Background
Morgan Pianko worked for General RV Center at a Michigan dealership. In March 2018, she alleged that her supervisor Christopher Miller exposed himself and attempted to force her to have sex with him at an out-of-town RV show. After reporting the incident to the company’s human resources manager on the following Thursday, General suspended Miller for two weeks. However, HR then told Pianko she must return to work by Monday—eleven days after reporting the assault—or be terminated. Pianko did not return, treating this ultimatum as a constructive discharge.
After obtaining a right-to-sue letter from the EEOC, Pianko sued in December 2020 against General, Miller, the HR manager, and board members, asserting sexual harassment and retaliation claims under Title VII and Michigan state law. The case proceeded for three and a half years, with one defendant dismissed in May 2023 and claims against Miller settled confidentially in January 2024. In June 2024, less than a month before trial, Pianko settled her remaining claims against General and the other defendants for $300,000, plus attorney’s fees and costs to be determined by the court.
The Court’s Holding
The Sixth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s fee award. The court upheld the $400 hourly rate for Pianko’s attorney Michael Curhan, even though he sought $600–$675 per hour with support from three affidavits showing such rates were reasonable in Michigan’s employment law market. The court found $400 adequate to attract competent counsel, exceeding the 2020 average for plaintiff-side employment lawyers and nearly matching 2023 rates.
On hours deducted, the court affirmed the removal of 500.2 hours for work on claims against Miller alone or in separate state-court cases, finding such hours not properly billable to other defendants. However, the court reversed the deduction of 93.8 hours for “premature trial preparation,” holding that work done during active litigation cannot be rejected merely because trial remained months away. The court also found an arithmetic error in the district court’s 50% reduction of remaining hours: the trial court improperly deducted an additional 249.2 hours before applying the 50% cut, which was an abuse of discretion and must be corrected on remand.
The court affirmed the 10% lodestar reduction based on Curhan’s failure to clearly segregate hours by claim and defendant, though it rejected the trial court’s reasoning about lack of success on all alternative legal theories. The court denied prejudgment interest on the fee award, finding that the fixed $400 hourly rate—16% above the 2020 average—already adequately compensates for the time value of money during the six-year litigation. On expert witness costs, the court affirmed the denial of the full $47,395 claim due to inadequate documentation, but required that $11,848.75 be awarded based on the defendants’ concession and the importance of the expert’s 52-page Rule 26 report.
Key Takeaways
- An hourly rate selected by the district court need not match rates at the 95th percentile of market rates if it exceeds historical averages and is adequate to attract competent counsel.
- Hours worked during active litigation cannot be disqualified as “premature” trial preparation merely because the trial date remained distant at the time the work was performed.
- When a district court applies percentage reductions to a lodestar calculation, the arithmetic and reasoning must be transparent and clearly explained; unexplained intermediate deductions before a percentage cut constitute reversible error.
- A flat hourly rate can satisfy the requirement to compensate for the time value of money in contingency-fee cases, particularly when the rate exceeds average market rates during the years the attorney worked.
- Expert witness costs must be documented, but a party relying on an expert’s report that the court itself cited can be awarded at least those costs the opposing party conceded were owed.
Why It Matters
This decision clarifies important boundaries in Title VII attorney’s fee awards, particularly for plaintiffs’ counsel working on contingency. It establishes that district courts must calculate fee awards with arithmetic precision and cannot reject work as premature simply because it predates a known trial date—a standard that protects practitioners who must prepare thoroughly months in advance. The case also confirms that a reasonable hourly rate, properly calculated, can incorporate compensation for delay without requiring separate prejudgment interest, providing some relief to district courts managing fee disputes.
For plaintiffs’ employment lawyers and their clients, the decision is a partial vindication: while the $400 rate was upheld and some fee reductions were affirmed, the Sixth Circuit corrected what it found to be an unexplained and erroneous arithmetic deduction, resulting in a higher final award ($337,320 in fees plus $29,314.25 in costs, plus appellate fees) than the district court’s original $275,580. The ruling reinforces that fee-shifting in Title VII cases requires careful accounting and cannot rely on rough percentage cuts without clear justification.