Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/499/83/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 08:54:04+00:00

Document:
After petitioner West Virginia University Hospitals, Inc. (WVUH), prevailed at trial in its suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against respondent Pennsylvania officials over medicaid reimbursement rates for services provided Pennsylvania residents, the District Court awarded fees pursuant to § 1988, which, inter alia, gives the court in certain civil rights suits discretion to allow the prevailing party "a reasonable attorney's fee as part of the costs." WVUH's award included fees attributable to an accounting firm and three doctors specializing in hospital finance hired to assist in the preparation of the suit and to testify. The Court of Appeals affirmed as to the merits, but reversed as to the expert fees, disallowing them except to the extent that they fell within the $30-per-day fees for witnesses provided by 28 U.S.C. §§ 1920(3) and 1821(b).
Held: Fees for services rendered by experts in civil rights litigation may not be shifted to the losing party as part of "a reasonable attorney's fee" under § 1988. Pp. 499 U. S. 86-102.
(b) Statutory usage before, during, and after 1976 (the date of § 1988's enactment) did not regard the phrase "attorney's fees" as embracing fees for experts' services. Pp. 499 U. S. 88-92.
(c) At the time of § 1988's enactment, judicial usage did not regard the phrase "attorney's fees" as including experts' fees. Pp. 499 U. S. 92-97.
§ 1988 is both broader and narrower than the pre-Alyeska regime. The best evidence of congressional purpose is the statutory text, which cannot be expanded or contracted by the statements of individual legislators or committees during the enactment process. WVUH's argument that Congress would have included expert fees in § 1988 if it had thought about it, as it did in the EAJA, and that this Court has a duty to ask how Congress would have decided had it actually considered the question, profoundly mistakes the Court's role with respect to unambiguous statutory terms. See Iselin v. United States, 270 U. S. 245, 270 U. S. 250-251. Pp. 499 U. S. 97-101.
SCALIA, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C.J., and WHITE, O'CONNOR, KENNEDY, and SOUTER, JJ., joined. MARSHALL, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 499 U. S. 102. STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which MARSHALL and BLACKMUN, JJ., joined, post, p. 499 U. S. 103.
This case presents the question whether fees for services rendered by experts in civil rights litigation may be shifted to the losing party pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988, which permits the award of "a reasonable attorney's fee."
Petitioner West Virginia University Hospitals, Inc. (WVUH), operates a hospital in Morgantown, W.Va., near the Pennsylvania border. The hospital is often used by medicaid recipients living in southwestern Pennsylvania. In January, 1986, Pennsylvania's Department of Public Welfare notified WVUH of new medicaid reimbursement schedules for services provided to Pennsylvania residents by the Morgantown hospital. In administrative proceedings, WVUH unsuccessfully objected to the new reimbursement rates on both federal statutory and federal constitutional grounds. After exhausting administrative remedies, WVUH filed suit in Federal District Court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Named as defendants (respondents here) were Pennsylvania Governor Robert Casey and various other Pennsylvania officials.
Counsel for WVUH employed Coopers & Lybrand, a national accounting firm, and three doctors specializing in hospital finance to assist in the preparation of the lawsuit and to testify at trial. WVUH prevailed at trial in May, 1988. The District Court subsequently awarded fees pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988, [Footnote 1] including over $100,000 in fees attributable to expert services. The District Court found these services to have been "essential" to presentation of the case -- a finding not disputed by respondents.
this Court for review of that disallowance; we granted certiorari, 494 U.S. 1003.
"A witness shall be paid an attendance fee of $30 per day for each day's attendance. A witness shall also be paid the attendance fee for the time necessarily occupied in going to and returning from the place of attendance. . . . [Footnote 2]"
"a prevailing party seeks reimbursement for fees paid to its own expert witnesses, a federal court is bound by the limits of § 1821(b), absent contract or explicit statutory authority to the contrary."
Id. at 482 U. S. 439.
not lightly infer that Congress has repealed §§ 1920 and 1821, either through [Fed.Rule Civ.Proc.] 54(d) or any other provision not referring explicitly to witness fees."
Id. at 482 U. S. 445.
