The Oyez Project: Attorneys Issues - Attorneys' Fees Decisions

Alyeska Pipeline Co. v. Wilderness Society

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Ardestani v. Immigration And Naturalization Service

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Arlington Central School District Board of Education v. Murphy

Does the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act permit parents to recover fees they pay to experts during legal actions against school districts?

No. In a 6-to-3 decision authored by Justice Samuel Alito, the Supreme Court held that IDEA did not authorize reimbursement of expert fees. "While authorizing the award of reasonable attorney's fees, the Act contains detailed provisions that are designed to ensure that such awards are indeed reasonable," Justice Alito wrote. "The absence of any comparable provisions relating to expert fees strongly suggests that recovery of expert fees is not authorized." Justice Alito went on to write that the case was made even simpler by the fact that, as an exercise of Congress's Spending Clause power, any provision requiring reimbursement of expert fees would have had to be "unambiguous," which it clearly was not. Justice Ginsburg, who joined the majority in finding that expert fees were not covered, wrote separately to disagree with that portion of the opinion.

Blanchard v. Bergeron

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Blum v. Stenson

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Boeing Co. v. Van Gemert

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Bowen v. Galbreath

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Bradley v. Richmond School Board

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Buckhannon Board & Care Home v. West Virginia

Does the term "prevailing party" include a party that has failed to secure a judgment on the merits or a court-ordered consent decree, but has nonetheless achieved the desired result because the lawsuit brought about a voluntary change in the defendant's conduct?

No. In a 5-4 opinion delivered by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, the Court held that the "catalyst theory" is not a permissible basis for the award of attorney's fees under the FHAA and ADA. "In the United States, parties are ordinarily required to bear their own attorney's fees -- the prevailing party is not entitled to collect from the loser," wrote Chief Justice Rehnquist, "[u]nder this 'American Rule,' we follow 'a general practice of not awarding fees to a prevailing party absent explicit statutory authority.'" Dissenting, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg argued that "Congress prescribed fee-shifting provisions like those included in the FHAA and ADA to encourage private enforcement of laws designed to advance civil rights. Fidelity to that purpose calls for court-awarded fees when a private party's lawsuit, whether or not its settlement is registered in court, vindicates rights Congress sought to secure."

Christiansburg Garment Co. v. EEOC

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City Of Burlington v. Dague

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Commissioner, INS v. Jean

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Department of Labor v. Triplett

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Evans v. Jeff D.

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F. D. Rich Co., v. Industrial Lumber Co.

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Farrar, Coadministrators Of Estate Of Farrar, Deceased v. Hobby

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Fleischmann Distilling Corp. v. Maier Brewing Co.

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Flight Attendants v. Zipes

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Fogerty v. Fantasy, Inc.

Do federal courts have discretion over whether or not to force a loosing party to pay all or part of the victorious party's attorney's fees?

Yes. In a unanimous opinion, the Court held that while attorney's fees are awarded from time to time to prevailing defendants or plaintiffs, this practice is entirely subject to the deciding court's discretion. Indeed, the Court observed, that the statute in question emphasizes such discretion by stating in relevant part that a court "may" award attorney's fees. The Court concluded that such discretion is to be applied evenhandedly between victorious defendants and plaintiffs.

Gisbrecht v. Barnhart

Do lodestar fee awards for attorneys who successfully represent Social Security benefits claimants in court, under 42 USC section 406(b), displace contingent-fee agreements within the statutory ceiling?

No. In an 8-1 opinion delivered by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Court held that section 406(b) does not displace contingent-fee agreements within the statutory ceiling; instead, section 406(b) instructs courts to review for reasonableness fees yielded by those agreements. The Court reasoned that, because section 406(b) was enacted at a time when contingent fee agreements were prevalent in Social Security cases and before the lodestar method of calculating fees was developed, section 406 was intended to prohibit only unreasonable contingent fee agreements and reasonable agreements remained enforceable. Justice Antonin Scalia dissented.

Hall v. Cole

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Hensley v. Eckerhart

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Hewitt v. Helms

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Hopkins v. Cohen

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Hughes v. Rowe

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Kay v. Ehrler

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Kentucky v. Graham

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Lamie v. United States Trustee

Did Congress intend to omit bankruptcy attorneys from the list of people a corporation could pay during Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceedings?

