United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

May 30, 2007

Charles R. Fulbruge III

Clerk

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 05-41689

THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE PUBLISHING CO.;

THE GALVESTON COUNTY DAILY NEWS,

Plaintiffs-Appellees - Cross-Appellants,

versus

CITY OF LEAGUE CITY, TEXAS; ET AL,

Defendants,

CITY OF LEAGUE CITY, TEXAS,

Defendant-Appellant - Cross-Appellee.

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Texas

(3:05-CV-448)

Before JONES, Chief Judge, and WIENER and BARKSDALE, Circuit 

Judges.

RHESA HAWKINS BARKSDALE, Circuit Judge:

The City of League City, Texas, challenges being permanently

enjoined from enforcing, as unconstitutional, its Ordinance 2004-45

(the Ordinance), regulating street vendors and door-to-door

solicitors. The City contends: the two plaintiff newspapers, The

Houston Chronicle and The Galveston County Daily News, lack

standing; the injunction should be vacated for mootness because,

post-entry of the injunction, the City repealed the

constitutionally impermissible provisions; and the not-repealed
2

provision, § 78-39, which regulates only street vendors’ conduct at

traffic-signal-controlled intersections, is a constitutional

restriction. The newspapers respond: they have standing; vacatur

due to mootness is improper because such mootness resulted from the

City’s voluntary actions; § 78-39 is unconstitutional, as held by

the district court; and it erred in not awarding them attorney’s

fees.

Both newspapers have standing. Further, the injunction will

not be vacated. Because the remaining provision, § 78-39, has

never been applied to the newspapers, however, and, because its

plain language is non-discriminatory and content-neutral, we

reverse the district court’s holding it unconstitutional, both

facially and as applied. Pursuant to the newspapers’ cross-appeal,

we reverse the district court’s refusal to award attorney’s fees to

them, because they remain prevailing parties on their claim,

pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. VACATED IN PART; REVERSED IN PART;

REMANDED.

I.

The instant dispute post-dates a related Texas state-court

action, in which the Houston Chronicle sued City officials for

prosecuting its street vendors for violating Texas Transportation

Code § 552.007(a) (prohibiting street solicitations, except by

charitable organizations). That state-court action ended in March

2004 with a consent judgment permanently enjoining the City from
3

prosecuting Houston Chronicle vendors under this state law.

Houston Chronicle Pub. Co. v. Sistrunk, No. 03-CV-1587 (122nd

Judicial District Court, Galveston County, Texas 3 March 2004).

The Ordinance is similar to the above Texas law. (As noted,

most of it was voluntarily repealed after entry of the injunction

in this action, leaving only § 78-39, quoted below.) The Ordinance

required, inter alia, any “solicitor, peddler, canvasser, or

itinerant vendor”, prior to engaging in any “business and related

activities”, to: register with the City; submit to a criminal

background check; pay a $30 fee; and post a $1,000 bond. LEAGUE

CITY, TEX., ORDINANCES art. II, §§ 78-32 and 78-33 (2004). The

Ordinance exempted “[m]inors conducting fundraising activities who

represent a youth organization, including, but not limited to Boy

Scouts, Girl Scouts, Little League groups, and school groups”. Id.

at § 78-34(c).

In January 2005, approximately nine months after the 2004

state-court consent judgment, the City amended the Ordinance to add

§ 78-39. That section is primarily at issue in this appeal and

states, in part:

(a) No person who is within a public roadway

may solicit or sell or distribute any material

to the occupant of any motor vehicle stopped

on a public roadway in obedience to a traffic

control signal light. It is specifically

provided, however, that a person, other than a

person twelve years of age or younger, may

solicit or sell or distribute material to the

occupant of a motor vehicle on a public

roadway so long as he or she remains on the
4

surrounding sidewalks and unpaved shoulders,

and not in or on the roadway itself, including

the medians and islands.

Id. at § 78-39 (emphasis added).

