Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-14-05151/USCOURTS-caDC-14-05151-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 441
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Voting
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued April 21, 2015 Decided August 18, 2015

No. 14-5151

STATE OF TEXAS,

APPELLANT

v.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ET AL.,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:11-cv-01303)

Matthew H. Frederick, Deputy Solicitor General, Office 

of the Attorney General for the State of Texas, argued the 

cause for appellant. On the briefs were Ken Paxton, Attorney 

General, Scott A. Keller, Solicitor General, Adam W. Aston, 

Deputy Solicitor General, and Arthur C. D’Andrea, Assistant 

Solicitor General.

Paul M. Smith argued the cause for appellees. With him 

on the brief were Jessica Ring Amunson, Mark P. Gaber, 

John M. Devaney, Marc Erik Elias, Robert S. Notzon, J. 

Gerald Hebert, Renea Hicks, and Chad W. Dunn. 

Before: MILLETT and PILLARD, Circuit Judges, and 

SENTELLE, Senior Circuit Judge.

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Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge MILLETT.

MILLETT, Circuit Judge: The State of Texas appeals the 

district court’s award of attorneys’ fees to three intervenors in 

Texas’s lawsuit under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, 52 

U.S.C. § 10304. Rather than file a memorandum of points 

and authorities opposing the three separate motions for 

attorneys’ fees as expressly required by court rules, Texas 

filed a three-page “Advisory” that presented only a brief 

contention that the Supreme Court’s invalidation of Section 4 

of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder, 133 S. 

Ct. 2612 (2013), automatically made Texas a “prevailing 

party.” Beyond that, Texas offered no response to the 

arguments in the parties’ motions and ignored complicating 

procedural factors in the case. In its “Advisory,” Texas also 

declared that it would not participate any further in its own 

lawsuit unless “requested to do so” by the district court.

Applying one of its local rules, the district court held that 

Texas had conceded virtually all of the issues relevant to the

motions for attorneys’ fees by deliberately choosing not to 

address them. Rejecting Texas’s cursory “Advisory” 

argument, the district court granted the motions and awarded 

fees. We affirm because “the discretion to enforce this rule 

lies wholly with the district court,” FDIC v. Bender, 127 F.3d 

58, 68 (D.C. Cir. 1997), and Texas forfeited any challenge to 

the district court’s exercise of that discretion by failing to 

even mention the issue in its opening brief in this court.

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I

Legal Framework

District of Columbia District Court Rule 7(b)

District Court Local Rule 7(b) requires that any party 

opposing a motion must “serve and file a memorandum of 

points and authorities in opposition to the motion,” and that 

“[i]f such a memorandum is not filed within the prescribed

time, the Court may treat the motion as conceded.” D.D.C. 

Local Rule 7(b). “The rule is understood to mean that if a 

party files an opposition to a motion and therein addresses 

only some of the movant’s arguments, the court may treat the 

unaddressed arguments as conceded.” Wannall v. Honeywell, 

Inc., 775 F.3d 425, 428 (D.C. Cir. 2014) (citing Hopkins v. 

Women’s Div., Gen. Bd. of Global Ministries, 284 F. Supp. 2d 

15, 25 (D.D.C. 2003)). “Such a concession acts as [a] waiver, 

such that a party cannot raise a conceded argument on 

appeal.” Id. (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted).

The Voting Rights Act

Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Pub. L. 

No. 89-110, 79 Stat. 437, “to banish the blight of racial 

discrimination in voting[.]” South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 

383 U.S. 301, 308 (1966). Section 2 of the Act, which 

applies nationwide, bans any “standard, practice, or 

procedure” that “results in a denial or abridgement of the right 

of any citizen * * * to vote on account of race or color [or 

membership in a language minority group].” 52 U.S.C. 

§ 10301(a). 

Section 5, which applies only to certain jurisdictions, 

provides that, “[w]henever” a covered jurisdiction seeks to 

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change any voting procedure, it must first obtain 

administrative preclearance from the Attorney General or 

judicial preclearance from a three-judge court in the United 

States District Court for the District of Columbia. 52 U.S.C. 

§ 10304. A jurisdiction may obtain preclearance only if it 

proves that its change in voting procedures “neither has the 

purpose nor will have the effect of denying or abridging the 

right to vote on account of race or color [or membership in a 

language minority group].” Id. § 10304(a). Section 4 

provides criteria, commonly known as the “coverage 

formula,” that determine which jurisdictions are subject to the 

preclearance requirement. See id. § 10303(b); see also Shelby 

County, 133 S. Ct. at 2619–2620. 

