IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

 

No. 97-30626

 

OTIS L WILSON, ET AL.,

Plaintiffs

OTIS L WILSON; WILLIE WILLIAMS, JR

Plaintiffs - Appellants

v. 

MAYOR AND BOARD OF ALDERMAN OF ST FRANCISVILLE, LA; ET AL.

MAYOR AND BOARD OF ALDERMAN OF ST FRANCISVILLE, LA; WILLIAM

D’AQUILLA, Mayor of St Francisville; RICHARD HOLCOMB, Member of the

Board of Alderman of St. Francisville; OSCAR ROBERTSON, JR, Member

of the Board of Aldermen of St Francisville; JAMES DAVIS, Member of

the Board of Aldermen of St Francisville; JAMES R LEAKE, JR, Member

of the Board of Aldermen of St Francisville; BARBARA BONADVENTURE,

Member of the Board of Aldermen of St Francisville

Defendants - Appellees

 

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Louisiana

 

February 25, 1998

Before GARWOOD, JOLLY, and HIGGINBOTHAM, Circuit Judges.

HIGGINBOTHAM, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiffs appeal the district court’s judgment denying their

motion for attorneys’ fees. The district court held that Wilson

was not the “prevailing party” under 42 U.S.C. § 1973l(e) with

respect to the Board’s motion for relief from judgment. We agree

and AFFIRM.

I
2

In April 1992, the Board of Aldermen of St. Francisville,

Louisiana, replaced the at-large voting scheme used to elect the

Mayor and the Board with an apportionment plan which divided the

town into two districts. One was a single member district with a

black majority and the other was a multi-member district which was

to elect the other four Aldermen. The plan contained a residency

requirement in that each board member had to reside in the district

from which the member was elected. The Board submitted its plan to

the Attorney General for preclearance under § 5 of the Voting

Rights Act.

While the Attorney General was considering the plan, Wilson

and Williams, black residents and registered voters of St.

Francisville, filed suit claiming that the at-large system violated

the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and Section 2 of the Voting

Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1973. They sought an injunction enjoining

the elections scheduled for October 3, 1992. The district court

refused to grant them injunctive relief, but took the case under

submission.

On May 18, 1993, the Attorney General refused to preclear the

Board’s plan. In June 1993, the Board offered to settle the § 2

suit if Wilson would agree to its plan. Wilson refused to settle.

The Board asked the Attorney General to reconsider the preclearance

decision. Wilson opposed this request. The Attorney General

declined to reconsider the Board’s plan. On March 27, 1995, the

parties agreed to a consent judgment which adopted an apportionment

plan drafted by Wilson’s expert. Under this plan, St. Francisville
3

was divided into three districts: one single-member minority

district and two districts which would each elect two aldermen.

The plan did not have a residency requirement. The consent

judgment awarded Wilson $17,500 for attorneys’ fees and costs since

he was the prevailing party in the suit.

Shortly after the district court approved the consent

judgment, the Supreme Court handed down Miller v. Johnson, 515 U.S.

900 (1995). In light of Miller, the Board filed a motion for

relief from the consent judgment asserting that the approved plan

was unconstitutional and asking the district court to “place the

parties back into the position they were in prior to the entry of

the Consent Judgment, to proceed in light of the Miller decision.”

See R.5 at 889. Wilson opposed the Board’s motion and moved for an

injunction ordering the Board to implement the plan under the

consent judgment. Wilson argued that the consent judgment was not

unconstitutional under Miller and that the Board was not entitled

to any relief.

The district court held the consent judgment plan

unconstitutional and set aside the consent judgment insofar as it

ordered the town to be divided into three districts. The district

court acknowledged that the parties had stipulated that there was

a violation of § 2 of the VRA, R.6 at 21-22, 26, and approved the

plan the Board proposed in 1992, absent the residency requirement.
 

1The parties agreed that the Mayor would be elected under the

at-large scheme.

4

R.1 at 52. Neither party appealed the district court’s order

adopting the two district plan for electing the Board.1

Wilson moved for attorneys’ fees and costs for opposing the

Board’s motion for relief from judgment. The district court denied

Wilson’s request because it found the Board to be the prevailing

party with respect to the Rule 60(b) motion. Moreover, that the

Board was required to take action to enjoin the implementation of

the unconstitutional consent judgment plan and that the election

plan adopted was the one the Board originally proposed were special

circumstances justifying the denial of Wilson’s claim for

attorneys’ fees.

