## Facts

- A civil-rights plaintiff brought a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action alleging false arrest and a conspiracy to deny a fair trial through perjured testimony.
- After an initial limitations dismissal was reversed, the plaintiff retained an attorney under a contingent-fee contract providing 40% of the gross recovery, with terms addressing the relationship between the contract fee and any court-awarded fees.
- The plaintiff won a jury verdict and judgment of about $2.08 million.
- The attorney sought and obtained a statutory attorney’s fee award under 42 U.S.C. § 1988; the district court awarded $117,000 in total fees, including $75,000 attributed to the attorney’s work (calculated under a lodestar methodology with an enhancement).
- After disputes about continued representation, the plaintiff hired new counsel; the former attorney asserted an attorney’s lien seeking payment under the contingent-fee agreement, which exceeded the § 1988 amount attributed to him.
- The plaintiff argued the attorney’s compensation should be limited to the § 1988 “reasonable” fee found by the court and that the contingent fee was excessive.

## Issues

1. Whether 42 U.S.C. § 1988 invalidates or limits a contingent-fee contract requiring a prevailing civil-rights plaintiff to pay counsel more than the statutory fee award assessed against the defendant.
2. Whether § 1988’s “reasonable attorney’s fee” standard governs the enforceability or amount of a private attorney-client contingent-fee agreement in a civil-rights case.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment upholding enforceability of the contingent-fee agreement notwithstanding a smaller § 1988 fee award.
- The Court held that § 1988 does not restrict a plaintiff’s ability to enter a contingent-fee contract that yields compensation greater than the statutory fee shifted to the defendant.
- The Court distinguished between fees awarded as costs against a losing defendant and the plaintiff’s separate contractual obligation to counsel.
- The Court rejected the view that § 1988 was intended to regulate private fee contracts or to guarantee that prevailing plaintiffs will pay no fees from their recoveries.
- The Court treated any challenge to the fairness of the contingent fee as a matter for state contract law and professional-responsibility rules, not a federal limitation imposed by § 1988.

## Legal Principles

- A statutory attorney’s fee award under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 does not invalidate or cap a prevailing plaintiff’s contractual obligation to pay counsel under a contingent-fee agreement, even if the contract fee exceeds the statutory award.
- Section 1988 governs what the losing party must pay as a fee-shifting cost; it does not set reasonableness limits for attorney-client fee contracts.
- The entitlement to § 1988 fees belongs to the prevailing party rather than counsel, reinforcing that statutory fee-shifting is distinct from private fee arrangements.
- “Reasonableness” for § 1988 fee-shifting purposes is conceptually separate from the enforceability or excessiveness analysis applied to contingent fees under state law and ethics rules.

## Conclusion

The Court held that § 1988 fee-shifting does not displace or limit private contingent-fee contracts in civil-rights litigation; plaintiffs may be contractually bound to pay counsel more than the statutory “reasonable” fee assessed against the defendant, subject to ordinary state-law and ethical constraints.


Venegas v. Mitchell, 495 U.S. 82 (1990)