The record of statutory usage demonstrates convincingly that attorney's fees and expert fees are regarded as separate elements of litigation cost. While some fee-shifting provisions, like § 1988, refer only to "attorney's fees," see, e.g., Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(k), many others explicitly shift expert witness fees as well as attorney's fees. In 1976, just over a week prior to the enactment of § 1988, Congress passed those provisions of the Toxic Substances Control Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 2618(d), 2619(c)(2), which provide that a prevailing party may recover "the costs of suit and reasonable fees for attorneys and expert witnesses." (Emphasis added.) Also in 1976, Congress amended the Consumer Product Safety Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 2060(c), 2072(a), 2073, which as originally enacted in 1972 shifted to the losing party "cost[s] of suit, including a reasonable attorney's fee," see 86 Stat. 1226. In the 1976 amendment, Congress altered the fee shifting provisions to their present form by adding a phrase shifting expert witness fees in addition to attorney's fees. See Pub.L. 94-284, § 10, 90 Stat. 506, 507. Two other significant acts passed in 1976 contain similar phrasing: The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, 42 U.S.C. § 6972(e) ("costs of litigation (including reasonable attorney and expert witness fees)"), and the Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Act Amendments of 1976, 49 U.S.C.App. § 1686(e) ("costs of suit, including reasonable attorney's fees and reasonable expert witnesses fees").
"'fees and other expenses' [as shifted by § 2412(d)(1)(A)] includes the reasonable expenses of expert witnesses . . . and reasonable attorney fees."
to be treated as part of the expenses of the attorney; but if this were normal usage, they would have been reimbursable under the Criminal Justice Act as "expenses reasonably incurred" -- and subsection 3006A(e) would add nothing to the recoverable amount. The very heading of that subsection, "Services other than counsel" (emphasis added), acknowledges a distinction between services provided by the attorney himself and those provided to the attorney (or the client) by a nonlegal expert.
"'fees and other expenses' [as shifted by § 2412(d)(1)(A)] includes the reasonable expenses of expert witnesses, the reasonable cost of any study, analysis, engineering report, test, or project which is found by the court to be necessary for the preparation of the party's case, and reasonable attorney fees."
WVUH argues that at least in pre-1976 judicial usage the phrase "attorney's fees" included the fees of experts. To support this proposition, it relies upon two historical assertions: first, that pre-1976 courts, when exercising traditional equitable discretion in shifting attorney's fees, taxed as an element of such fees the expenses related to expert services; and second, that pre-1976 courts shifting attorney's fees pursuant to statutes identical in phrasing to § 1988 allowed the recovery of expert fees. We disagree with these assertions. The judicial background against which Congress enacted § 1988 mirrored the statutory background: expert fees were regarded not as a subset of attorney's fees, but as a distinct category of litigation expense.
"Included in the . . . costs awarded by the [district] court were the sum of $1,700 for plaintiff's expert witness, expenses of an accountant in the amount of $142, and of an illustrator-diagrammer for $50 . . . and attorneys' fees of $15,660."
The court treated these items separately: the services of the accountant and illustrator (who did not testify at trial) were "costs" which could be fully shifted in the discretion of the district court; the expert witness fees also could be shifted, but only as limited by § 1821; the attorney's fees were not costs, and could not be shifted at all, because the case did not fit any of the traditional equitable doctrines for awarding such fees. Id. at 1056. See also In re Electric Power and Light Co., 210 F.2d 585, 587, 591 (CA2 1954) ("[Appellant] applied for an allowance for counsel fees of $35,975 and expenses . . . , and also for a fee of $2,734.28 for an expert accountant"; court permitted part of the attorney's fee, but disallowed the expert witness fee), rev'd on other grounds, 348 U. S. 341 (1955); Kiefel v. Las Vegas Hacienda, Inc., 404 F.2d 1163, 1170-1171 (CA7 1968) (itemizing attorney's fee and expert witness fee separately, allowing part of the former and all of the latter permitted by § 1821); Burgess v. Williamson, 506 F.2d 870, 877-880 (CA5 1975) (applying Alabama law to shift attorney's fee but not expert witness fee); Henning v. Lake Charles Harbor and Terminal District, 387 F.2d 264, 267-268 (CA5 1968), on appeal after remand, 409 F.2d 932, 937 (CA5 1969) (applying Louisiana law to shift expert fees but not attorney's fee); Coughenour v. Campbell Barge Line, Inc., 388 F.Supp. 501, 506 (WD Pa. 1974) ("Plaintiffs' claim for counsel fees is denied [because defendant acted in good faith and thus equitable shifting is unavailable]. Plaintiff's claim for costs of medical expert witnesses is deemed proper insofar as they were necessary in establishing the claim . . .") (citations omitted).