The only matter before us is whether Wilson is entitled to

attorneys’ fees for opposing the Board’s motion for relief from

judgment. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

II

We review a district court’s award of attorneys’ fees for

abuse of discretion and its supporting factual findings for clear

error. Watkins v. Fordice, 7 F.3d 453, 456 (5th Cir. 1993).

“Only ‘prevailing parties’ may recover attorneys’ fees under

42 U.S.C. §§ 1973l(e), 1988.” Id. “A plaintiff prevails if the

relief obtained, through judgment or settlement, materially alters

the defendants’ behavior in a way directly benefitting the

plaintiff.” Id. “[A]t a minimum, to be considered a prevailing
5

party . . . the plaintiff must be able to point to a resolution of

the dispute which changes the legal relationship between itself and

the defendant.” Texas State Teachers Ass’n v. Garland Indep. Sch.

Dist., 489 U.S. 782, 792 (1989). “Beyond this absolute limitation,

a technical victory may be so insignificant . . . as to be

insufficient to support prevailing party status.” Id. In an

action to prevent the modification of an earlier judgment, the

plaintiff will be deemed to have prevailed if the judgment is left

undisturbed. Walker v. HUD, 99 F.3d 761, 767 (5th Cir. 1996).

Wilson argues that he is entitled to attorneys’ fees in

opposing the Board’s motion because he succeeded in preventing the

Board from returning to the at-large voting regime and preserving

the benefits the consent judgment granted to him viz., a judicial

pronouncement that there was a § 2 violation, a change in the

election system from at-large to a multi-district scheme with a

majority black district, and an award of attorneys’ fees. Wilson’s

argument is unconvincing.

We, like the district court, do not construe the Board’s Rule

60(b) motion as a request to return to the at-large voting scheme.

After Miller, the Board believed the adopted plan suffered from

unconstitutional line drawing of the voting districts. The

district court agreed with the Board, finding one district of the

plan to be “bizarrely shaped”, R.6 at 17, and the plan itself

unconstitutional. Wilson interprets the Board’s request to return

to the position it was in prior to the consent judgment to mean

that the Board sought re-implementation of the at-large system.
6

The context of that statement indicates otherwise. First, the

Board asked for the parties to be returned to the positions they

were in prior to the entry of the consent judgment so that they

could proceed in light of Miller. That the Board recognized the

relevancy of Miller shows its intent to adopt a constitutional

multi-district voting scheme and not a desire to revert back to the

at-large system. Second, prior to the entry of the consent

judgment, the Board was pursuing preclearance of its two-district

plan, not vigorously opposing the dismantling of the at-large

scheme.

Wilson’s opposition to the Board’s Rule 60(b) motion was not

necessary to preserve the victories previously garnered. In ruling

on the Board’s motion, the district court acknowledged that the

parties had stipulated that there was a § 2 violation. At this

stage in the litigation, it was beyond peradventure that the

district court would adopt a plan with a black majority district.

Similarly, Wilson’s prior award of attorneys’ fees was never in

danger of being overturned. Hence, the district court’s

reaffirmation of its earlier rulings did not signal an alteration

in the Board’s behavior benefitting Wilson. See Farrar v. Hobby,

506 U.S. 103, 111-12 (1992).

Wilson further contends that he was the prevailing party

because he succeeded in removing the residency requirement from the

Board’s plan. Though the district court extracted the residency

requirement from the Board’s plan, we believe that Wilson’s

opposition to the Board’s motion for relief was not the motivating
7

factor for this action. In opposing the Board’s motion for relief,

Wilson forcefully argued for an injunction requiring the Board to

implement the plan set forth in the consent judgment. In his

supporting brief, Wilson never mentioned his desire to have, or the

significance of, an election scheme without a residency

requirement. Instead of Wilson’s protests, the factor most likely

compelling the district court’s removal of the residency

requirement was the Attorney General’s objection to the plan as

originally proposed. See generally City of Rome v. United States,

446 U.S. 156, 185 (1979) (noting the harmful effects of residency

requirements). 

We hold that Wilson’s opposition to the Board’s motion for

relief from judgment did not cause any material change in the legal

relationship of the parties to his benefit. The Board sought to

have the district court declare unconstitutional the plan under the

consent judgment; Wilson sought to have the district court enforce

the consent judgment. In no way did Wilson seek the action the

district court took - declaring the consent judgment plan

unconstitutional and adopting the Board’s plan absent the residency

requirement. Since he did not prevent the Board from disturbing

the consent judgment, the district court did not clearly err in

finding that Wilson was not the prevailing party with respect to

the Board’s motion for relief from judgment and did not abuse its

discretion in refusing to award Wilson attorneys’ fees.

The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.