In Shelby County, the Supreme Court declared Section 

4’s coverage formula unconstitutional. See 133 S. Ct. at 

2630–2631. The Court was explicit that it was “issu[ing] no 

holding on § 5 itself, only on the coverage formula.” Id. at 

2631.

The Voting Rights Act also includes an attorneys’ fees 

provision that states: “In any action or proceeding to enforce 

the voting guarantees of the fourteenth or fifteenth 

amendment, the court, in its discretion, may allow the 

prevailing party, other than the United States, a reasonable 

attorney’s fee, reasonable expert fees, and other reasonable 

litigation expenses as part of the costs.” 52 U.S.C. 

§ 10310(e).

Factual and Procedural Background

Following the 2010 census, the Texas Legislature 

enacted redistricting plans for the Texas House of 

Representatives, the Texas Senate, and the United States 

House of Representatives. At the time, Texas was a covered 

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jurisdiction under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, so it 

had to obtain administrative or judicial preclearance before 

any redistricting plan could take effect. Texas chose to file 

suit before a three-judge panel of the United States District 

Court for the District of Columbia, rather than to seek 

administrative preclearance. See Texas v. United States, 887 

F. Supp. 2d 133, 138 (D.D.C. 2012). 

In its complaint, Texas sought a declaratory judgment 

that its redistricting plans complied with Section 5. Texas 

made no challenge to the constitutionality of either Section 

5’s preclearance requirement or Section 4’s coverage formula. 

Complaint 1, J.A. 66 (“This complaint is filed under the 

assumption that Section 5 complies with the United States 

Constitution.”). Texas purported initially to “reserve all 

applicable legal claims * * * pending” the district court’s 

“decisions in Shelby County, Ala. v. Holder, No. 10-00651[] 

(D.D.C.), and Laroque v. Holder, No. 10-00561 (D.D.C.),” 

two cases in which different plaintiffs had challenged Section 

5’s constitutionality. Complaint 1–2, J.A. 66–67. But when 

the district court asked Texas whether it wanted to amend its 

complaint to include any constitutional claims, 12/7/2011 Tr. 

at 32, ECF No. 113, Texas told the court that it did not want 

to do so because it was “eager” to go to trial on its 

preclearance claim “as early as possible,” 12/12/2011 Tr. at 6, 

10, ECF No. 114.

The United States opposed preclearance of the

congressional and state house plans, but not the state senate 

plan. Texas, 887 F. Supp. 2d at 138. The district court 

permitted seven parties to intervene as defendants to oppose 

preclearance, and their objections collectively challenged all 

three plans. Id. at 138 & n.2. Three of those intervenors are 

appellees: two groups of Texas voters and office-holders and 

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the Texas Conference of NAACP Branches (collectively, 

“Intervenors”). 

After conducting a two-week trial, the district court 

agreed with the Intervenors and denied preclearance of all 

three plans on August 28, 2012. Texas, 887 F. Supp. 2d at 

138–139. The court found that Texas’s congressional and 

state house maps both had a discriminatory effect in certain 

districts, id. at 153, and that the congressional map “was 

motivated, at least in part, by discriminatory intent,” id. at 

161, 166. Disagreeing with both Texas and the Justice 

Department, the court also concluded that the state senate 

map “was enacted with discriminatory purpose” as to a 

particular district. Id. at 166. 

While the preclearance proceedings were ongoing, a 

different three-judge district court in the Western District of 

Texas was considering Section 2 and constitutional 

challenges to Texas’s redistricting maps that had been 

brought by various plaintiffs, including three of the intervenor 

groups from the D.C. preclearance case. See Davis v. Perry, 

No. SA-11-CA-788 (W.D. Tex. 2011); Perez v. Perry, No. 

5:11-cv-00360-OLG-JES-XR (W.D. Tex. 2011). Because the 

D.C. preclearance suit was not resolved in time for the 2012 

primaries and general election, the Texas district court 

imposed interim plans to govern those elections under the 

standards dictated by Perry v. Perez, 132 S. Ct. 934 (2012). 

See Texas, 887 F. Supp. 2d at 139; see also Davis v. Perry, 

No. SA-11-CV-788, 2011 WL 6207134, at *1 (W.D. Tex. 

