straightforward the only question you need to address today is whether my clients were prevailing parties in their underlying action in the district court if they were they're entitled to their reasonable attorney's fees and the district court was without discretion to deny their fee request wholesale there's only two points i want to argue to that end first controlling precedent is clear my clients were prevailing parties and second the district court got it wrong when it determined they were not prevailing parties and it relied on reasons that this court has over and over again said or irrelevant obtains that they did not they could not get from any kind of political release and that is that benefits had to issue by a specific deadline of january twenty second of two thousand and sixteen that's not available under the regulations and when the people's benefits are reinstated that was specifically and only granted in the order second the three months limitation period was not allowed to commits for the putative class members typically once benefits are reinstated if class members or benefit recipients have already used up their three month period the next time a waiver is not granted that clock starts to run again and they would run out of then if that's having already accepted benefits for the three months within a thirty city would run out of benefits immediately rather than if they had used up their three months within the last thirty six months the next time a waiver was not granted and the work requirement was then reinstated they would have already used up their three months because it was kind of one three months for thirty six or thirty years saying that three months now isn't going to count against him whereas it otherwise would have  engage and work with the plaintiffs but it was all through the fall of two thousand and fifteen which is prior to the election and it was it was prior to the elections after governor jindal had announced that his administration was not going to seek the waiver in the middle of two thousand and fifteen the question about what would happen if food stamp benefits arose and plaintiffs that the non profits had then sought out what kind of legal relief could we obtain they looked at administrative remedies look to due process claims except her up knowing the benefits for potentially going to be running out in january and the state of louisiana even issued notices in september and december to the putative class members specifically stating your benefits will terminate january one two thousand and seven and your predecessors were already legally representing him yes so they began working up the case and were literally representing them in the fall and then the action was filed on december eighteenth of two thousand and fifteen just under about two weeks before the benefits were worse so as  shriek attorneys fees for representing a nonprofit so under gresham and sanchez both have stated that whenever their plan if a prevailing party loses on the motion for attorney's fees and they have to then prosecute that issue on appeal they are entitled to their reasonable tourney's fees on appeal as well and these fees go to the plaintiffs obviously to cover their representation by the nonprofits in the district court and they are representation here on a substantial record on the motion for attorneys fees and they're asking for one hundred thirty six thousand dollars to cover those attorney's fees and representing the player and show the amount that's being is your firm representation of the nonprofit no i'm sorry just minor so the amount that's being sought is the hundred thirty six thousand dollars which represents the efforts of the non profits and the attorneys in the district court and that's on behalf of plaintiffs and filing the action and negotiating the settlement and obtaining the stipulated order we have not put anything in the record obviously on our representation here on appeal on remain and when it's time for the district court to calculate the reason you've represented the nonprofit's on appeal correct confusion and we've taken governor bill edwards was elected on november twenty one to take office apparently on january eleventh i'm taking judicial notice of sort of the public knowledge of those and your lawsuits fall december eighteen right there in the middle of all that i'm not from louisiana as we've established however i'm aware the governor john bell in words isn't going to be a carbon copy of governor jindal and in fact ran on a platform of not being a carbon copy of governor jindal that being the case how can we say that you were lawsuit even if you achieved a change in status wouldn't this be a special circumstance case where you didn't cause that because governor edwards was going to do that anyway and in fact immediately said hey guys i'm going to do that anyway i'm not going to continue governor jin edwards was elected it was unclear what was going to happen with with the waiver and plaintiffs had the non profits are working on administrative potential ministries of relief and looking at the issues there and once notices were received by plane of saying benefits were terminating january one and it became definite and clear that that was going to happen that it looked like an all out war was needed and a lawsuit had to be filed in december because governor bill edwards had not announce any public position on what he was going to do with the waiver so there was a much uncertainty in november and december and so they put together the complaint they had a motion for class certification that a motion for tomorrow pillinger eliminate injunction thing at all in his campaign rhetoric and his platform anything he had done that would suggest he had an interest in cutting people's food stamps i think it seems very opposite to the platform he ran on again being very exposed to that but just the little bit that i'm now through i think it's it it's probably clear that there was a general sense that governor bill edwards was opposed to what governor jindal had done and wanted to potentially change the status of beneficiaries and make sure food stamps would come in future years but these are only political promises and as we know political promises are never a guarantee and once politicians come into office there's things that can change and they may not actually get the relief they may wait until a and get it much later and so plaintiffs in parallel with whatever was happening in the political sphere filed their lawsuit and wanted to ensure that twenty thousand people who were