Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-09-05189/USCOURTS-caDC-09-05189-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
John Davis
Appellant
United States Department of Justice
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued April 19, 2010 Decided July 6, 2010 

No. 09-5189 

JOHN DAVIS, 

APPELLANT

v. 

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, 

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 1:88-cv-00130-HHK) 

James H. Lesar argued the cause and filed the briefs for 

appellant. Daniel S. Alcorn entered an appearance. 

Jane M. Lyons, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the 

cause for appellee. With her on the brief were Ronald C. 

Machen, Jr., U.S. Attorney, and R. Craig Lawrence, 

Assistant U.S. Attorney, Heather Graham-Oliver, Assistant 

U.S. Attorney, entered an appearance. 

Before: HENDERSON, TATEL and GRIFFITH, Circuit 

Judges. 

USCA Case #09-5189 Document #1253293 Filed: 07/06/2010 Page 1 of 9
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 Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GRIFFITH. 

GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge: For forty-four years the 

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) has facilitated public 

access to the records of federal agencies. See Pub. L. No. 89-

554, § 552, 80 Stat. 378, 383 (1966) (codified as amended at 5 

U.S.C. § 552 (Supp. III 2009)). This case has been pending 

for half that time. The appellant, John Davis, filed a FOIA 

request with the Department of Justice in 1986, seeking 

access to tape recordings made during an FBI investigation of 

a New Orleans mob boss. When the Department failed to 

produce the recordings, Davis filed this suit. The question in 

this appeal—his sixth by our count—is whether the OPEN 

Government Act of 2007, Pub. L. No. 110-175, § 4, 121 Stat. 

2524, 2525, permits Davis to recoup the attorneys’ fees he 

incurred during the protracted litigation that followed. It does 

not. 

I. 

There is no need to linger on the facts and procedural 

history of this case; we have unwound that yarn before. See 

Davis v. DOJ (Davis IV), 460 F.3d 92 (D.C. Cir. 2006); Davis 

v. DOJ (Davis I), 968 F.2d 1276 (D.C. Cir. 1992). The salient 

points are that the Department voluntarily released many of 

the requested tapes in 1995, one additional tape in 1999, but 

nothing more in the decade that followed. The district court 

granted summary judgment in favor of the Department in 

2007, concluding that it had fulfilled its obligations under 

FOIA. Davis v. DOJ, No. 88-00130, 2007 WL 4275512 

(D.D.C. Dec. 3, 2007), aff’d, No. 08-5024, Order at 1 (D.C. 

Cir. July 31, 2008). Davis then moved for attorneys’ fees. 

Section 552(a)(4)(E) of Title 5 makes plaintiffs who have 

“substantially prevailed” in FOIA litigation eligible for a 

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recovery of reasonable attorneys’ fees. At one time, lower 

courts held that FOIA plaintiffs were eligible for a fee award 

if the lawsuit substantially caused the agency to release the 

requested records. Our circuit’s interpretation of 

§ 552(a)(4)(E) reflected this approach—known as the 

“catalyst theory”—when the Department handed its tape 

recordings over to Davis in 1995 and 1999. See, e.g., Cuneo v. 

Rumsfeld, 553 F.2d 1360, 1364–65 (D.C. Cir. 1977). 

But the Supreme Court rejected the catalyst theory in 

Buckhannon Board & Care Home, Inc. v. West Virginia 

Department of Health & Human Resources, 532 U.S. 598 

(2001). Construing two statutes allowing courts to award 

attorneys’ fees to the “prevailing party,” the Court held that a 

plaintiff whose lawsuit prompts the defendant to voluntarily 

change its conduct does not qualify for a fee award. See id. at 

600–01. We subsequently concluded that “the existing law of 

our circuit must give way” to Buckhannon and held that a 

FOIA plaintiff has “substantially prevailed” only if he has 

“‘been awarded some relief by [a] court,’ either in a judgment 

on the merits or in a court-ordered consent decree.” Oil, 

Chem. & Atomic Workers Int’l Union, AFL-CIO v. Dep’t of 

Energy (OCAW), 288 F.3d 452, 456–57 (D.C. Cir. 2002) 

(quoting Buckhannon, 532 U.S. at 603). 

