presented by this lawsuit and the low pecuniary value of many of the rights respondents sought to vindicate, it is highly unlikely that the prospect of a fee equal to a fraction of the damages respondents might recover would have been sufficient to attract competent counsel.[10] Moreover, since counsel might not have found it economically feasible to expend the amount of time respondents' counsel found necessary to litigate the case properly, it is even less likely that counsel would have achieved the excellent results that respondents' counsel obtained here. Thus, had respondents had to rely on private-sector fee arrangements, they might well have been unable to obtain redress for their *580 grievances. It is precisely for this reason that Congress enacted § 1988.
IV
We agree with petitioners that Congress intended that statutory fee awards be "adequate to attract competent counsel, but . . . not produce windfalls to attorneys." Senate Report, at 6. However, we find no evidence that Congress intended that, in order to avoid "windfalls to attorneys," attorney's fees be proportionate to the amount of damages a civil rights plaintiff might recover. Rather, there already exists a wide range of safeguards designed to protect civil rights defendants against the possibility of excessive fee awards. Both the House and Senate Reports identify standards for courts to follow in awarding and calculating attorney's fees, see ibid.; House Report, at 8; these standards are designed to ensure that attorneys are compensated only for time reasonably expended on a case. The district court has the discretion to deny fees to prevailing plaintiffs under special circumstances, see Hensley, 461 U. S., at 429 (citing Senate Report, at 4), and to award attorney's fees against plaintiffs who litigate frivolous or vexatious claims. See Christiansburg Garment Co. v. EEOC, 434 U. S. 412, 416-417 (1978); Hughes v. Rowe, 449 U. S. 5, 14-16 (1980) (per curiam); House Report, at 6-7. Furthermore, we have held that a civil rights defendant is not liable for attorney's fees incurred after a pretrial settlement offer, where the judgment recovered by the plaintiff is less than the offer. Marek v. Chesny, 473 U. S. 1 (1985).[11] We believe that *581 these safeguards adequately protect against the possibility that § 1988 might produce a "windfall" to civil rights attorneys.
In the absence of any indication that Congress intended to adopt a strict rule that attorney's fees under § 1988 be proportionate to damages recovered, we decline to adopt such a rule ourselves.[12] The judgment of the Court of Appeals is hereby
Affirmed.
JUSTICE POWELL, concurring in the judgment.
I join only the Court's judgment. The plurality opinion reads our decision in Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U. S. 424 (1983), more expansively than I would, and more expansively than is necessary to decide this case. For me affirmance quite simply is required by the District Court's detailed findings of fact, which were approved by the Court of Appeals. On its face, the fee award seems unreasonable. But I find no basis for this Court to reject the findings made and approved by the courts below.
I
Because the history of the case is relevant to my views, I summarize it. City police officers, without warrants, forcibly entered a private residence where respondents were attending a party and arrested four of them. Criminal charges were lodged against those arrested, but later were dismissed. Respondents instituted this action on June 4, 1976, against petitioners city of Riverside, its Chief of Police, and *582 30 police officers. In addition to compensatory and punitive damages, the complaint sought preliminary and permanent injunctions against the city and its police force to prevent further alleged "discriminatory harassment" against Mexican Americans. At some point in the proceedings, respondents abandoned their claims for injunctive relief. On January 10, 1978, the District Court granted summary judgment in favor of 17 of the defendant police officers. Following extensive discovery, the case finally went to trial on September 16, 1980. After nine days of trial, and seven days of deliberations, the jury returned verdicts against the city and only five of the officers.
Specifically, the jury found that the city and three of the officers had violated 42 U. S. C. § 1983, and awarded $13,300 in compensatory and punitive damages for these civil rights violations. The jury also concluded that the city and five of the officers, including the three found to have violated § 1983, had committed numerous acts of common-law negligence, false arrest, and false imprisonment. For these state-law claims, the jury awarded damages of $20,050, bringing total damages to $33,350. Respondents sought attorney's fees under 42 U. S. C. § 1988. Their two lawyers, each having been admitted to practice for approximately five years, claimed compensation for 1,946.75 hours at a rate of $125 per hour each, and for 84.5 hours by law clerks at $25 per hour, for a total of $245,456.25. As emphasized by petitioners, this award was some seven times the amount of compensatory and punitive damages awarded.