misclassified were not going to go hungry in january i mean the record reflect what there was contact by the nonprofit you're with the either governor ridge or his executive council so there is a declaration from one of the attorneys that was working with the plaintiffs i think the record site there is around one thirty seven as part of that declaration and she goes through in detail some of the efforts they made on the administrative side and they're essentially what's reflected from the record in the record is a little bit limited on exactly what communication corresponds to place what is reflected in the record is that there was a lot of uncertainty there was never any promise made that benefits would be available through some form of political relief and even at the time the lawsuit was filed with the the two days before governor edwards then made his public announcement the state's attorney there's no guarantee on the political relief we need to file a complaint we need to make sure people are said in january and so that's what the plaintiffs did that's what the attorneys in the district court did in the one hundred plus attorneys fees is four different lawyers who represented the nonprofit these are four lawyers from the non profits your honor so these are lawyers who took the case pro bono on behalf of the plaintiffs these are public interest attorneys and they had a team of attorneys working on the case for month putting together sophisticated due process claim looking at the food stamp act and they implemented watching time period was the bulk of this hundred thirty six utilized or used or november november and december your honor and then and then after the complaint was filed there was time spent negotiating and entering the into the settlement order as well would you agree that if we were to agree with you that your prevailing party we nonetheless we need to re man i just for the amount of fees which clearly clearly would be the case but also for the special circumstance determination so on the special circumstances potentially you could remains and give the district court an opportunity to analyze that it certainly was not addressed at all in the briefing below was hardly addressed in the briefing before collectively but this was lurking in this whole case i mean it's what jumped off the page at me immediately is ok if governor jindal was going to be the governor the next year i get all this it's very clear but we know there was going to be a change and perhaps even a fairly substantial one and so if that's what hasn't made sense to me so that's been lurking in this case without it being required to be something that everyone made a big deal on it and i think hindsight is twenty twenty year so if you actually look  the as i mentioned before there were three forms of relief specifically in the stipulated order of the cannot have come from the political release and so that's clear and so regardless of what's going on with the special circumstances plaintiff lawsuit clearly contributed to those three forms of relief and there are reasonable attorneys fees that ought to be awarded associated with that release second is given the timeline and as i said earlier hindsight being twenty twenty i think it's clear in the record of the plaintiffs lawsuit directly contributed to the whole aspects of the release everything indicated  complaint was filed that benefits were going to terminate in fact beneficiaries had seen received notice saying specifically was what they were going to terminate in january and there was no indication no guarantee promise that any political relief would come and so on the causation point the lawsuit was filed then the announcement was made the stipulated order was entered into before governor bill edwards took office and before he even formally requested the waiver or it was granted so that's setting that up but even if we want to set those aside and look at special circumstances as we've set out in our brief and i'm prepared to argue if you like the special circumstances did not contribute an exception does not is no longer applicable within fist circuit precedent it's basically a dead letter and i can go through that if you'd like to special circumstance it drew from two eastern district of virginia cases both of which were reversed by the fourth circuit eliminating the right what the district or the district court had relied on there that did not contribute special circumstance and undermining any support that rebel had relied on to pull it into the circuit case law rebell itself did not even rely on the did not contribute special circumstance it awarded attorney's fees in that case and ignored the issue and did not even really address that on the facts no case since rebel in the fifth circuit has ever relied on the did not contribute special circumstance it's never been used to outright deny fees or to justify that that type of act and then most importantly the buckhannon case in two thousand and seven we believe has entirely abrogated the did not contribute special circumstance while it may be something you can look at in calculating reasonable fees it can never justify an outright denial buckhannon looked at the catalyst theory if you recall and the catalyst theory was the idea that a prevailing party could still be considered to have prevailed for purposes of fee shifting even if they didn't get a final judgment and even if they didn't get a consent decree if they sufficiently caused a voluntary change in behavior or some form of political release this is the catalyst theory buckhannon said and we're going to clean this up we're going straight to the plain language of what it means to be of prevailing party we're not going to look at subjective intent of the defendant we're not going to get into what's called a second litigation of significant dimension and try to figure out exactly who can to what all we care about is did you get the judge or did you get the consent to choir on the side to final judgment i'm sorry leisure running out of time and i wanted to ask this earlier i have a little bit of a question about jurisdiction here because it's not clear to me that there's been a final judgment there was a settlement order and earned that it says you can come back and revive the suit if blah blah blah and we don't know if the blah blah blah happened we do know it happened how do we know that in order set up to two parts so first if the waivers granted then all these additional obligations that are specific to this case and that we've achieved in the stipulated order are now lies and