their analysis discussed them as separate categories of expense. See, e.g., Wolf v. Frank, 477 F.2d 467, 480 (CA5 1973) ("The reimbursing of plaintiffs' costs for attorney's fees and expert witness fees is supported . . . by well established equitable principles") (emphasis added); Kinnear-Weed Co. v. Humble Oil & Refining Co., 441 F.2d 631, 636-637 (CA5 1971) ("[Appellant] argues that the district court erred in awarding costs, including attorneys' fees and expert witness fees to Humble"); Bebchick v. Pub. Util. Comm'n, 115 U.S.App. D.C. 216, 233, 318 F.2d 187, 204 (1963) ("It is also our view that reasonable attorneys' fees for appellants, . . . reasonable expert witness fees, and appropriate litigation expenses, should be paid by [appellee]"); Lipscomb v. Wise, 399 F.Supp. 782, 798-801 (ND Tex.1975) (in separate analyses, finding both attorney's fees and expert witness fees barred). We have found no support for the proposition that, at common law, courts shifted expert fees as an element of attorney's fees.
Of arguably greater significance than the courts' treatment of attorney's fees versus expert fees at common law is their treatment of those expenses under statutes containing fee-shifting provisions similar to § 1988. The hospital contends that, in some cases, courts shifted expert fees as well as the statutorily authorized attorney's fees -- and thus must have thought that the latter included the former. We find, however, that the practice, at least in the overwhelming majority of cases, was otherwise.
(accounting fees); Advance Business Systems & Supply Co. v. SCM Co., 287 F.Supp. 143, 164 (Md.1968) (accountant's fees), aff'd, 415 F.2d 55 (CA4 1969); Farmington Dowel Products Co. v. Forster Mfg. Co., 297 F.Supp. 924, 930 (Me.) (expert witness fees), aff'd, 421 F.2d 61 (CA1 1969); Trans World Airlines, Inc., v. Hughes, 449 F.2d 51, 81 (CA2 1971) (expert fees), rev'd on other grounds 409 U. S. 363 (1973); Ott v. Speedwriting Publishing Co., 518 F.2d 1143, 1149 (CA6 1975) (expert witness fees); see also Brookside Theater Co. v. Twentieth Century-Fox Film Co., 11 F.R.D. 259, 267 (WD Mo.1951) (expert witness fees). No court had held otherwise. Also instructive is pre-1976 practice under the federal patent laws, which provided, 35 U.S.C. § 285, that "[t]he court in exceptional cases may award reasonable attorney fees to the prevailing party." Again, every court to consider the matter as of 1976 thought that this provision conveyed no authority to shift expert fees. Specialty Equipment & Machinery Co. v. Zell Motor Car Co., 193 F.2d 515, 521 (CA4 1952) ("Congress, having dealt with the subject of costs in patent cases and having authorized the taxation of reasonable attorney's fees without making any provision with respect to . . . fees of expert witnesses, must presumably have intended that they not be taxed"); accord, Chromalloy American Corp. v. Alloy Surfaces Co., 353 F.Supp. 429, 431, n. 1, 433 (Del.1973); ESCO Co. v. Tru-Rol Co., 178 USPQ 332, 333 (Md.1973); Scaramucci v. Universal Mfg. Co., 234 F.Supp. 290, 291-292 (WD La.1964); Prastaker v. Beech Aircraft Co., 24 F.R.D. 305, 313 (Del.1959).
WVUH suggests that a distinctive meaning of "attorney's fees" should be adopted with respect to § 1988 because this statute was meant to overrule our decision in Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. Wilderness Society, 421 U. S. 240 (1975). As mentioned above, prior to 1975, many courts awarded expert fees and attorney's fees in certain circumstances pursuant to their equitable discretion. In Alyeska, we held that this discretion did not extend beyond a few exceptional circumstances long recognized by common law. Specifically, we rejected the so-called "private attorney general" doctrine recently created by some lower federal courts, see, e.g., La Raza Unida v. Volpe, 57 F.R.D. 94, 98-102 (ND Cal.1972), which allowed equitable fee-shifting to plaintiffs in certain types of civil rights litigation. 421 U.S. at 421 U. S. 269. WVUH argues that § 1988 was intended to restore the pre-Alyeska regime -- and that, since expert fees were shifted then, they should be shifted now.