A year after the 2004 state-court consent judgment, and

several months after § 78-39 was added, the City, using a related

Ordinance provision (§ 78-38), issued citations to two Houston

Chronicle vendors selling newspapers at the intersection of State

Highway FM 518 and Interstate 45, for “soliciting without a

permit”. Id. at § 78-38(12) (making it “unlawful for any peddler,

solicitor, canvasser or itinerant vendor” to conduct business “on

any public roadway, public roadway median, public sidewalk ... or

other public property within the city without written authorization

from the city”). As a result, the Houston Chronicle and the Daily

News filed this action in August 2005, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §

1983, claiming the Ordinance violated the First and Fourteenth

Amendments. 

That October, the district court permanently enjoined

enforcement of the Ordinance, holding it unconstitutional, both

facially and as applied to prohibit newspaper sales on public

streets. Regarding the recently enacted and above-quoted § 78-39,

the court found: “the City allows charitable organizations [e.g.,

firefighters] to solicit donations for their causes at the

intersection [in issue] while prosecuting the newspapers’ vendors

for engaging in constitutionally protected activity because the
5

newspapers’ activities are commercial, rather than charitable”.

Houston Chronicle Pub. Co. v. City of League City, Tex., No. G-05-

448 (S.D. Tex. 14 Oct. 2005) (mem.) [hereinafter USDC Opn.]. The

district court did not find, however, that the City ever

prosecuted, or threatened to prosecute, the newspapers under § 78-

39. But implicit in its findings is the suggestion that the City

will do so. Id. at *7. In any event, the district court held:

“Section 78-39 ... cannot be justified as a valid time, place and

manner restriction because the City de facto discriminates in

enforcing it based on the content of the message being conveyed”.

Id. at *3. The City filed its notice of appeal that November.

The following January (2006), however, it voluntarily repealed the

provisions of the Ordinance pertaining to registration, bond

posting, and door-to-door solicitation; it did not repeal § 78-39.

II.

First at issue is whether the newspapers have standing.

Because they do, next at issue is whether the injunction should be

vacated due to mootness. It is not vacated because the mootness is

due to the City’s voluntarily repealing portions of the Ordinance.

The remaining issues are whether the district court erred: (1) in

holding § 78-39 unconstitutional (due to the City’s repealing the

other Ordinance provisions, only the constitutionality vel non of

§ 78-39 remains); and (2) in denying attorney’s fees to the

newspapers.
6

A.

The City maintains both newspapers lack standing to challenge

the repealed provisions of the Ordinance, claiming the controversy

as to those provisions is moot. (Mootness as it relates to vacatur

is addressed in part II.B.) Concerning the remaining provision, §

78-39, the City conceded at oral argument here that the Houston

Chronicle has standing to challenge that section. (Of course, we,

not the parties, determine such jurisdictional questions.) The

City continues, however, to contend the Daily News lacks standing

to challenge § 78-39 because it failed to present evidence it

engages in street-vendor sales prohibited by that provision.

Standing issues are reviewed de novo. E.g., Rivera v.

Wyeth-Ayerst Labs., 283 F.3d 315, 319 (5th Cir. 2002). No

authority need be cited for our clear-error standard of review for

findings of fact. The district court held both newspapers have

standing because each demonstrated long-established practices of

street-vendor sales in the City. USDC Opn. at *1.

To establish standing, a plaintiff must show: (1) it has

suffered, or imminently will suffer, a concrete and particularized

injury-in-fact; (2) the injury is fairly traceable to the

defendant’s conduct; and (3) a favorable judgment is likely to

redress the injury. E.g., Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S.

555, 560-61 (1992). As the parties agree, both newspapers satisfy

the causation and redressability requirements. Therefore, at issue
7

is: whether the newspapers can demonstrate injury for the repealed

provisions and for § 78-39.

Toward this end, the newspapers rely on a 28 April 2005 letter

from the City’s attorney, which indicated the City would prosecute

them under § 78-39. The letter acknowledged possible

constitutional problems with subjecting the newspapers to the

Ordinance’s later-repealed permitting requirements, pursuant to,

e.g., § 78-38, but stated: 

It is our position that in all other respects

the ordinance represents a reasonable exercise

of the City’s police power .... As the

[City’s Police] Chief made clear in his

comments [at a meeting that April], [Houston

Chronicle] salespeople are, in certain

instances, setting up shop in the center of a

painted, unimproved median on a busy farm-tomarket road intersecting Interstate 45 South.