Nov. 23, 2011); Perez v. Perry, 835 F. Supp. 2d 209, 211 

(W.D. Tex. 2011).

After the D.C. district court denied preclearance of 

Texas’s redistricting plans, and while Texas’s appeal from 

that ruling was pending in the Supreme Court, Texas 

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Governor Rick Perry called a special session of the Texas 

Legislature to repeal and replace the challenged plans. On 

June 23, 2013, the Legislature adopted plans largely mirroring 

those that the Texas district court had imposed on an interim 

basis. Governor Perry signed the new redistricting plans into 

law on June 26, 2013. 

On June 24, 2013, one of the intervenor groups from the 

preclearance case filed a motion asking the Supreme Court to 

dismiss Texas’s appeal as moot based on the Legislature’s 

repeal of the maps that were the subject of the litigation. The 

next day—one day before Governor Perry signed those plans 

into law—the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Shelby 

County, holding unconstitutional the coverage formula 

contained in Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act. 133 S. Ct. at 

2631.

On June 27, 2013—four days after the Texas 

Legislature’s adoption of new redistricting plans and after 

those plans had already taken effect—the Supreme Court 

vacated the D.C. district court’s order denying Texas 

preclearance, and “remanded for further consideration in light 

of Shelby County v. Holder * * * and the suggestion of 

mootness” of one of the intervenor groups. Texas v. United 

States, 133 S. Ct. 2885 (2013) (mem.); J.A. 431. 

On remand, Texas filed a motion to dismiss the 

preclearance action as moot, arguing that both the enactment 

of new redistricting maps and Shelby County eliminated any 

basis for the court’s jurisdiction. The three-judge district 

court agreed and dismissed the case, concluding that Texas’s 

“claims were mooted by Shelby County and the adoption of 

superseding redistricting plans.” J.A. 434. The court added

that the Intervenors would “remain free to seek attorneys’ 

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fees after dismissal.” J.A. 435. The Intervenors did just that 

by promptly filing three separate motions for attorneys’ fees. 

Texas did not file an opposition to those motions. 

Instead, it filed a three-page “Advisory” declaring that it was 

the prevailing party based on Shelby County and that “the 

State d[id] not intend to respond” to the motions for 

attorneys’ fees “unless requested to do so by the Court.” J.A. 

798–800. The Advisory did not mention the legislative repeal 

of Texas’s redistricting plans and presented no response to 

Intervenors’ argument that this repeal, and the mootness it 

caused before the judgment denying preclearance was 

vacated, rendered them prevailing parties. Following the 

dissolution of the three-judge district court, the pending 

motions for attorneys’ fees were remanded to a single district 

judge for resolution. 

The district court entered an order on June 18, 2014, 

awarding the requested attorneys’ fees. The court concluded 

that Texas’s “Advisory” “present[ed] no opposition on the 

applicable law,” Texas v. United States, 49 F. Supp. 3d 27, 31 

(D.D.C. 2014), and held that, under Local Rule 7(b), “Texas 

has waived any argument as to” “the eligibility of Fee 

Applicants for fee awards * * * or the prevailing-party status 

of Fee Applicants at the time the Court denied preclearance to 

Texas and thereafter, when Texas enacted new redistricting 

maps,” Texas, 49 F. Supp. 3d at 39–40.

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II

Analysis

Texas’s Waiver and Double Forfeiture

We review the district court’s decision enforcing its local 

rules for abuse of discretion. Bender, 127 F.3d at 67. We

also review a district court’s decision on a motion for 

attorneys’ fees for abuse of discretion. Brayton v. Office of 

the U.S. Trade Representative, 641 F.3d 521, 524 (D.C. Cir. 

2011). A “district court abuses its discretion if it did not 

apply the correct legal standard . . . or if it misapprehended 

the underlying substantive law.” Kickapoo Tribe v. Babbitt, 

43 F.3d 1491, 1497 (D.C. Cir. 1995) (internal quotation 

marks omitted; ellipsis in original). We examine any such 

legal questions de novo. Brayton, 641 F.3d at 524. 

The Intervenors sought attorneys’ fees under 52 U.S.C. 

§ 10310(e), and 42 U.S.C. § 1988(b), both of which authorize 

fee awards in certain civil rights cases to the “prevailing 

party.” See Donnell v. United States, 682 F.2d 240, 245 & 

n.7 (D.C. Cir. 1982) (both provisions “encourag[e] private 

litigants to act as ‘private attorneys general’ in seeking to 

vindicate the civil rights laws” and “should be construed 

similarly”). 