Disapproving of the effect these cases had on the 

disclosure policies of administrative agencies, Congress 

enacted the OPEN Government Act of 2007 to establish that 

the catalyst theory applied in FOIA cases. See Judicial Watch, 

Inc. v. FBI, 522 F.3d 364, 370 (D.C. Cir. 2008). Under the 

new statute, a plaintiff “substantially prevail[s]” (and is thus 

eligible for a fee award) if his suit yields relief in the form of 

“a judicial order, or an enforceable written agreement or 

consent decree” or “a voluntary or unilateral change in 

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position by the agency.” 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(E)(ii) (Supp. III 

2009) [hereinafter 2007 Act]. 

Prior to the 2007 Act, we determined in Davis IV that 

Davis was ineligible for attorneys’ fees under Buckhannon

and OCAW. 460 F.3d at 105–06. We remanded for further 

proceedings on the merits, and Davis renewed his fee request 

in light of the 2007 Act. A magistrate judge agreed with Davis 

that the new statute governed his request for attorneys’ fees 

and recommended an award of $112,029.48. The district court 

disagreed and denied Davis’s motion. We affirm. 

II. 

Whether Davis is now eligible for attorneys’ fees is a 

question of legislative retroactivity: Does the 2007 Act 

resurrect the catalyst theory for cases in which the agency 

voluntarily changed its position before the statute’s 

enactment? A statute operates retroactively if it “attaches new 

legal consequences to events completed before its enactment.” 

Landgraf v. USI Film Prods., 511 U.S. 244, 270 (1994). 

There is a “well-settled presumption” against giving statutes 

retroactive effect. Id. at 277. See generally Kaiser Aluminum 

& Chem. Corp. v. Bonjorno, 494 U.S. 827, 840–58 (1990) 

(Scalia, J., concurring) (tracing the historical development of 

the presumption); DANIEL E. TROY, RETROACTIVE 

LEGISLATION 25–43 (1998) (same). The presumption 

prohibits courts from applying a new provision in a way that 

would “‘affect[] substantive rights, liabilities, or duties [on the 

basis of] conduct arising before [its] enactment,’” FernandezVargas v. Gonzales, 548 U.S. 30, 37 (2006) (quoting 

Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 278), “unless Congress has clearly 

manifested its intent to the contrary,” Hughes Aircraft Co. v. 

United States ex rel. Schumer, 520 U.S. 939, 946 (1997). 

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Summers v. Department of Justice, 569 F.3d 500 (D.C. 

Cir. 2009), largely determined the temporal scope of the 2007 

Act. Summers involved a request for attorneys’ fees in a 

FOIA lawsuit that was settled in 2005, after OCAW but before 

the 2007 Act. See id. at 502. The district court held the 

plaintiff ineligible for a fee award under OCAW. Id. The 2007 

Act took effect while the appeal was pending, and the plaintiff 

asked us to apply the new statute. See id. at 503–04. The 

Summers court observed that because the government had 

voluntarily relinquished the records, it was not liable for 

attorneys’ fees “under the pre-amendment rule of 

Buckhannon.” Id. at 503. Applying the new law would 

therefore “impose an ‘unforeseeable obligation’ upon the 

defendant by exposing it to liability for attorneys’ fees for 

which it clearly was not liable before.” Id. at 504 (quoting 

Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 278). Moreover, the court found that 

the text of the 2007 Act was “silent with regard to its temporal 

reach,” and that its legislative history contained “no evidence 

of a ‘clear congressional intent favoring [retroactive 

application].’” Id. (quoting Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 280). 