the state has to comply with these pieces if the waiver was not granted in january then plaintiffs could come back and continue t is the motion for attorney's fees if that weren't the case with their b would this be under the collateral murder rule what would be the appellate basis if the record does not show us a final judgment so if there if the waiver was not granted i don't see in the record and i could stand corrected by either of you a final judgment that leaves nothing for the court to do but implement the judgment i see an either or if but whatever practically speaking i agree probably we would have heard more you know yelling if if things had fallen apart but i don't see anything in the record that shows that happened so do we have jurisdiction over the attorneys fees order and or the state of the current record or and and it brings us to the motion for attorney's fees so i don't believe there's anything that we would have in the record that reflects that so is the chinese fees or collateral murder that can be appealed even if there's no evidence of a final n plans are not the prevailing party and that is what the judge ruled in the district court simply put there were terms of the stipulations agreed to by the parties and as a result of the filing of the planes the timeline itself as you've addressed is a really brief quick timeline there was a quick turnaround on everything the timing of the founding of the litigation i felt there was something in the complaint that appointed to  litigations are not to the benefit of either the department has and has a program to run the snap program the food stamp program which is at issue and of course they have plenty of plaintiffs they need to represent regardless of the issues that are pertinent to that so with that man saying it we have a promise that was put into a stipulation and that promise was based on our hands on the third party that third corning or that that unspoken party is the federal government our food nutritional service division and should they have not granted that waiver then all of this falls apart so all of this was predicated not on the plaintiff suit not on their actions it was predicated on whether or not john bell it was the governor elect not even sworn in his intentions put forth in a letter his conversations and communications between the agencies and with the federal government that now that it was reduced to what became part of the stipulation is incidental what occurred of prior to the lead up to the steps of governor it was being able to enter into this agreement are allowed on the agency to enter into this agreement  elate to renew the waiver this waiver been in place for about eighteen years we've seen it and both of where there was a republican our democratic governor into in the office we've seen this waiver renewed constantly and with the agenda that was in place at the time it was known to the public it was on the meat it was in the media new orleans saw its own protest months maybe two months prior to the filing of the litigation where it was known by other advocacy groups that the state would not be renewing the waiver it had been put out plain as a recipient had received notices in and september and i received them in december so there's in one of the other things  in council may not be aware of this but you are dealing with recipients who all have certified cases that we knew at different times so very these notices that he speaks of are not the only notices that would have been received these individuals have cases that have been certified ask you this if we were to conclude that a change in legal status did take place as a result of this lawsuit but we were to conclude the special circumstances exception is still alive and well and living in the circuit what evidence would you present on special circumstance and what are we looking for in a case like this when we have a change in governorships and so forth what evidence would support the notion that and that the new governor would have done th does he have to be specific on this and would you have to bring forth evidence because we don't want judges just rely on what they read in the paper or saw news or on the internet or whatever because there's a lot of stuff out there in the world there may or may not be accurate what evidence would you present or would would need to be presented for the judge should be able to rely on and say yes the governor would have done this anyway even without this lawsuit the new governor well i think it would have to boil down to whatever communications we could actually released that were exchanged between the agencies that would exchange between the governor elect at the time and the federal government those that were not privileged would actually have to be would probably be the only thing that we could pro and his intentions that were actually put in writing to the fans that were made a part of the stipulation in part and actually made a part of the playthings those are only black and white that we have that we see  reduced to writing other than that we would we really would have to go you know behind closed doors to put put forward what the governor's intentions were at that time can you point to me where in the existing laws and statutes all of the things that are in the order the junior order are already required in other words you have to prove the opposite of what he's saying there was a change in legal status because you were you're the state is now a car to do things it wasn't previously or part of and i'm asking you if you say now it's no big deal we're already required to do it can you point to me were each of the things that's in the order are already required of louisiana well one of the take time within the system but route pretty much we have what we call mass changes then we do these on a regular basis so as such is not something new for the agency so that timeline of j where twenty second is not something that the agency was  without doing on its own the federal government requires our scuse me seven to seventy three young man i think and how i can check that just to make sure but seven c f are too seventy three speaks to the rights that our recipients are entitled to it goes into our fair hearings it talks about our notices and what's required of a what actions the agency should out should take within a period of time if there's an error made by the agency then you have the thirty day corrective action that needs to be made here that was an error made by the agency but that's just to give you an idea that those timelines are