In its opening brief, Texas presents a bevy of arguments 

for why none of the Intervenors is a “prevailing party” within 

the meaning of those statutes. The problem is that Texas did 

not raise a single one of those arguments in the district court. 

Instead, its Advisory trumpeted Shelby County and declared 

that to be the end of the story, as a matter of law. Given that 

deliberate refusal to join the issues raised by the motions, the 

district court applied Local Rule 7(b) and concluded that 

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Texas had waived any argument that Intervenors were not 

prevailing parties “at the time the Court denied preclearance 

to Texas and thereafter, when Texas enacted new redistricting 

maps.” Texas, 49 F. Supp. 3d at 40. 

Local Rule 7(b) advises litigants that “the Court may 

treat [a] motion as conceded” if the party opposing a motion 

fails timely to “serve and file a memorandum of points and 

authorities in opposition to the motion.” D.D.C. Local Rule 

7(b). The rule “is a docket-management tool that facilitates 

efficient and effective resolution of motions by requiring the 

prompt joining of issues,” Fox v. American Airlines, Inc., 389 

F.3d 1291, 1294 (D.C. Cir. 2004), and judicious enforcement 

of the rule “ensures * * * that litigants argue their causes on a 

level playing field,” id. at 1295 (quoting English-Speaking 

Union v. Johnson, 353 F.3d 1013, 1021 (D.C. Cir. 2004)). In 

applying Rule 7(b) to Texas’s “Advisory,” the district court 

explained that the rule “applies not only to instances where a 

litigant entirely fails to oppose a motion but also where a 

party files an opposition that addresses only some of the 

arguments raised in the underlying motion,” and that in “the 

latter instance, * * * courts may deem the unaddressed 

arguments as conceded.” Texas, 49 F. Supp. 3d at 39; see, 

e.g., Institute For Policy Studies v. CIA, 246 F.R.D. 380, 386 

n.5 (D.D.C. 2007) (“[W]here a party files an opposition to a 

motion and addresses only certain arguments raised by the 

movant, this court routinely treats the unaddressed arguments 

as conceded pursuant to Local Rule 7(b).”). 1

 1 A member of our court has questioned whether Local Rule 7(b) 

may properly be applied to deem as conceded an unopposed motion 

for summary judgment. See Grimes v. District of Columbia, No. 

13-7038, 2015 WL 4430157, at *11–13 (D.C. Cir. July 21, 2015) 

(Griffith, J., concurring) (arguing that such an application of Rule 

7(b) conflicts with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56 and that, in 

an appropriate case, reconsideration of circuit precedent may be 

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Had Texas bothered to challenge the district court’s 

interpretation or enforcement of Local Rule 7(b) by arguing 

the issue in this court, it would have faced an uphill climb. 

Rules are rules, and basic fairness requires that they be 

applied evenhandedly to all litigants. Rule 7(b) (or its 

materially identical predecessor, Local Rule 108(b)) has been 

in force for nearly three decades, see Graetz v. District of 

Columbia Public Schools, Civ. A. No. 86-293, 1987 WL 

8527, at *1 (D.D.C. March 3, 1987), so Texas was on full and

fair notice of its application both when it initiated its 

preclearance lawsuit and when it chose to submit its 

“Advisory” at the attorneys’ fee stage. Because a district 

court’s local rules “have ‘the force of law,’” Hollingsworth v. 

Perry, 558 U.S. 183, 191 (2010) (quoting Weil v. Neary, 278 

U.S. 160, 169 (1929)), the State of Texas—like all lawyers 

and litigants—is “duty bound to comply with them,” In re 

Jarvis, 53 F.3d 416, 422 (1st Cir. 1995).

We have repeatedly held, moreover, that a material 

failure to follow the rules in district court can doom a party’s 

case. See, e.g., Geller v. Randi, 40 F.3d 1300, 1303–1304 

(D.C. Cir. 1994) (“When Geller failed to respond, he 

conceded a violation of Rule 11 under Local Rule 108(b)

[Local Rule 7(b)’s predecessor]; he cannot now argue the 

merits of his Rule 11 defense.”); Frito-Lay, Inc. v. 