The District Court approved in full the requested amount.[1] On appeal, petitioners challenged only the fee award, and the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed. Rivera v. City of Riverside, 679 F. 2d 795 (1982). On May 31, 1983, we granted certiorari, vacated the Court of Appeals' judgment, and remanded the case for reconsideration in light of Hensley *583 v. Eckerhart, supra. 461 U. S. 952 (1983). On remand, the District Court heard oral argument and "reconsidered the memoranda, affidavits, and exhibits previously filed by the parties, as well the record as a whole." App. to Pet. for Cert. 2-2. That court then made explicit findings of fact, including the following that are relevant to the fee award:
1. "All claims made by plaintiffs were based on a common core of facts. The claims on which plaintiffs did not prevail were closely related to the claims on which they did prevail. The time devoted to claims on which plaintiffs did not prevail cannot reasonably be separated from time devoted to claims on which plaintiffs did prevail."
2. "Counsel demonstrated outstanding skill and experience in handling this case."
3. "[M]any attorneys in the community would have been reluctant to institute and to continue to prosecute this action."
4. The number of hours claimed to have been expended by the two lawyers was "fair and reasonable."
5. "Counsel for plaintiffs achieved excellent results for their clients, and their accomplishment in this case was outstanding. The amount of time expended by counsel. . . was reasonable and reflected sound legal judgment under the circumstances."
6. Counsel "also served the public interest by vindicating important constitutional rights."
7. The "hourly rate [of $125 per hour is] typical of the prevailing market rate for similar services by lawyers of comparable skill, experience and reputation within the Central District at the time these services were performed."
8. Finally, in view of the level of success attained in this case, "the total number of hours expended by counsel [is] a proper basis for making the fee award." Id., at 2-6 to 2-10.
*584 Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 52(a) provides that "[f]indings of fact [by a district court] shall not be set aside unless clearly erroneous . . . ." The Court of Appeals did not disagree with any of the foregoing findings by the District Court. I see no basis on which this Court now could hold that these findings are clearly erroneous. See Anderson v. Bessemer City, 470 U. S. 564 (1985). To be sure, some of the findings fairly can be viewed as conclusions or matters of opinion, but the findings that are critical to the judgments of the courts below are objective facts. JUSTICE REHNQUIST's arguments in dissent suggest that the District Court may have been mistaken. But, as we observed in Bessemer City, "a reviewing court [may not] reverse the finding of the their of fact simply because it is convinced that it would have decided the case differently." Id., at 573.
II
I comment briefly on the principal arguments made by petitioners. They emphasize that although suit was instituted against the city, its Chief of Police, and 30 police officers, respondents prevailed only against the city and 5 of the officers. It is true that under Hensley fees should not be awarded for hours spent on claims as to which the plaintiffs were unsuccessful. Hensley also teaches, however, that where a "lawsuit consists of related claims, a plaintiff who has won substantial relief should not have his attorney's fee reduced simply because the district court did not adopt each contention raised." 461 U. S., at 440. Here, the District Judge who presided throughout this protracted litigation found that the claims of respondents rested on a "common core of facts," and involved related legal theories. Since the suit was premised on one episode, the only significant variation in the facts supporting the claims against the several defendants concerned the extent of the participation by the various *585 police officers.[2] Petitioners offer no persuasive reason to question the District Court's express finding that "[t]he time devoted to claims on which plaintiffs did not prevail cannot reasonably be separated from time devoted to claims on which plaintiffs did prevail." App. to Pet. for Cert. 2-6 to 2-7.