Absent clear instructions from Congress, the Summers court 

declined to apply the 2007 Act retroactively. 

Davis contends Summers was wrongly decided. 

Summers, of course, is the law of the circuit, and “[o]ne threejudge panel . . . does not have the authority to overrule 

another three-judge panel of the court.” LaShawn A. v. Barry, 

87 F.3d 1389, 1395 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (en banc); see also Davis 

IV, 460 F.3d at 106. Davis’s arguments that Summers is not 

binding are without merit. Accordingly, we turn to his two 

attempts to distinguish the case. 

First, Davis argues that the 2007 Act would not operate 

retroactively here because the statute simply reinstates the 

standard this court applied when the Department voluntarily 

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released the tapes in 1995 and 1999. The government could 

not foresee its potential liability for fees in Summers because 

it settled the case after Buckhannon and OCAW. By contrast, 

when the government disclosed the tapes in this case, it could 

expect to pay attorneys’ fees under the catalyst theory. At 

least in these circumstances, Davis contends, the 2007 Act

restores but does not “‘increase a party’s liability for past 

conduct,’” Summers, 569 F.3d at 504 (quoting Landgraf, 511 

U.S. at 280) (emphasis added), and therefore is not 

impermissibly retroactive. 

The Supreme Court recognized the “equitable appeal” of 

this line of argument in Rivers v. Roadway Express, Inc., 511 

U.S. 298, 310 (1994), but ultimately rejected it. At issue in 

Rivers, the companion case to Landgraf, was a provision of 

the Civil Rights Act of 1991 that “overruled” the Supreme 

Court’s holding in Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 

U.S. 164 (1989), that 42 U.S.C. § 1981 did not provide a 

cause of action for discriminatory termination. See Rivers, 

511 U.S. at 304–05, 306–07. The plaintiffs in Rivers were 

fired before the Court decided Patterson, at a time when 

circuit precedent would have allowed their claims to go 

forward. See id. at 309 n.9. But when the plaintiffs invoked 

the 1991 Act on appeal, the Court rejected their argument 

“that restorative statutes do not implicate fairness concerns 

relating to retroactivity . . . when . . . the new statute simply 

enacts a rule that the parties believed to be the law when they 

acted.” Id. at 309; see id. at 309–13. “Even when Congress 

intends to supersede a rule of law embodied in one of our 

decisions with what it views as a better rule established in 

earlier decisions,” the Court explained, “its intent to reach 

conduct preceding the ‘corrective’ amendment must clearly 

appear.” Id. at 313. 

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Rivers forecloses Davis’s argument. It does not matter 

that Davis “substantially prevailed prior to this Court’s 

decision in [OCAW].” Appellant’s Br. at 2. Although our preOCAW decisions endorsed the catalyst theory for attorneys’ 

fees under FOIA, the Supreme Court in Buckhannon made 

clear that our circuit and others had gotten it wrong. OCAW, 

288 F.3d at 454–57; accord Zarcon, Inc. v. NLRB, 578 F.3d 

892, 894–95 (8th Cir. 2009); Or. Nat’l Desert Ass’n v. Locke, 

572 F.3d 610, 617–18 (9th Cir. 2009); Union of Needletrades, 

Indus. & Textile Employees, AFL-CIO v. INS, 336 F.3d 200, 

203–07 (2d Cir. 2003). Buckhannon, moreover, did not apply 

only to future conduct. While legislation is presumptively 

prospective, judicial decisions are typically retrospective. See 

United States v. Sec. Indus. Bank, 459 U.S. 70, 79 (1982) 

(“The principle that statutes operate only prospectively, while 

judicial decisions operate retrospectively, is familiar to every 

law student.”); see, e.g., Harper v. Va. Dep’t of Taxation, 509 

U.S. 86, 94–99 (1993); INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289, 316–17 