Enforcement of the ordinance will minimize the

possibility of serious bodily injury or death

for these individuals. In the face of these

known circumstances, I cannot imagine that

either the [Houston] Chronicle or Daily News

would wish to be recognized for having

advocated a repeal of these safety measures at

the risk of their employees’ safety and wellbeing.

1.

Concerning the Houston Chronicle, the City issued two

citations to its vendors at the above-referenced intersection,

pursuant to the Ordinance’s now-repealed permitting requirements in

§ 78-38 and related sections. Although the above-quoted

correspondence intimates the City would not further prosecute both

newspapers under § 78-38, it clearly indicated it will do so under
8

§ 78-39. The Houston Chronicle has demonstrated sufficient injury

to establish standing for the repealed provisions and, as discussed

below, for § 78-39. 

2.

Regarding the Daily News, and contrary to the City’s

contentions, it has demonstrated it engages in sales in the City

that would subject its vendors to prosecution under the Ordinance

in general and § 78-39 in particular. In addition to the evidence

the district court found sufficient (which finding the City does

not show was clearly erroneous), this court granted the Daily News’

9 February 2006 motion to supplement the record on appeal, adding

evidence that, following entry of the injunction, the Daily News

began selling newspapers at the above-referenced intersection.

(That motion was filed after the City’s November 2005 notice of

appeal and its January 2006 repeal of most of the Ordinance.

Allowing the supplementation was appropriate in the light of this

post-notice-of-appeal conduct by the City. Of course, after the

notice was filed, the evidence could not be filed in district court

without our remanding for that purpose.)

Chilling a plaintiff’s speech is a constitutional harm

adequate to satisfy the injury-in-fact requirement. Meese v.

Keene, 481 U.S. 465, 473 (1987) (holding foreign-films exhibitor

showed chill sufficient to meet “objective injury” requirement by

demonstrating reputational injuries that would result from labeling
9

films “political propaganda” under the Foreign Agents Registration

Act); but see Laird v. Tatum, 408 U.S. 1, 13-14 (1972) (holding

unspecified “[a]llegations of a subjective ‘chill’ are not an

adequate substitute for a claim of specific present objective harm

or a threat of specific future harm”).

Although, unlike the Houston Chronicle, the Daily News has not

been issued a citation under the Ordinance, it has shown a chilling

of its First Amendment activities under the repealed Ordinance

provisions. Both newspapers have shown such effect for § 78-39,

and both have shown imminent future prosecution if the City is not

enjoined. Therefore, each newspaper has demonstrated specific

injury beyond mere subjective chill. Meese, 481 U.S. at 473;

Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560. Thus, like the Houston Chronicle, the

Daily News has satisfied the injury-in-fact requirement. 

This result is consistent with broader Supreme Court and Fifth

Circuit precedent. See, e.g., Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U.S. 452,

459 (1974) (“it is not necessary that [a party] first expose

himself to actual arrest or prosecution to be entitled to challenge

a statute that he claims deters the exercise of his constitutional

rights”); Int'l Soc’y for Krishna Consciousness of Atlanta v.

Eaves, 601 F.2d 809, 818 (5th Cir. 1979) (a justiciable controversy

exists when “the plaintiff is seriously interested in disobeying,

and the defendant seriously intent on enforcing, the challenged

measure”).
10

B.

The City asserts: its repealing parts of the Ordinance

renders the newspapers’ earlier challenge to those parts moot; and,

as a result, the injunction should be vacated. The newspapers

concede their challenge to the repealed provisions is obviously

moot; but, they claim the City should not be permitted to evade the

injunction by selectively repealing provisions. We reject the

City’s vacatur-due-to-mootness contention.