Willoughby, 863 F.2d 1029, 1033–1034 (D.C. Cir. 1988) 

(failure to designate and reference triable facts under Federal 

Rule of Civil Procedure 56(c) and Local Rule 108(h) was 

 

warranted). That concern is not implicated here because this case 

does not involve a motion for summary judgment under Federal 

Rule of Civil Procedure 56 and, in any event, Texas has forfeited 

any similar challenge to the district court’s interpretation or 

application of Local Rule 7(b), see infra pp. 13–14.

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fatal to appellant’s opposition to motion for summary 

judgment). 

Local Rule 7(b) has received the same respect: “[A]s we 

have often observed, ‘[w]here the district court relies on the 

absence of a response as a basis for treating the motion as 

conceded, we honor its enforcement of the rule.’” Fox, 389 

F.3d at 1295 (quoting Twelve John Does v. District of 

Columbia, 117 F.3d 571, 577 (D.C. Cir. 1997)). “[T]he 

discretion to enforce this rule lies wholly with the district 

court.” Bender, 127 F.3d at 68 (D.C. Cir. 1997). And “we 

have yet to find that a district court’s enforcement of this rule 

constituted” an abuse of that discretion. Wannall, 775 F.3d at

428 (internal quotation marks omitted). We will not do so for 

the first time here. 

In deferring to the district court’s enforcement of its local 

rule requiring the timely filing of oppositions that actually 

address the contentions of the movant, we are in good 

company. Local Rule 7.1(b) of the Central District of Illinois, 

for example, is materially identical to the rule at issue here, 

and it too has been enforced by deeming as conceded any of a 

movant’s arguments to which the opposing party fails to 

respond. See Stanciel v. Gramley, 267 F.3d 575, 578–580 

(7th Cir. 2001) (district court “was well within its discretion” 

when it enforced its Local Rule 7.1(b) by deeming

unaddressed issues to be conceded, which led to partial 

dismissal of plaintiff’s claims). The district court in Stanciel 

explained—and the Seventh Circuit agreed—that the court 

had no obligation to “perform * * * legal research for [the 

opposing party].” 267 F.3d at 578. So too here. 2

 2 Every circuit, in fact, defers to their district courts’ interpretation 

and enforcement of local rules. See, e.g., Crowley v. L.L. Bean, 

Inc., 361 F.3d 22, 25 (1st Cir. 2004) (A district court’s 

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Texas’s tactical choice in district court has distinct 

appellate repercussions as well. We are “a court of review, 

not one of first view,” United States v. Best, 961 F.2d 964, 

1992 WL 96354, at *3 (D.C. Cir. 1992) (unpublished), so we 

rarely entertain arguments on appeal that were not first 

presented to the district court, see, e.g., Pettaway v. Teachers 

Ins. & Annuity Ass’n of America, 644 F.3d 427, 437 (D.C. 

Cir. 2011) (refusing to consider claim that district court 

violated a local rule because appellant failed to make that 

argument before the district court). And we can find no 

instance when we made an exception to that rule because the 

party’s chosen strategy of backhanding the issues in district 

court backfired. 

Texas’s decision not to argue—or even mention—the 

Rule 7(b) issue in its opening brief has made an already 

 

interpretation and application of local procedural rules receives “a 

special degree of deference—above and beyond the traditional 

standards of decisionmaking and appellate oversight[.]”); Whitfield 

v. Scully, 241 F.3d 264, 270–271 (2d Cir. 2001) (“We accord 

considerable deference to the district court’s interpretation of its 

own Local Rule.”); Government of Virgin Islands v. Mills, 634 F.3d 

746, 750 (3d Cir. 2011) (same); Bias v. Moynihan, 508 F.3d 1212, 

1223 (9th Cir. 2007) (same); Jackson v. Beard, 828 F.2d 1077, 

1079 (4th Cir. 1987) (same); In re Adams, 734 F.2d 1094, 1102 

(5th Cir. 1984) (same); Martinez v. Thrifty Drug & Discount Co., 

593 F.2d 992, 994 (10th Cir. 1979) (same); Clark v. Housing Auth. 

of City of Alma, 971 F.2d 723, 727 (11th Cir. 1992) (same); S.S. v. 

Eastern Kentucky Univ., 532 F.3d 445, 451 (6th Cir. 2008)

(similar); Northwest Bank & Trust Co. v. First Illinois Nat’l Bank,

354 F.3d 721, 725 (8th Cir. 2003) (similar); Smith v. Village of 

Maywood, 970 F.2d 397, 400 (7th Cir. 1992) (similar); see also 

Genentech, Inc. v. Amgen, Inc., 289 F.3d 761, 774 (Fed. Cir. 2002) 

(“This court defers to the district court when interpreting and 

enforcing local rules[.]”). The federal court system could not fairly 

function otherwise.