(2001). Because “[a] judicial construction of a statute is an 

authoritative statement of what the statute meant before as 

well as after the [court’s] decision,” Rivers, 511 U.S. at 312–

13, “Buckhannon controls” the meaning of the FOIA 

attorneys’ fees provision from the time of the statute’s 

enactment until its amendment in 2007, OCAW, 288 F.3d at 

457. Therefore, in “ask[ing] whether the new provision 

attaches new legal consequences to events completed before 

its enactment,” Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 269–70, we must 

measure the 2007 Act against our post-Buckhannon 

interpretation of the statute and not the decisions that came 

before. See Rivers, 511 U.S. at 313 (explaining that Patterson, 

rather than earlier circuit precedent, “provides the baseline for 

[the Court’s] conclusion that the [new statute] would be 

‘retroactive’ if applied to cases arising before [the statute’s 

effective] date”); see also AT&T Corp. v. Hulteen, 129 S. Ct. 

1962, 1971 n.5 (2009). Prior to the 2007 Act, the legal 

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consequences of the Department’s voluntary release of the 

tapes—as determined by Buckhannon and OCAW—did not 

include liability for attorneys’ fees. See Davis IV, 460 F.3d at 

105–06. Because reliance on the 2007 Act would give rise to 

liability for attorneys’ fees where none existed before, 

Summers precludes its application. 

Davis’s second effort to distinguish Summers rests on the 

fact that the magistrate judge in this case found that Davis 

was entitled to attorneys’ fees. He notes that in Summers 

“there [was] no indication the district court would have 

awarded fees had it the statutory authority or equitable power 

to do so.” 569 F.3d at 504. Davis lifts the Summers court’s 

language out of context. In making this observation, the court 

was distinguishing Bradley v. School Board of Richmond, 416 

U.S. 696 (1974), and the passage can be understood only 

against that backdrop. 

The plaintiffs in Bradley were a group of parents who 

brought a class action to desegregate the public schools in 

Richmond, Virginia. Id. at 699. After they prevailed in the 

district court, they were awarded attorneys’ fees. Id. at 705–

06. “Noting the absence at the time of any explicit statutory 

authorization for an award of fees in school desegregation 

actions, the court based the award on two alternative grounds 

rooted in its general equity power.” Id. at 706 (internal 

citation omitted); see also id. at 705–10. While the appeal was 

pending, Congress enacted the Emergency School Aid Act, 

Pub. L. No. 92-318, § 718, 86 Stat. 235, 369 (1972), which 

expressly authorized such fee awards. Holding that the new 

statute governed and lacked retroactive effect under these 

circumstances, the Bradley Court explained that the statute 

did “not impose an additional or unforeseeable obligation” on 

the school board because the board had acted “with the 

knowledge that, under different theories, . . . [it] could have 

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been required to pay attorneys’ fees.” Bradley, 416 U.S. at 

721. As the Supreme Court later explained, the statute at issue 

in Bradley did not have impermissible retroactive effects “[i]n 

light of the prior availability of a fee award, and the likelihood 

that fees would be assessed under pre-existing theories.” 

Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 278; see Martin v. Hadix, 527 U.S. 343, 

359–60 (1999). 

What distinguishes Bradley—and by implication 

Summers—is the “prior availability” of attorneys’ fees “under 

pre-existing theories.” Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 278; see 

Bradley, 416 U.S. at 721. The statute at issue in Bradley did 

not operate retroactively because the “extent of the change in 

the law” was negligible. Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 270. Davis, 

unlike the Bradley plaintiffs, was not eligible for attorneys’ 

fees before Congress enacted the relevant statute. See Davis 

IV, 460 F.3d at 105–06. Although the magistrate judge found 

Davis entitled to a fee award, he did so only after applying the 

2007 Act retroactively—wrongly as it turns out. He did not 

rely on any pre-existing authority. In any event, the 

magistrate’s legal error has no bearing on our own 

retroactivity analysis. 

III. 

The decision of the district court is 

Affirmed. 

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