It goes without saying that disputes concerning repealed

legislation are generally moot. See, e.g., AT&T Commc’ns of the

Sw., Inc. v. City of Austin, 235 F.3d 241, 244 (5th Cir. 2000)

(citing United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 340 U.S. 36, 39

(1950)). Nevertheless, “[v]acatur of the lower court’s judgment is

warranted only where mootness has occurred through happenstance,

rather than through voluntary action of the losing party”. Murphy

v. Fort Worth Indep. Sch. Dist., 334 F.3d 470, 471 (5th Cir. 2003)

(per curiam) (citing Arizonans for Official English v. Arizona, 520

U.S. 43, 71 (1997)(emphasis added)); see also Staley v. Harris

County, Texas, No. 04-20667, 2007 WL 1191147, at *4 (5th Cir. 24

April 2007) (en banc). As the Supreme Court held in U.S. Bancorp

Mortgage Co. v. Bonner Mall Partnership, 513 U.S. 18, 25 (1994):

if mootness results from the losing party’s voluntary actions, that

party has “forfeited his legal remedy by the ordinary process of

appeal ..., thereby surrendering his claim to the equitable remedy
11

of vacatur”. To allow a party “to employ the secondary remedy of

vacatur as a refined form of collateral attack on the judgment

would – quite apart from any considerations of fairness to the

parties – disturb the orderly operation of the federal judicial

system”. Id. at 27; see also, AT&T Commc’ns of the Sw., Inc., 235

F.3d at 244 (“vacatur does not lie ... when the party seeking

relief from the district court’s judgment ... ‘caused the mootness

by voluntary action’” (quoting U.S. Bancorp, 513 U.S. at 24));

Sierra Club v. Glickman, 156 F.3d 606, 620 (5th Cir. 1998)

(refusing to vacate where the issue was rendered moot by the losing

party’s voluntary compliance with the judgment).

In response to this authority, the City points to two cases;

each is readily distinguishable. In Arizonans for Official

English, the Supreme Court vacated a judgment as moot because the

state employee, who was challenging the Arizona constitutional

amendment requiring state employees to speak only English, quit her

employment while her appeal was pending. 520 U.S. at 74-75.

Because the employee was not the loser in the appealed-from

judgment, the U.S. Bancorp rule was not involved. 

Similarly, in AT&T Communications of the Southwest, Inc., our

court vacated a judgment due to mootness when the ordinance at

issue was superseded by a Texas state law. That law was passed

while the appeal was pending and prohibited the ordinance. 235

F.3d at 243-44. Contrary to the City’s contentions, this case also
12

does not concern the U.S. Bancorp rule because, again, the mootness

was not caused by the losing party’s actions; rather, the Texas

legislature created it by enacting the new law. Id.

Our decision here finds further support in our court’s recent

en banc decision in Staley, in which we refused to vacate an

injunction against a religious display outside a Texas courthouse

after the defendant-county voluntarily removed it. 2007 WL

1191147, at *8. As emphasized in Staley, vacatur is an

“extraordinary” and equitable remedy, “to be determined on a caseby-case basis, governed by facts and not inflexible rules”. Id. at

*4 (citing U.S. Bancorp., 513 U.S. at 25-26). The burden is on

“the party seeking relief from the status quo”; that party must

demonstrate “equitable entitlement to the extraordinary writ of

vacatur”. U.S. Bancorp., 513 U.S. at 26. 

In holding the defendant-county in Staley had not made such a

showing, our en banc court distinguished several cases granting

vacatur even though the controversy was mooted by the losing

party’s voluntary action. See, e.g., Russman v. Bd. of Educ., 260

F.3d 114 (2d Cir. 2001) (granting vacatur and differentiating

between voluntary conduct purposefully taken to moot a controversy,

and voluntary conduct “entirely unrelated to the lawsuit”, such as

the plaintiff-student graduating from school); Khodra Envtl., Inc.

v. Beckman, 237 F. 3d 186, 195 (3d Cir. 2001) (granting vacatur

when no evidence suggested the mootness-causing legislation
13

responded to the unfavorable judgment); Nat’l Black Police Ass’n v.

Dist. of Columbia, 108 F.3d 346, 350-52 (D.C. Cir. 1999) (vacating

judgment as moot when challenged campaign-contribution limits were

removed before the district court enjoined them). As noted in

Staley, equitable factors distinguish these cases from the instant

case, including: whether plaintiffs obtained full relief in

district court before the defendants mooted the case; and the

extent to which non-parties to the litigation were impacted by the

district court judgment. 2007 WL 1191147, at *6.