Yes. In a unanimous decision, the Court upheld the Fourth Circuit, ruling that the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1994 did not authorize the payment of bankruptcy attorneys by corporations going through Chapter 7 bankruptcy. According to Justice Anthony Kennedy's opinion for the Court: "The statute is awkward, and even ungrammatical; but that does not make it ambiguous on the point at issue." The Court ruled that though the Act's deletion of the words "or to the debtor's attorney" from the Bankruptcy Code had rendered a sentence grammatically incorrect, the Act should still be interpreted according to the plain meaning of its text, however awkward. The Court found the legislative history of the Act inconclusive, and concluded that "we must determine intent from the statute before us." The text of the statute, erroneously or not, omitted bankruptcy attorneys from the list of people bankrupt corporations could pay. r

Library Of Congress v. Shaw

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Maher v. Gagne

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Marek v. Chesny

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Martin v. Franklin Capital Corp.

What standard should federal courts use when determining whether to award attorney's fees after an improperly removed case is remanded to state court?

In a unanimous decision authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Court ruled that "absent unusual circumstances, attorney's fees should not be awarded when the removing party has an objectively reasonable basis for removal." The Court admitted that Section 1447 is unclear on when attorney's fees should be added. The Court's reading of the statute detected no strong textual bias for or against awarding fees. Considering the likely motives of Congress, the Court ruled that attorney's fees should only be awarded when a party sought removal without an objectively reasonable basis. Since Franklin had such a basis, Martin was not entitled to any fees.

Martin v. Hadix

Does the federal Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 limit an attorney's fees for post-judgment monitoring services that were pending when the Act became effective?

Yes. In an opinion delivered by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the Court held that the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 "limits attorney's fees for post-judgment monitoring services performed after the PLRA's effective date, but does not limit fees for monitoring performed before that date." "To impose the new standards now, for work performed before the PLRA became effective, would upset the reasonable expectations of the parties," Justice O'Connor wrote for the Court. All nine justices agreed that the PLRA should apply to services performed after the law's effective date. However, the Court split over whether the new fee limits contained in the law apply to work performed after April 26, 1996, in cases begun before that date. A 7-2 majority said that the new limits do apply to such cases. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens dissented from that part of the Court's conclusion.

Mills v. Electric Auto-Lite

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Missouri v. Jenkins

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N.C. Dept. Of Transp. v. Crest St. Council

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New York Gaslight Club, Inc. v. Carey

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Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises

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Pennsylvania v. Del. Valley Citizens' Council

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Pennsylvania v. Del. Valley Citizens' Council

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Pierce v. Underwood

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Rhodes v. Stewart

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Riverside v. Rivera

Is an award of attorney's fees under the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act of 1976 "unreasonable" within the meaning of the statute if it exceeds the amount of damages recovered by the plaintiff in the underlying civil rights action?

No. In an opinion delivered by Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., the Court held, 5-4, that there was no requirement under Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act of 1976 that attorneys' fees be proportionate to the amount of damages a civil rights plaintiff might recover. Justice Brennan, joined by Justices Thurgood Marshall, Harry A. Blackmun, and John Paul Stevens, reasoned that such plaintiffs seek to vindicate important constitutional rights that cannot be valued solely in monetary terms, and a proportionality requirement would seriously undermine Congress's purpose under the Act to insure the availability of counsel in civil rights cases. Concurring, Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr., reasoned that neither the prior decisions of the Supreme Court nor the legislative history of the Act supported such a requirement.

Roadway Express, Inc. v. Piper

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Ruckelshaus v. Sierra Club

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Scarborough v. Principi

May someone who won a suit against the government and applied for repayment of attorney's fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act amend his application to assert that the government's position in the suit was not "substantially justified"?

Yes. In a 7-to-2 opinion written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Court held that the statement on the application that the government's position had not been "substantially justified" was merely procedural. There was no need to prove the assertion - the applicant merely had to make the claim to shift the burden of proof to the government. Because the government was not harmed by the initial omission of the statement - filing the claim made it obvious that the applicant thought the government's position was not substantially justified, even without the specific statement - Scarborough should be able to amend his application even after the 30-day filing period had passed.

Shalala, Secretary Of Health And Human Services v. Schaefer

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Smith v. Robinson

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Spencer v. South Carolina Tax Commission

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Sullivan v. Hudson

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Summit Valley Industries, Inc. v. Carpenters

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Texas Teachers Assn. v. Garland School Dist.

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U.S. v. Ball Construction Co.

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Venegas v. Mitchell

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Walters v. Nat. Assn. Of Radiation Survivors

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Webb v. Dyer County Bd. Of Ed.

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West Virginia Univ. Hospitals, Inc. v. Casey

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White v. New Hampshire Dept. Of Empl. Sec.

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