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arduous appellate climb Sisyphean. As an appellate court, we 

sit not “as self-directed boards of legal inquiry and research, 

but essentially as arbiters of legal questions presented and 

argued by the parties before [us].” Carducci v. Regan, 714 

F.2d 171, 177 (D.C. Cir. 1983) (Scalia, J.). Because Texas 

failed to challenge the district court’s enforcement of Rule 

7(b) in its opening brief, any challenge to the central ground 

on which the district court disposed of this case is forfeited 

and we will not address it. See Fox v. Government of District 

of Columbia, No. 14-7042, 2015 WL 4385290, at *4 (D.C. 

Cir. July 17, 2015) (appellant forfeited challenge to

dispositive issue by failing to argue it in her opening brief); 

Parsippany Hotel Mgmt. Co. v. NLRB, 99 F.3d 413, 418 

(D.C. Cir. 1996) (An issue is “barred from consideration by 

this court” when the appellant “d[oes] not raise the issue in its 

opening brief.”); Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. v. 

EPA, 25 F.3d 1063, 1071 n.4 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (“We have said 

before, and we say again, that ordinarily we will not consider 

arguments raised for the first time in a reply brief[.]”) 

(quoting Pennsylvania Elec. Co. v. FERC, 11 F.3d 207, 209 

(D.C. Cir. 1993)). So the long and the short of it is that the 

bulk of Texas’s arguments is waived and forfeited twice over.

The Impact of Intervening Legislation and Shelby 

County

The sole argument that Texas did present in its Advisory

and in its opening brief here—and thus the only argument that 

is properly preserved for review—is that the Supreme Court’s 

decision in Shelby County made Texas the prevailing party in 

this case as a categorical matter of law the instant the 

Supreme Court announced its decision. To support its claim, 

Texas points to the Supreme Court’s June 27, 2013 order that 

vacated the district court’s judgment denying Texas 

preclearance and “remanded * * * for further consideration in 

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light of Shelby County v. Holder * * * and the suggestion of 

mootness of appellees[.]” Texas, 133 S. Ct. at 2885; J.A. 431. 

That order, Texas maintains, demonstrates that the Supreme 

Court decided that Texas had won its appeal and was 

necessarily the prevailing party for attorneys’ fees purposes.

Texas is mistaken. First, Texas bears little resemblance 

to a prevailing party. Texas chose to seek judicial 

preclearance rather than administrative preclearance, and did 

so expressly on the assumption of the preclearance 

requirement’s constitutionality. To say that Texas 

“prevailed” in this suit because a different litigant in a 

different suit won on different grounds that Texas specifically 

told the district court it would not raise is, to say the least, an 

unnatural use of the word “prevailing.” It certainly is not a 

definition that the district court was legally bound to adopt 

without any elucidating argument by Texas. 

Second, Texas’s argument misconstrues the Supreme 

Court’s June 27th order. Under the Supreme Court’s “grant, 

vacate, and remand” (“GVR”) practice, the Court issues a 

single order granting review, vacating the judgment below, 

and remanding for further consideration in light of some 

intervening development (often a Supreme Court decision). 

As the Supreme Court has explained, a GVR order is 

“potentially appropriate” when 

intervening developments, or recent developments that 

we have reason to believe the court below did not fully 

consider, reveal a reasonable probability that the 

decision below rests upon a premise that the lower 

court would reject if given the opportunity for further 

consideration, and where it appears that such a 

redetermination may determine the ultimate outcome 

of the litigation[.]

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Lawrence v. Chater, 516 U.S. 163, 167 (1996) (per curiam). 

Importantly, it is well-settled that a GVR has no

precedential weight and does not dictate how the lower court 

should rule on remand. See Tyler v. Cain, 533 U.S. 656, 666 

n.6 (2001) (“We also reject Tyler’s attempt to find support in 

our [GVR] disposition. * * * Our order * * * was not a final 

determination on the merits.”); In re Sealed Case, 246 F.3d 

696, 699 (D.C. Cir. 2001) (“[A GVR order] may indicate a 

reasonable probability that the decision below rests upon a 

premise that the lower court would reject if given the 

opportunity for further consideration, [but] it does not amount 

to a final determination on the merits.”) (internal quotation 

marks and citations omitted); see also Henry v. City of Rock 

Hill, 376 U.S. 776, 777 (1964) (“The South Carolina Supreme 

Court correctly concluded that our earlier [GVR] did not 

amount to a final determination on the merits.”).

