461 U.S. 424 (1983) Cited 21,681 times 7 Legal Analyses
Holding a civil-rights plaintiff can recover attorney's fees for claims that "involve a common core of facts or will be based on related legal theories," even if only one of those claims arises under a fee-shifting statute
465 U.S. 886 (1984) Cited 8,873 times 4 Legal Analyses
Holding that fee shifting is “to be calculated according to the prevailing market rates in the relevant community, regardless of whether plaintiff is represented by private or nonprofit counsel”
Holding that “the absence of detailed contemporaneous time records, except in extraordinary circumstances, will call for a substantial reduction in any award or, in egregious cases, disallowance.”
Holding that "clerical or secretarial tasks ought not to be billed at lawyers' rates, even if a lawyer performs them," and finding that translating constitutes such a task
Holding that where "multiple claims are interrelated and a plaintiff has achieved only limited success . . . a court may . . . simply reduce the award to account for the limited success"
Holding that a complaint did not state a claim under the closed-ended theory where the scheme related to the fraudulent maintenance of a single contract, even though that scheme included multiple fraudulent acts
42 U.S.C. § 1988 Cited 21,853 times 43 Legal Analyses
Finding that 28 U.S.C. § 1920 defines the term "costs" as used in Rule 54(d) and enumerates the expenses that a federal court may tax as a cost under the discretionary authority granted in Rule 54(d)
Authorizing anti-discrimination suits "at the expiration of ninety days after the filing of a complaint with the [Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) ], or sooner if a commissioner assents in writing"