there and again when we have mass changes which take place every january of twenty's every january you'll see a mass change those mass changes are reflected with certifications on air india reflected with renewals owner in sometimes it puts an individual where they receive an eight dollars an hour they receive in twelve dollars and they receive in twenty four dollars now there is even ten dollars it depends on what that increase was it depends on whether or not there was a change with their their hood in their or their approval for their own monthly rentals and things of that nature so mass changes are not new to the agency it's something those are dealt with promptly anyway ye and what i would implore to you is that when we make it when we actually do a waiver or if we had something that was a mass change then the three months in this instance were going to be counted against individuals and here is the fact the pivot they made an exclusion and exclusions they were outside the age limit so they were not required to they were no longer then they were excluded from that group that would be dropped or are taken off the food stamp program of the individual if they were pregnant they were going to be excluded so there are a lot of factors that played into the role that one it will reduce those numbers of individuals that were listed are claimed in the plaintiff's complaint those who are physically ill mentally fit for employment etc those that doesn't even require some medical diagnosis of a disability is just since a serious illness is what the what our law requires so there with factors that were going to play an we're going to automatically reduce those individuals who would an applicant and i was in the middle of the three months when all this came about and now down the road i'm going to need to apply and i need those three months back what would have prevented jaw from going hey you've already used you know two and a half months you only have two weeks have a nice day use two and a half months as a result of the waiver of the night and this in this twenty fifty turning into twenty sixteen time frame i the food stamp after used up to an afrikaans now down the road i need to apply again within the thirty six months that he mention what would prevent you what law rule regulation policy would prevent you from counting those two and a half months against me well if you were within a two and a half months prior to the jane were intended wouldn't have to go through the process they can only your own all go ahead and reinstate your fees if there is not a renewable certification change in employment of different types of expenses or deductions or changes in those processes are still in place we still have the criteria that that what we call our daily work is still going on and so the three month period not counting against the individual would have been called at at that so many levels within the normal process yeah i'm just asking and you know look you know this process a lot better than i do i'm not going to doubt that i'm just trying to hone in on a really specific question your opponent has given me a list of things that he says this was the change in status that makes us prevailing parties and i'm trying and you're saying now no big deal so i'm trying to hone in on that and say watch shows me i understand that maybe just have the goodness of your heart you know when a candidate all that but that's not good enough i'm saying is there a policy a rule or regulation you can point to and say if somebody is in the middle of their three month but then a waiver is granted we wipe out that three months and start over again then that would be helpful and that's what i'm asking for very specifically can you point me to  world that i can look at and go oh there really wasn't a change in status because they would have gotten it anyway well and would love to point you to something this is a way was not granted because waivers are discretionary and not mandatory there's nothing in our statutes in the federal coal for that points to a state a pass for a waiver and in the way it was granted and it's something in the states rule i mean is there anything you can other than just your own affirmation of how things are done can honestly couldn't our our d c office policy doesn't interest waivers what usually waivers are applied for and if they're applying for their granite and then you continue on with your normal process so none of your policies are predicated upon the waiver if a were there not people who were are already in the middle of the three month when this happened yes your honor there when i understand what happens to them those individuals who are within three months they fall under what would be our normal work requirements if  they had something that would exclude them from having to be stuck on a platter i hire apply for a registration with the department of labor then they would go through the normal process after if they if they had their three months before the january one date they receive a notice of closure and this is assuming that there wasn't a waiver granted they would receive their notice of closure notice and closure gives them their fair hearing process and how long they have to actually provide information regarding whether or not they've sought employment whether or not they're mentally unfit or the outside the age of eighteen to forty nine are their prey are they pregnant do they have someone else in the snap household who is a child and under the age of eighteen so those processes are in place those policies are in place those federal laws are still statutes are still there so if they were within your three months and a waiver was not granted again predicated on the waiver if that waiver was not granted then that individual received the notice of closure they are told what their rights or and if they meet any of these exclusions then right then the three months or three months don't apply to them they fall within the exception and that's all if there is not a much interest they have vested in a stipulation in a reply agree to saying to the effect at all points tell us have relied on the very every very evidence needed to show that they prevailed and in that instance they were they were pointing to the stipulation and as they are at their means of prevailing and again that stipulation was predicated on the sale of corti which is the federal government and the waiver being approved andy d'antin of our governor thank you  to briefly address some of the points that the state raised and to address your questions as