Petitioners argue for a rule of proportionality between the fee awarded and the damages recovered in a civil rights case. Neither the decisions of this Court nor the legislative history of § 1988 support such a "rule." The facts and circumstances of litigation are infinitely variable. Under Hensley, of course, "the most critical factor [in the final determination of fee awards] is the degree of success obtained." 461 U. S., at 436. Where recovery of private damages is the purpose of a civil rights litigation, a district court, in fixing fees, is obligated to give primary consideration to the amount of damages awarded as compared to the amount sought. In some civil rights cases, however, the court may consider the vindication of constitutional rights in addition to the amount of damages recovered. In this case, for example, the District Court made an explicit finding that the "public interest" had been served by the jury's verdict that the warrantless entry *586 was lawless and unconstitutional. Although the finding of a Fourth Amendment violation hardly can be considered a new constitutional ruling, in the special circumstances of this case, the vindication of the asserted Fourth Amendment right may well have served a public interest, supporting the amount of the fees awarded.[3] As the District Court put it, there were allegations that the police misconduct was "motivated by a general hostility to the Chicano community in the area . . . ." App. to Pet. for Cert. 2-8. The record also contained evidence of racial slurs by some of the police.
Finally, petitioners also contend that in determining a proper fee under § 1988 in a suit for damages the court should consider the prevailing contingent-fee rate charged by counsel in personal injury cases. The use of contingent-fee arrangements in many types of tort cases was customary long before Congress enacted § 1988. It is clear from the legislative history that § 1988 was enacted because existing fee arrangements were thought not to provide an adequate incentive to lawyers particularly to represent plaintiffs in unpopular civil rights cases. I therefore find petitioners' asserted analogy to personal injury claims unpersuasive in this context. Cf. Memphis Community School Dist. v. Stachura, ante, p. 299.
III
In sum, despite serious doubts as to the fairness of the fees awarded in this case, I cannot conclude that the detailed findings made by the District Court, and accepted by the Court of Appeals, were clearly erroneous, or that the District Court abused its discretion in making this fee award.[4]
*587 CHIEF JUSTICE BURGER, dissenting.
I join JUSTICE REHNQUIST's dissenting opinion. I write only to add that it would be difficult to find a better example of legal nonsense than the fixing of attorney's fees by a judge at $245,456.25 for the recovery of $33,350 damages.
The two attorneys receiving this nearly quarter-million-dollar fee graduated from law school in 1973 and 1974; they brought this action in 1975, which resulted in the $33,350 jury award in 1980. Their total professional experience when this litigation began consisted of Gerald Lopez' 1-year service as a law clerk to a judge and Roy Cazares' two years' experience as a trial attorney in the Defenders' Program of San Diego County. For their services the District Court found that an hourly rate of $125 per hour was reasonable.
Can anyone doubt that no private party would ever have dreamed of paying these two novice attorneys $125 per hour in 1975, which, considering inflation, would represent perhaps something more nearly a $250 per hour rate today? For example, as JUSTICE REHNQUIST points out, post, at 590, would any private litigant be willing to pay a total of $17,875 simply for preparation of a pretrial order?
*588 This fee award plainly constitutes a grave abuse of discretion which should be rejected by this Court particularly when we have already vacated and remanded this identical fee award previously rather than simply affirming the District Court's findings as not being either "clearly erroneous" or an "abuse of discretion." See ante, at 572-573. The Court's result will unfortunately only add fuel to the fires of public indignation over the costs of litigation.
JUSTICE REHNQUIST, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE, JUSTICE WHITE, and JUSTICE O'CONNOR join, dissenting.
In Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U. S. 424, 433 (1983), our leading case dealing with attorney's fees awarded pursuant to 42 U. S. C. § 1988, we said that "[t]he most useful starting point for determining the amount of a reasonable fee is the number of hours reasonably expended on the litigation multiplied by a reasonable hourly rate." As if we had foreseen the case now before us, we went on to emphasize that "[t]he district court . . . should exclude from this initial fee calculation hours that were not `reasonably expended' " on the litigation. Id., at 434, quoting S. Rep. No. 94-1011, p. 6 (1976). Today, despite its adoption of a revisionist interpretation of Hensley, the plurality nonetheless acknowledges that "Hensley requires a fee applicant to exercise `billing judgment' not because he should necessarily be compensated for less than the actual number of hours spent litigating a case, but because the hours he does seek compensation for must be reasonable." Ante, at 569, n. 4 (emphasis in original). I see no escape from the conclusion that the District Court's finding that respondents' attorneys "reasonably" spent 1,946.75 hours to recover a money judgment of $33,350 is clearly erroneous, and that therefore the District Court's award of $245,456.25 in attorney's fees to respondents should be reversed. Th