Consistent with Staley, and unlike Russman, Khodra

Environmental, and National Black Police Association, the equitable

factors in the instant case weigh against vacating the district

court’s injunction. Contrary to Russman, the mootness-causing

action did not result from typical progression of events, such as

a student graduating from school. Distinct from Khodra

Environmental, the City has not shown its repealing the Ordinance

provisions was not in response to the district court judgment. And

unlike National Black Police Association, the newspapers obtained

full relief in district court before League City repealed most of

the Ordinance. Moreover, the Ordinance has been applied

exclusively against the newspapers, rather than non-parties to this

litigation. Therefore, we refuse to vacate the injunction. 

C.
14

As discussed, § 78-39, the only provision not voluntarily

repealed, was held unconstitutional by the district court. The

City contends § 78-39 is a constitutionally permissible, contentneutral time, place, and manner restriction, narrowly tailored to

achieve a compelling governmental interest. See Konigsberg v.

State Bar of Cal., 366 U.S. 36, 50 (1961) (general regulatory

ordinances “not intended to control the content of speech but

incidentally limiting its unfettered exercise, have not been

regarded as the type of law the First or Fourteenth Amendments

forbade”).

Despite its ultimately holding § 78-39 unconstitutional, the

district court found § 78-39 “has no content-based discriminatory

intent”. USDC Opn. at *5. Consistent with the above-quoted letter

from the City attorney, the City relies on this finding to maintain

its content-neutral purpose is one of public safety: to prohibit

the dangerous activity of solicitors’ entering busy traffic

intersections. Toward this end, the City demonstrated at trial

that newspaper street-vendors in nearby cities had been seriously

injured at intersections similar to FM 518/I-45. According to the

City, § 78-39 was deliberately drafted to restrict solicitations

only at intersections controlled by traffic-signal lights in order

to narrowly tailor the restriction, while leaving open adequate

alternative channels for solicitation. See, e.g., Int’l Soc’y for

Krishna Consciousness of New Orleans, Inc. v. City of Baton Rouge,
15

876 F.2d 494, 495-96 (5th Cir. 1989) (upholding an ordinance

stating, “[n]o person shall be upon or go upon any street or

roadway ... for the purpose of soliciting employment, business, or

charitable contributions of any kind from the occupant of any

vehicle”).

Despite its above-quoted finding that § 78-39 “has no contentbased discriminatory intent”, the district court held the section

“cannot be justified as a valid time, place and manner restriction

because the City de facto discriminates in enforcing it based on

the content of the message being conveyed”. USDC Opn. at *6. It

further held § 78-39 was not applied in a content-neutral manner

because the City “allows charitable organizations to solicit

donations for their causes at the intersection of FM 518 and

Interstate 45 while prosecuting the newspapers’ vendors for

engaging in constitutionally protected activity”. Id. And it held

§ 78-39 was neither narrowly tailored nor designed to serve a

compelling government interest: 

According to [the] City’s own witnesses

[referring, inter alia, to its Police Chief’s

testimony], [§ 78-39] is not narrowly drawn to

promote the City’s stated goal of promoting

safety, and the City plainly has no compelling

interest in allowing street solicitations for

... charitable organizations while prohibiting

newspaper sales. 

Id. at *7 (emphasis added). (Of course, this holding was prior to

the voluntary repeal of parts of the Ordinance, including those

permitting solicitations for charitable organizations.)
16

Injunctive relief is reviewed for an abuse of discretion.

Peaches Entm’t Corp. v. Entm’t Repertoire Assocs., Inc., 62 F.3d

690, 693 (5th Cir. 1995) (permanent injunction reviewed for abuse

of discretion) (citations omitted). In that regard, a district

court abuses its discretion when it: “(1) relies on clearly

erroneous factual findings when deciding to grant or deny the

permanent injunction[,] (2) relies on erroneous conclusions of law

when deciding to grant or deny the permanent injunction, or (3)

misapplies the factual or legal conclusions when fashioning its

injunctive relief”. Id.

