Hensley v. Eckerhart
E823907
Hensley v. Eckerhart is a landmark 1983 U.S. Supreme Court decision that established the modern standard for determining reasonable attorney’s fee awards for prevailing parties in civil rights litigation.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Hensley v. Eckerhart canonical | 2 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T9829364 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Hensley v. Eckerhart Context triple: [Civil Rights Attorney’s Fees Awards Act of 1976, keyCase, Hensley v. Eckerhart]
-
A.
Lucas v. Earl
Lucas v. Earl is a landmark 1930 U.S. Supreme Court tax law case that established the principle that income is taxed to the person who earns it, regardless of contractual arrangements to split or assign that income.
-
B.
Hurd v. Hodge
Hurd v. Hodge is a 1948 U.S. Supreme Court case that held racially restrictive covenants in property deeds could not be judicially enforced in the District of Columbia because such enforcement would violate the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.
-
C.
Hines v. Davidowitz
Hines v. Davidowitz is a 1941 U.S. Supreme Court case that held federal law preempts conflicting state alien-registration laws under the Supremacy Clause.
-
D.
Eisner v. Macomber
Eisner v. Macomber is a 1920 U.S. Supreme Court case that held a pro rata stock dividend was not taxable income under the Sixteenth Amendment, shaping early federal income tax doctrine.
-
E.
Argersinger v. Hamlin
Argersinger v. Hamlin is a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court case that extended the right to counsel to defendants in misdemeanor cases that may result in imprisonment.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Hensley v. Eckerhart Target entity description: Hensley v. Eckerhart is a landmark 1983 U.S. Supreme Court decision that established the modern standard for determining reasonable attorney’s fee awards for prevailing parties in civil rights litigation.
-
A.
Lucas v. Earl
Lucas v. Earl is a landmark 1930 U.S. Supreme Court tax law case that established the principle that income is taxed to the person who earns it, regardless of contractual arrangements to split or assign that income.
-
B.
Hurd v. Hodge
Hurd v. Hodge is a 1948 U.S. Supreme Court case that held racially restrictive covenants in property deeds could not be judicially enforced in the District of Columbia because such enforcement would violate the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.
-
C.
Hines v. Davidowitz
Hines v. Davidowitz is a 1941 U.S. Supreme Court case that held federal law preempts conflicting state alien-registration laws under the Supremacy Clause.
-
D.
Eisner v. Macomber
Eisner v. Macomber is a 1920 U.S. Supreme Court case that held a pro rata stock dividend was not taxable income under the Sixteenth Amendment, shaping early federal income tax doctrine.
-
E.
Argersinger v. Hamlin
Argersinger v. Hamlin is a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court case that extended the right to counsel to defendants in misdemeanor cases that may result in imprisonment.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (49)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf | United States Supreme Court case ⓘ |
| appliesTo |
civil rights actions under 42 U.S.C. § 1983
ⓘ
other federal statutes with fee-shifting provisions modeled on 42 U.S.C. § 1988 ⓘ |
| citation |
103 S. Ct. 1933
ⓘ
461 U.S. 424 ⓘ 76 L. Ed. 2d 40 ⓘ |
| concurrenceBy |
Harry A. Blackmun
ⓘ
John Paul Stevens ⓘ Thurgood Marshall ⓘ William J. Brennan Jr. ⓘ |
| concurrenceType | concurrence in part and dissent in part ⓘ |
| country |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| court | Supreme Court of the United States ⓘ |
| decisionDate | 1983-05-16 ⓘ |
| defendant | Eckerhart ⓘ |
| docketNumber | 81-1244 ⓘ |
| holding |
A prevailing plaintiff in a civil rights action should ordinarily recover attorney’s fees unless special circumstances would render such an award unjust.
ⓘ
Courts should provide a concise but clear explanation of their reasons for fee awards. ⓘ District courts have discretion to reduce fee awards to account for limited success. ⓘ Fee applicants bear the burden of documenting the appropriate hours expended and hourly rates. ⓘ Related claims involving a common core of facts or related legal theories should generally be treated as one lawsuit for fee purposes. ⓘ The most critical factor in determining the reasonableness of a fee award is the degree of success obtained. ⓘ Unrelated unsuccessful claims should be excluded from the fee calculation. ⓘ Where a plaintiff achieves only partial or limited success, the product of hours reasonably expended on the litigation as a whole times a reasonable hourly rate may be an excessive amount. ⓘ |
| influenced | subsequent federal fee-shifting jurisprudence ⓘ |
| issue |
standard for determining reasonable attorney’s fees for prevailing parties in civil rights litigation
ⓘ
treatment of partially successful plaintiffs in fee awards ⓘ treatment of related and unrelated claims in fee calculations ⓘ |
| joinedByInMajority |
Byron R. White
ⓘ
Harry A. Blackmun ⓘ Sandra Day O’Connor ⓘ Thurgood Marshall ⓘ Warren E. Burger ⓘ William H. Rehnquist ⓘ William J. Brennan Jr. ⓘ |
| jurisdiction | federal ⓘ |
| languageOfOpinion | English ⓘ |
| legalArea |
attorney’s fees
ⓘ
civil procedure ⓘ civil rights law ⓘ |
| majorityOpinionBy | Lewis F. Powell Jr. ⓘ |
| originatingCourt | United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri ⓘ |
| partyStatusOfPlaintiff | prevailing party ⓘ |
| plaintiff | Hensley ⓘ |
| proceduralPosture | appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ⓘ |
| standardClarified | adjustment of lodestar based on degree of success obtained ⓘ |
| standardEstablished | lodestar method for calculating reasonable attorney’s fees ⓘ |
| statuteInterpreted | 42 U.S.C. § 1988 ⓘ |
| term | October Term 1982 ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Hensley v. Eckerhart Description of subject: Hensley v. Eckerhart is a landmark 1983 U.S. Supreme Court decision that established the modern standard for determining reasonable attorney’s fee awards for prevailing parties in civil rights litigation.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.