IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 12-20628

Summary Calendar

ALIEF INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, and their Respective

Employees and Members of the Board of Trustees,

Plaintiff-Appellee

v.

C. C., by next friend Kenneth & Nneka C.,

Defendant-Appellant

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Texas

Before REAVLEY, JOLLY, and DAVIS, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Defendants-Appellants are parents of a minor child who filed an

unsuccessful administrative complaint against the Plaintiff-Appellee school

district. The district court denied the school district’s subsequent request for

attorneys’ fees. Although the parents asserted that the district court’s denial of

attorneys’ fees in turn rendered them prevailing parties—potentially entitling

them to attorneys’ fees—the district court declined to award attorneys’ fees to

the parents. Because defeating a request for attorneys’ fees is not the type of

success on the merits required to establish prevailing party status, we AFFIRM.

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

F I L E D

April 3, 2013

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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No. 12-20628

I.

C.C. is a disabled minor child enrolled in school in Texas’s Alief

Independent School District (“AISD”). On May 29, 2007, C.C.’s parents (“the

Parents”) filed an administrative complaint against AISD with the Texas

Education Agency, alleging multiple violations of the Individuals with

Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”). See 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(3)(B). In response,

AISD filed a request for a hearing and declaratory judgment. Declining to

proceed further, the parents voluntarily dismissed their complaint. 

However, AISD proceeded with the hearing and presented unopposed

evidence demonstrating its compliance with the IDEA. After the administrative

Hearing Officer ruled in favor of AISD, AISD filed suit in the district court under

20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(2)(A), seeking an award of attorneys’ fees. Specifically, AISD

alleged that it was entitled to attorneys’ fees because the Parents had filed their

IDEA complaint for an “improper purpose.” See id. The district court rejected

AISD’s argument, refused to impose attorneys’ fees, and entered judgment

accordingly.

The Parents then petitioned the district court for their own attorneys’ fees,

arguing that by successfully defeating AISD’s claim for attorneys’ fees, they had

become a “prevailing party” entitled to attorneys’ fees under the IDEA. The

district court summarily denied the petition, and the Parents now appeal.

II.

We review a district court’s grant or denial of attorneys’ fees under the

IDEA for abuse of discretion. T.B. ex rel. Debbra B. v. Bryan Indep. Sch. Dist.,

628 F.3d 240, 243 (5th Cir. 2010). However, we review underlying conclusions

of law and interpretations of the statute de novo. Id. 

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III.

The only question before us is whether a parent who loses a suit under the

IDEA becomes a “prevailing party” by defeating a subsequent petition for

attorneys’ fees.

The relevant IDEA statutory provision provides, “In any action or

proceeding brought under this section, the court, in its discretion, may award

reasonable attorneys’ fees as part of the costs— (I) to a prevailing party who is

the parent of a child with a disability.” 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(3)(B). Thus, only a

parent who can rightly be classified as a “prevailing party” is entitled to

attorneys’ fees.

The “touchstone of the prevailing party inquiry must be the material

alteration of the legal relationship of the parties in a manner which Congress

sought to promote in the fee statute.” El Paso Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Richard R.,

591 F.3d 417, 422 (5th Cir. 2009). “Under the IDEA, a prevailing party is one

that attains a remedy that both (1) alters the legal relationship between the

school district and the handicapped child and (2) fosters the purposes of the

IDEA.” Id. at 421–22. While a party does not need to prevail on every issue to

become a prevailing party, she must prevail on some “significant issue in

litigation which achieves some of the benefit the parties sought in bringing suit.”

See Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 433 (1983). Moreover, the relief obtained

must be “a judgment on the merits, a consent decree, or some similar form of

judicially sanctioned relief.” Richard R., 591 F.3d at 422.

The Parents argue that they are prevailing parties under this standard,

because they have achieved a remedy that “altered the legal relationship”

between the parties. Because the district court has permanently foreclosed

AISD’s ability to seek attorneys’ fees, the Parents argue, their legal relationship

to AISD has been officially altered. While the Parents have prevailed in a very

narrow and hollow sense, this is precisely the type of “de minimis” or “technical

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victory” that the Supreme Court has found so insignificant as to not create

prevailing party status. See Texas State Teachers Ass’n v. Garland Indep. Sch.

Dist., 489 U.S. 782, 792 (1989). As the Supreme Court has repeatedly

emphasized, “Our ‘[r]espect for ordinary language requires that a plaintiff

receive at least some relief on the merits of his claim before he can be said to

prevail.’”1 Successfully refuting a claim for attorneys’ fees is not a benefit that

the Parents sought in bringing suit, nor can it rightfully be described as “relief

on the merits” or a true “remedy” of any nature.2 The Parents filed an

unsuccessful complaint and were merely fortunate enough to have the lower

court deny a common request for attorneys’ fees. In no way have they succeeded

on the merits of their claim or achieved a desired remedy.

Our review of caselaw confirms this interpretation. The type of victories,

short of total success, to which the Supreme Court has been willing to ascribe

prevailing party status are in the nature of settlement agreements enforced

through a consent decree, partial success on the merits, injunctive relief,

declaratory relief, and nominal damages.3 The only case we have located that

considers a similar factual situation is R.P. ex rel. C.P. v. Prescott Unified School

District, 631 F.3d 1117, 1127–28 (9th Cir. 2011). In Prescott USD, the Ninth

Circuit reviewed the district court’s rejection of an IDEA claim brought by

parents of a disabled child against an Arizona school district. Though the

Prescott USD court affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the IDEA claim, it

reversed the district court’s award of attorneys’ fees to the school district. Id. at

1124–27. However, the court also denied the parents’ subsequent request for

1 Buckhannon Bd. & Care Home, Inc. v. West Virginia Dept. of Health & Human

Resources, 532 U.S. 598, 603 (2001) (quoting Hewitt v. Helms, 482 U.S. 755, 760 (1987)).

2 See Buckhannon, 532 U.S. at 603; Richard R., 591 F.3d at 422.

3 See Buckhannon, 532 U.S. at 604; Texas Lefemine v. Wideman, 133 S. Ct. 9 (2012)

(per curiam).

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attorneys’ fees, stating: “Because the parents aren’t entitled to relief on the

merits of their IDEA claim, they aren’t entitled to fees on appeal. See 20 U.S.C.

§ 1415(i)(3)(B)(i)(I) (permitting an award of fees to a “prevailing party”).” Id. at

1127–28. We agree with the Ninth Circuit that successfully defending an

ancillary request for attorneys’ fees, without more, does not qualify as the relief

on the merits necessary to create a prevailing party.

IV.

For the reasons stated above, the judgment of the district court is

AFFIRMED.

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