The district court correctly stated the applicable law:

streets are traditional public forums, United States v. Grace, 461

U.S. 171, 177 (1983); the sale of newspapers is a First-Amendmentprotected activity, see, e.g., New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376

U.S. 254, 266 (1964); therefore, in order to prohibit such activity

in a quintessential public forum, a content-based regulation must

be “necessary to serve a compelling state interest and ... narrowly

drawn to achieve that end”; and, when the regulation is contentneutral, it must also be “narrowly tailored to serve a significant

government interest, and leave open ample alternative channels of

communication”, Perry Educ. Ass’n v. Perry Local Educators’ Ass’n,

460 U.S. 37, 45 (1983). USDC Opn. at *4-5. The district court

correctly applied these legal principles to the Ordinance as a
17

whole, as well as to the City’s application of it to the

newspapers. Id. at *6-7.

With regard to § 78-39, however, the district court’s holding

it unconstitutional can not be upheld, now that the section stands

alone, stripped of any discriminatory context provided by the

repealed provisions. For example, repealed § 78-34 exempted from

the Ordinance’s proscriptions “youth organization[s], including,

but not limited to Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Little League groups

and school groups”. ORDINANCE § 78-34.

Viewed in isolation, § 78-39 is not facially unconstitutional.

See United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739, 745 (1987) (“[a] facial

challenge to a legislative Act is, of course, the most difficult

challenge to mount successfully, since the challenger must

establish that no set of circumstances exists under which the Act

would be valid”). We reject the newspapers’ assertions that, by

only prohibiting solicitations at intersections controlled by

traffic-signal lights, § 78-39 is underinclusive – too narrowly

tailored – to effectively serve any real public-safety interest.

On its face, prohibiting street solicitations only at such

intersections is a reasonable means to narrowly tailor § 78-39’s

reach. Such intersections (those requiring traffic-signal lights)

are generally the most heavily trafficked. See USDC Opn. at *7

(stating approximately 37,000 vehicles per day cross the I-45/FM518 intersection). Therefore, they are the most dangerous.
18

Accordingly, § 78-39’s proscription serves a compelling interest at

the heart of government’s function: public safety. See Int’l

Soc’y for Krishna Consciousness of New Orleans, Inc., 876 F.2d at

496-97. 

Further, the district court erred in concluding that “the City

de facto discriminates in enforcing [§ 78-39] based on the content

of the message being conveyed”. USDC Opn. at *6. As noted,

although it has threatened to do so (creating standing for the

newspapers, as discussed supra), the City has never applied § 78-39

to either newspaper. The two citations were pursuant to § 78-38,

not § 78-39. Neither newspaper contends the City has ever enforced

§ 78-39 against them, and the district court made no such factual

finding. See Nat’l Endowment for the Arts v. Finley, 524 U.S. 569,

586-87 (1998) (refusing to engage in a hypothetical as-applied

analysis based on facts not before the Court).

Lacking actual application, the newspapers contended at oral

argument here that a Texas law, Texas Transportation Code §

552.0071, obligates the City to discriminate against them in

applying § 78-39. That law requires local governments to allow

municipal employees, such as firefighters, “to stand in a roadway

to solicit a charitable contribution”, so long as such solicitors

comport with other local requirements, such as posting a bond or

obtaining a permit. TEX. TRANSP. CODE ANN. § 552.0071 (Vernon 2005).

The newspapers argued: this state law imports discrimination into
19

§ 78-39 against non-municipal, non-charitable organizations;

because the City would violate § 552.0071 by applying § 78-39

against charitable-municipal-employee street-solicitors, a

mandatory exception to § 78-39 is created by operation of law; and

this contention is sufficient to uphold the district court’s

finding § 78-39 “de facto discriminatory”.

The newspapers, however, did not expressly make this importedinto-§-78-39 contention in district court; nor did they include it

in their submitted “Plaintiffs Findings of Fact and Conclusions of

Law”, which, except for not awarding attorney’s fees, the district

court adopted nearly verbatim and without altering the title; nor

did they assert it in their brief to this court. Instead, at oral

argument, the newspapers relied on a vague reference in their

appellate brief concerning the Police Chief’s testimony, in which

he stated the City intended to discriminate between charitable and

non-charitable solicitations through a combination of § 78-39 and

“a state law”.