Both chronology and the remarks of sponsors of the bill that became § 1988 suggest that at least some members of Congress viewed it as a response to Alyeska. See, e.g., S.Rep. No. 1011, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. 4, 6, repr. in 1976 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 5908, 5911, 5913. It is a considerable step, however, from this proposition to the conclusion the hospital would have us draw, namely, that § 1988 should be read as a reversal of Alyeska in all respects.
recover fees pursuant to the private attorney general doctrine only if private enforcement was necessary to defend important rights benefiting large numbers of people, and cost barriers might otherwise preclude private suits. La Raza Unida, 57 F.R.D., at 98-101. Section 1988 contains no similar limitation -- so that, in the present suit, there is no question as to the propriety of shifting WVUH's attorney's fees, even though it is highly doubtful they could have been awarded under pre-Alyeska equitable theories. In other respects, however, § 1988 is not as broad as the former regime. It is limited, for example, to violations of specified civil rights statutes -- which means that it would not have reversed the outcome of Alyeska itself, which involved not a civil rights statute but the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, 42 U.S.C. § 4321 et seq. Since it is clear that, in many respects, § 1988 was not meant to return us precisely to the pre-Alyeska regime, the objective of achieving such a return is no reason to depart from the normal import of the text.
course of the enactment process. See United States v. Ron Pair Enterprises, Inc., 489 U. S. 235, 489 U. S. 241 (1989) ("[W]here, as here, the statute's language is plain, the sole function of the court is to enforce it according to its terms.'"), quoting Caminetti v. United States, 242 U. S. 470, 242 U. S. 485 (1917). Congress could easily have shifted "attorney's fees and expert witness fees," or "reasonable litigation expenses," as it did in contemporaneous statutes; it chose instead to enact more restrictive language, and we are bound by that restriction.
define the assessable "litigation costs" make no separate mention of clerks or paralegals. In other words, Jenkins involved a respect in which the term "attorney's fees" (giving the losing argument the benefit of the doubt) was genuinely ambiguous; and we resolved that ambiguity not by invoking some policy that supersedes the text of the statute, but by concluding that charges of this sort had traditionally been included in attorney's fees, and that separate billing should make no difference. The term's application to expert fees is not ambiguous, and if it were, the means of analysis employed in Jenkins would lead to the conclusion that, since such fees have not traditionally been included within the attorney's hourly rate, they are not attorney's fees.
WVUH's last contention is that, even if Congress plainly did not include expert fees in the fee-shifting provisions of § 1988, it would have done so had it thought about it. Most of the pre-§ 1988 statutes that explicitly shifted expert fees dealt with environmental litigation, where the necessity of expert advice was readily apparent; and when Congress later enacted the EAJA, the federal counterpart of § 1988, it explicitly included expert fees. Thus, the argument runs, the 94th Congress simply forgot; it is our duty to ask how they would have decided had they actually considered the question. See Friedrich v. City of Chicago, 888 F.2d 511, 514 (CA7 1989) (awarding expert fees under § 1988 because a court should "complete . . . the statute by reading it to bring about the end that the legislators would have specified, had they thought about it more clearly").
"[The statute's] language is plain and unambiguous. What the Government asks is not a construction of a statute, but, in effect, an enlargement of it by the court, so that what was omitted, presumably by inadvertence, may be included within its scope. To supply omissions transcends the judicial function."
For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that § 1988 conveys no authority to shift expert fees. When experts appear at trial, they are of course eligible for the fee provided by § 1920 and § 1821 -- which was allowed in the present case by the Court of Appeals.
Section 1821(b) has since been amended to increase the allowable per diem from $30 to $40. See Judicial Improvements Act of 1990, Pub.L. 101-650, § 314.
"[t]he term 'costs' has a different and broader meaning in fee-shifting statutes than it has in the cost statutes that apply to ordinary litigation,"
post at 499 U. S. 104. In Crawford Fitting, we held that the word "costs" in F.R.Civ.P. 54(d) is to be read in harmony with the word "costs" in 28 U.S.C. § 1920, see 482 U.S. at 482 U. S. 441, 482 U. S. 445, and we think the same is true of the word "costs" in § 1988. We likewise see nothing to support Justice STEVENS' speculation that the court below or the parties viewed certain disbursements by the hospital's attorneys as "costs" within the meaning of the statute. Rather, it is likely that these disbursements (billed directly to the client) were thought subsumed within the phrase "attorney's fee." See, e.g., Northcross v. Bd of Ed of Memphis City Schools, 611 F.2d 624, 639 (CA6 1979) ("reasonable out-of-pocket expenses incurred by the attorney" included in § 1988 "attorney's fee" award).