well first i do want to point out that under grisham even if the relief we obtained is exactly the same as the political relief the fact that it was in shrine with judicial premature and a consent decree means that we contributed necessarily and that's what grisham explains when it's even going through the senate jiffy order only says the state of louisiana has to follow the law i'm not sure that putting out in an order does anything that you already require how massive that was the reason for my colloquy there that we had just a minute ago so this is exactly what grayson talks about and this is why the district court outright denied fees integration is because it thought that the relief was nothing special nothing in addition i just said you have to comply with the plaintiff's first amendment rights and gresham said no the fact that you can come back and you have a quick avenue for obtaining relief if they violate a consent decree in a stipulated order follow a motion to contempt seek sanctions  up instead of having to file an entire new lawsuit to address the issue that in another itself necessarily changes the relationship between the parties and so i do want to address that point on the jurisdiction issue judge chain's i do know for a fact that the waiver was requested and was granted by the federal agency we have copies of those documents i do not believe it's in the district court record but we can follow up with the twenty a j and i think that the court can take judicial notice of that fact so we can address those in a twenty eight j on the issue of what evidence that the state would need to bring to show special circumstances apply i do want to remind the court that under sanchez it requires an extremely strong showing the discretion to outride outright deny fees on basis of special circumstances is exceedingly narrow and what's required is the state has to show not that we were not the primary cause of the relief of pain but that we did not at all contribute and i think the record very clearly reflects not only do we pain a consent decree which the only way to get that is through a lawsuit but we also got specific forms of relief that we directly contributed to america yes i suppose we agree there was a in denying free and we remain can we do show without including for the district court to consider special circumstances or has that been waived because there was no mention is my recollection about special circumstances or did they just not reach it because of his of the district court decree yes your honor so i believe that on remains the district court should not have discretion you can settles but consider special circumstances they were never raised the state abandon any argument on that before the district court it had its chance to raise it then and it did not and that's the state's burden to show that they apply so if we if there's a reversal on prevailing party status and every man for calculation of fees special circumstances was it really silly that these weren't prevailing parties or just that  the attorneys didn't contribute to the prevailing your honor so if you look at the district court's order it's pacifically says that although a finding of prevailing party status is warranted in certain circumstances it's not wanted here and that's just wrong under the bright line rules prevailing sparty status is an entirely separate inquiry that looks at the plain meaning of the term in the statute and none of the stuff about contribution causation significance of relief is relevant at all to that question does the party have to use the magic word special circumstance or is it enough that these points about governor edwards and so on were argued so there we have two cases we cited houston chronicle and i'm blanking on the other case in our brief and both of these explain that the district court at the very least has to specifically mention and identify what it considers to be special circumstance or stand that but i mean you're arguing this this the decor just completely messed up the framework here so that's a different argument from whether i'm not saying the judge has already found a special circumstance judge wiener specifically asked about waiver and i'm saying is it necessary for a party to go to say magic word special circumstances or is it enough that they argued the very points that would be relevant to special circumstances so that if we're saying the judge messed up the framework we send the whole framework back and go here's how you do prevailing party here special served and you know start over judge and here's the rules would not be the right way to handle it if we agree with you that there was a problem in the framework the judge used these arguments about governor edwards and what he would have done and all that aren't knew how to make them up there in the record so is it necessary to use the phrase special circumstances or is it enough that the facts argue i don't think the facts were sufficiently argued there was nothing in the record no evidence put forward by the state on special circumstances there was no affidavit from anyone within the state of louisiana saying this is why we decided to settle these are the reasons we settled this is why we gave certain relief this is why we sought the waiver there's just nothing in the record on that and it hasn't been sufficiently addressed at all regardless of whether it's a question of did you mention it they didn't even put forth any facts on the real issues they simply talked about what was happening in the political sphere which we think is irrelevant for these reasons your honour's we we asked that she would please reverse on the issue of prevailing party remained for the district court to calculate reasonable turn i'm sorry you said it's irrelevant what's happening in the political would it not be relevant to point to what the then candidate governor john bell and words was arguing in insanely that not be relevant again your honor i think it's twenty twenty hindsight the lawsuit was filed before any formal announcement was made the announcement was made three days after the lawsuit was filed also as i said earlier under grisham even if there's a parallel track of political relief happening these are only political promises they aren't solidified in any kind of court order and grisham says when you get a consent decree the fact that it's in forcible by a motion for contempt or sanctions necessarily changes the legal relationship of the parties even if it tracks exactly with what you're entitled to under law that you understood all right that