Generally, we do not consider issues presented for the first

time at oral argument. Even assuming the issue was raised in the

newspapers’ brief, an unspecified reference to “state law” is

insufficient to present it adequately. See, e.g., FED. R. APP. P.

28(f) (“If the court’s determination of the issues presented

requires the study of statutes, rules, regulations, etc., the

relevant parts must be set out in the brief or in an addendum at
20

the end”). In any event, the Police Chief’s testimony regarding

the City’s future enforcement intentions is an inadequate factual

basis to support the district court’s “de facto discrimination”

finding or any as-applied analysis. See Finley, 524 U.S. at 586-

87.

An as-applied unconstitutionality issue may arise in the

future, of course, if the City enforces § 78-39 against the

newspapers. Based on the record on appeal, however, we can not

uphold the district court’s conclusion that § 78-39 has been

applied unconstitutionally. See id. Therefore, we reverse the

district court’s enjoining § 78-39 as unconstitutional. 

D.

The denial of attorney’s fees is reviewed for an abuse of

discretion. Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 429 (1983)

(attorneys’ fees reviewed for abuse of discretion, citing 42 U.S.C.

§ 1988). The newspapers assert: as prevailing parties in a § 1983

action, they are entitled to such fees; and the district court

abused its discretion in refusing to award them, especially without

explanation. The City counters that the denial was within the

court’s discretion under 42 U.S.C. § 1988(b); it provides: “In any

action or proceeding to enforce a provision of section[] ... 1983

... the court, in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party

... a reasonable attorney’s fee”. (Emphasis added.)
21

The Supreme Court has interpreted § 1988(b) to mean “a

prevailing plaintiff should ordinarily recover an attorney’s fee

unless special circumstances would render such an award unjust”.

Hensley, 461 U.S. at 429 (internal quotations and citations

omitted) (emphasis added). Our court has further held: “Because

Congress believed that the incentive of attorney’s fees was

critical to the enforcement of the civil rights laws, section 1988

requires an extremely strong showing of special circumstances to

justify a denial of fees”. Kirchberg v. Feenstra, 708 F.2d 991,

998 (5th Cir. 1983) (internal citation omitted) (emphasis added).

In refusing to award fees, the district court did not provide

any explanation, or reference any “special circumstances”,

justifying its denial, even though the newspapers prevailed on all

of their claims. See, e.g., Hensley, 461 U.S. at 433 (“plaintiffs

may be considered ‘prevailing parties’ for attorney's fees purposes

if they succeed on any significant issue in litigation which

achieves some of the benefit the parties sought in bringing suit”

(internal quotations omitted)). 

Although we reverse the district court’s holding § 78-39

unconstitutional, the newspapers remain “prevailing parties”, and,

therefore, are entitled to attorney’s fees. As recently discussed

in Staley: “[A] determination of mootness neither precludes nor is

precluded by an award of attorneys’ fees. The attorneys’fees

question turns instead on a wholly independent consideration:
22

whether plaintiff is a ‘prevailing party’”. 2007 WL 1191147, at *8

(quoting Doe v. Marshall, 622 F.2d 118, 120 (5th Cir. 1980)). “To

qualify as a prevailing party ‘[a]ll that is required is that the

plaintiff obtain the primary relief sought.’” Id. (quoting

Marshall, 622 F.2d at 120).

Among other equitable factors, because the newspapers obtained

the primary relief they sought in district court, they remain

prevailing parties and are entitled to attorney’s fees.

Accordingly, we reverse the denial of attorney’s fees and remand

this action to district court for their imposition.

III.

For the foregoing reasons, the newspapers prevail except as to

§ 78-39. Accordingly, the injunction against § 78-39 is VACATED;

the denial of attorney’s fees is REVERSED; and this action is

REMANDED to the district court for imposition of those fees.

VACATED IN PART; REVERSED IN PART; REMANDED