In addition to the provisions discussed in the text, see Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 504(b)(1)(A) (added 1980) ("reasonable expenses of expert witnesses . . . and reasonable attorney or agent fees"); Unfair Advertising Act, 15 U.S.C. § 57a(h)(1) (added 1975) ("reasonable attorneys' fees, expert witness fees and other costs of participating in a rulemaking proceeding"), Petroleum Marketing Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 2805(d)(1)(C), 2805(d)(3) ("reasonable attorney and expert witness fees"); National Historic Preservation Act, 16 U.S.C. § 470w-4 (1980 amendments) ("attorneys' fees, expert witness fees, and other costs of participating in such action"); Federal Power Act, 16 U.S.C. § 825q-1(b)(2) (added 1978) ("reasonable attorney's fees, expert witness fees and other costs of intervening or participating in any proceeding [before the commission] "); Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982, 26 U.S.C. § 7430(c)(1) ("reasonable expenses of expert witnesses . . . and reasonable fees paid . . . for the services of attorneys"); Surface Mining Control Act, 30 U.S.C. § 1270(d) (enacted 1977) ("costs of litigation (including attorney and expert witness fees")); Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act, 30 U.S.C. § 1427(c) (enacted 1980) (same); Oil and Gas Royalty Management Act of 1982, 30 U.S.C. § 1734(a)(4) ("costs of litigation including reasonable attorney and expert witness fees"); Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act Amendments of 1972, 33 U.S.C. § 928(d) ("In cases where an attorney's fee is awarded . . . there may be further assessed . . . as costs, fees and mileage for necessary witnesses"); Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972, and 1987 Amendment, 33 U.S.C. §§ 1365(d), 1369(b)(3) ("costs of litigation (including reasonable attorney and expert witness fees)"); Oil Pollution Act of 1990, 33 U.S.C.A. § 2706(g) (same); Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act of 1972, 33 U.S.C. § 1415(g)(4) (same); Deepwater Port Act of 1974, 33 U.S.C. § 1515(d) (same); Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships, 33 U.S.C. § 1910(d) (enacted 1980) (same); Safe Drinking Water Act, 42 U.S.C. § 300j-8(d) (enacted 1974) (same); National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, 42 U.S.C. § 300aa-31(c) (same); Noise Control Act of 1972, 42 U.S.C. § 4911(d) (same); Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, 42 U.S.C. § 5851(e)(2) (same); Energy Policy and Conservation Act, 42 U.S.C. § 6305(d) (enacted 1975) (same); Clean Air Amendments of 1970, 42 U.S.C. §§ 7604(d), 7607(f), 7413(b) (same) and 42 U.S.C. § 7622(b)(2)(B) (1977 amendments) ("all costs and expenses (including attorneys' and expert witness fees) reasonably incurred"); Powerplant and Industrial Fuel Use Act of 1978, 42 U.S.C. § 8435(d) ("costs of litigation (including reasonable attorney and expert witness fees)"); Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Act of 1980, 42 U.S.C. § 9124(d) (same); Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, 42 U.S.C. § 9659(f) (added 1986) (same); Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986, 42 U.S.C. § 11046(f) (same); Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act Amendments of 1978, 43 U.S.C. § 1349(a)(5) (same); Hazardous Liquid Pipeline Safety Act of 1979, 49 U.S.C.App. § 2014(e) ("costs of suit, including reasonable attorney's fees and reasonable expert witnesses fees").
"The conferees intend that the term 'attorneys' fees as part of the costs' include reasonable expenses and fees of expert witnesses and the reasonable costs of any test or evaluation which is found to be necessary for the preparation of the . . . case."
H.R.Conf.Rep. No. 687, 99th Cong., 2d sess. 5, reprinted in 1986 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1798, 1808 (discussing the Handicapped Children's Protection Act of 1986, 20 U.S.C. § 1415(e)(4)(B)). In our view, this undercuts, rather than supports, WVUH's position: The specification would have been quite unnecessary if the ordinary meaning of the term included those elements. The statement is an apparent effort to depart from ordinary meaning and to define a term of art.