The Supreme Court’s June 27th order is plainly a GVR. 

True, there is no “grant” of a certiorari petition by Texas, but 

that is only because Texas did not file a petition for writ of 

certiorari; it appealed directly to the Supreme Court. See 52 

U.S.C. § 10304(a) (authorizing “appeal” of three-judge district 

court’s judgment directly to the Supreme Court). The 

Supreme Court’s order in this case mirrors precisely how 

vacate-and-remand orders have been framed in other direct 

appeals to the Supreme Court.3

 

 3

 See, e.g., Cantor v. Personhuballah, 135 S. Ct. 1699 (2015) 

(mem.) (“On appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Eastern District of Virginia. Judgment vacated, and case remanded 

to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of 

Virginia for further consideration in light of Alabama Legislative 

Black Caucus v. Alabama, 575 U.S. –––– (2015).”); James v. FEC, 

134 S. Ct. 1806 (2014) (mem.) (“Appeal from the United States 

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17

Third, even if Texas thought the import of Shelby County

obvious, the Supreme Court’s disposition suggests otherwise. 

“It simply indicated that, in light of intervening developments, 

there was a reasonable probability that the Court of Appeals 

would reject a legal premise on which it relied and which may 

affect the outcome of the litigation.” Tyler, 533 U.S. at 666 

n.6. Because that disposition “did not amount to a final 

determination on the merits,” Henry, 376 U.S. at 777, it did 

not dictate any particular result on remand. It certainly did not 

declare Texas the victor.

Fourth, Texas assails the district court’s reliance on the 

State’s mooting of the case through legislative repeal and 

replacement of its redistricting plans. In so doing, the district 

court hewed to this circuit’s caselaw authorizing the award of 

attorneys’ fees to parties who obtain a favorable judgment that 

is vacated on appeal because a subsequent legislative 

enactment moots the case. See National Black Police Ass’n v. 

District of Columbia Board of Elections & Ethics, 168 F.3d 

525, 528 (D.C. Cir. 1999) (upholding award of attorneys’ fees

where plaintiffs obtained a favorable district court judgment 

that was vacated as moot following legislative repeal of the 

law at issue while the appeal was pending). Texas argues that 

this case is different because Shelby County mooted its case 

the moment the Supreme Court announced the opinion, and so 

the Texas Legislature’s repeal of the redistricting plans, which 

 

District Court for the District of Columbia. Judgment vacated, and 

case remanded to the United States District Court for the District of 

Columbia for further consideration in light of McCutcheon v. 

Federal Election Comm’n, [134 S. Ct. 1434 (2014)].”); Texas v. 

Holder, 133 S. Ct. 2886 (2013) (mem.) (“On appeal from the 

United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Judgment 

vacated, and case remanded to the United States District Court for 

the District of Columbia for further consideration in light of Shelby 

County v. Holder, ––– U.S. ––––, 133 S.Ct. 2612 (2013).”).

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happened a day before Shelby County but did not take effect

until signed by the Governor two days later, could not have 

mooted the case. 

Texas never made that argument in the district court. The 

State’s three-page Advisory did not cite National Black Police 

Association or any of the other cases on which the Intervenors 

based their claim of prevailing-party status and addressed the 

intervening legislative enactment. Indeed, the Advisory did 

not even mention mootness, the proper legal test for 

prevailing-party status, or a single precedent on attorneys’ 

fees. The district court thus applied Local Rule 7(b) and 

concluded that Texas had waived any argument that 

Intervenors were not prevailing parties as of the date of 

Texas’s enactment of new redistricting plans. Texas, 49 F. 

Supp. 3d at 39–40. And Texas has not challenged that waiver 

finding on appeal. 

Texas, moreover, is wrong to argue now that its 

legislative adoption of new voting districts did not contribute 

to mooting the case. Rather, Texas was right the first time 

when, in moving to dismiss its suit as moot following the 

Supreme Court’s remand, it argued that both the state 

legislation and Shelby County mooted the case. J.A. 403–404 

(arguing that the Texas Legislature’s enactment of new 

redistricting plans “on June 23, 2013,” combined with the 

Shelby County decision two days later, together eliminated 

“any basis for this Court’s jurisdiction”). The three-judge 

district court agreed with Texas that its “claims were mooted 

by Shelby County and the adoption of superseding 

redistricting plans.” J.A. 434. Beyond that, any questions 

concerning how the short time between those two events 

affected the Intervenors’ status as prevailing parties is an issue 

that Texas chose to leave entirely unaddressed in district 

court, and thus it has forfeited its arguments on that issue here.

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Fifth, Shelby County could not have instantly mooted 

Texas’s case as a categorical matter of law. As a formal 

matter, Supreme Court judgments on review of a federal court 

decision do not take effect until at least 25 days after they are 

announced, when the Court issues a certified copy of its 

opinion and judgment in lieu of a formal mandate. See SUP.

CT. R. 45. Parties may file a petition for rehearing during that 

25-day period, SUP. CT. R. 44, which “result[s] in an 

automatic stay of judgment or mandate unless the Court 

otherwise specifically directs,” S. Shapiro, K. Geller, T. 

Bishop, E. Hartnett, & D. Himmelfarb, Supreme Court 

Practice 830 (10th ed. 2013); see SUP. CT. R. 45. When the 

Court wants its judgment to take effect sooner, it says so. 

Perry, 132 S. Ct. at 944 (“The judgment shall issue

forthwith.”); Purcell v. Gonzalez, 549 U.S. 1, 6 (2006) 

(“Pursuant to this Court’s Rule 45.3, the Clerk is directed to 

issue the judgment in these cases forthwith.”). The judgment 

in Shelby County did not issue until July 29, 2013, over a 

month after Texas’s new redistricting maps took effect. See 

Shelby County v. Holder, No. 12-96, Docket.

Nor was it at all settled that Texas could benefit from 

Shelby County in this case, given that Texas told the district 

court directly that it was not challenging the constitutionality 

of the preclearance regime. And even if Texas had preserved 

a challenge to Section 5, the Supreme Court did not invalidate 

Section 5; it only invalidated the formula used to determine 

which jurisdictions would be required to seek preclearance. It 

was thus an open question—one that Texas chose not to 

litigate and that the adoption of Texas’s new maps mooted—

whether Texas had waived the application of Shelby County to 

its case.4

 4

 After this case was briefed, the Fifth Circuit denied attorneys’ 

fees in Davis v. Abbott, 781 F.3d 207 (5th Cir. 2015). Texas has 

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In short, various procedural and substantive complexities 

close the door on Texas’s claim that Shelby County instantly 

resolved the attorneys’ fees question in this case. Texas could 

have addressed those complexities by briefing them in an 

opposition to the Intervenors’ motions for attorneys’ fees, but 

chose not to do so. Texas also could have challenged the 

district court’s enforcement of its local rule to bar 

consideration of those issues on appeal, but it chose not to do 

that in its opening brief either. Texas gets no second bite at 

the apple now. What little argument Texas did advance in its 

“Advisory” provides an insufficient basis for overturning the 

district court’s award of attorneys’ fees. 

 

not argued that the Fifth Circuit’s decision bears on anything in this 

case. And that decision would be of no help to Texas had it tried. 

The Fifth Circuit grounded its decision on the district court’s 

inability to decide the merits of the Section 5 claim because, on that 

issue, the court only “had jurisdiction to * * * defer to the district 

court in D.C.” Id. at 217. Nor had that district court evaluated the 

merits of the plaintiffs’ Section 2 or constitutional claims. Those 

plaintiffs thus were not prevailing parties eligible for attorneys’ 

fees because they “failed to achieve judicially-sanctioned relief that 

sufficiently addressed the merits of any of their claims.” Id. at 219. 

Here, by contrast, the Intervenors obtained a final judgment on the 

merits, after a two-week trial and accompanied by a lengthy 

opinion, that was broader than even the Justice Department had 

sought. That is the type of judicial relief on the merits that provides 

a proper basis for an award of attorneys’ fees. See Buckhannon 

Board & Care Home, Inc. v. West Virginia Dep’t of Health & 

Human Resources, 532 U.S. 598, 605 (2001) (identifying 

judgments on the merits and court-ordered consent decrees).

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III

Conclusion

The district court’s order awarding attorneys’ fees to the 

Intervenors is affirmed.

So ordered.

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