The hospital also cites Fairley v. Patterson, 493 F.2d 598 (CA5 1974), and Norris v. Green, 317 F.Supp. 100, 102 (ND Ala.1965). But in Fairley, the court, remanding for reconsideration of the fee award, was explicitly equivocal as to whether "court costs" other than the ones normally assessable under § 1920 were awardable under the statute in question (the Voting Rights Act of 1965, whose fee-shifting provision parallels § 1988), or, rather, "should have to meet the harder discretionary standards" applicable to the award of fees pursuant to equitable discretion. 493 F.2d at 606, n. 11. In any event, Fairley did not consider expert witnesses explicitly, and there is no indication that the court necessarily included expert fees within its (undefined) category of "court costs."
As for Norris, that case awarded fees pursuant to 29 U.S.C. § 501(b), which is not parallel to § 1988, since it authorizes the shifting of "fees of counsel . . . and . . . expenses necessarily paid or incurred" (emphasis added). There is no indication in the opinion that the court thought the expert fees were part of the former, rather than the latter -- and the court discussed them separately from attorney's fees.
WVUH at least asks us to guess the preferences of the enacting Congress. Justice STEVENS apparently believes our role is to guess the desires of the present Congress, or of Congresses yet to be. "Only time will tell," he says, "whether the Court, with its literal reading of § 1988, has correctly interpreted the will of Congress," post at 499 U. S. 116. The implication is that today's holding will be proved wrong if Congress amends the law to conform with his dissent. We think not. The "will of Congress" we look to is not a will evolving from Session to Session, but a will expressed and fixed in a particular enactment. Otherwise, we would speak not of "interpreting" the law, but of "intuiting" or "predicting" it. Our role is to say what the law, as hitherto enacted, is, not to forecast what the law, as amended, will be.
Hidle v. Geneva County Bd. of Ed., 681 F.Supp. 752, 758-759 (MD Ala.1988) (awarding attorney fees and expenses under Title VII).
Since the enactment of the Statute of Wills in 1540, [Footnote 2/1] careful draftsmen have authorized executors to pay the just debts of the decedent, including the fees and expenses of the attorney for the estate. Although the omission of such an express authorization in a will might indicate that the testator had thought it unnecessary, or that he had overlooked the point, the omission would surely not indicate a deliberate decision by the testator to forbid any compensation to his attorney.
In the early 1970s, Congress began to focus on the importance of public interest litigation, and, since that time, it has enacted numerous fee-shifting statutes. In many of these statutes, which the majority cites at length, see ante at 499 U. S. 88-92, Congress has expressly authorized the recovery of expert witness fees as part of the costs of litigation. The question in this case is whether, notwithstanding the omission of such an express authorization in 42 U.S.C. § 1988, Congress intended to authorize such recovery when it provided for "a reasonable attorney's fee as part of the costs." In my view, just as the omission of express authorization in a will does not preclude compensation to an estate's attorney, the omission of express authorization for expert witness fees in a fee-shifting provision should not preclude the award of expert witness fees. We should look at the way in which the Court has interpreted the text of this statute in the past, as well as this statute's legislative history, to resolve the question before us, rather than looking at the text of the many other statutes that the majority cites in which Congress expressly recognized the need for compensating expert witnesses.
The term "costs" has a different and broader meaning in fee-shifting statutes than it has in the cost statutes that apply to ordinary litigation. [Footnote 2/3] The cost bill in this case illustrates the point. Leaving aside the question of expert witness fees, the prevailing party sought reimbursement for $45,867 in disbursements, see App. to Pet. for Cert. C-1, which plainly would not have been recoverable costs under 28 U.S.C. § 1920. [Footnote 2/4] These expenses, including such items as travel and long-distance telephone calls, were allowed by the District Court, and were not even questioned by respondent. They were expenses that a retained lawyer would ordinarily bill to his or her client. They were accordingly considered proper "costs" in a case of this kind.
"I also disagree with the State's suggestion that law clerk and paralegal expenses incurred by a prevailing party, if not recoverable at market rates as 'attorney's fees' under § 1988, are nonetheless recoverable at actual cost under that statute. The language of § 1988 expands the traditional definition of 'costs' to include 'a reasonable attorney's fee,' but it cannot fairly be read to authorize the recovery of all other out-of-pocket expenses actually incurred by the prevailing party in the course of litigation. Absent specific statutory authorization for the recovery of such expenses, the prevailing party remains subject to the limitations on cost recovery imposed by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(d) and 28 U.S.C. § 1920, which govern the taxation of costs in federal litigation where a cost-shifting statute is not applicable. Section 1920 gives the district court discretion to tax certain types of costs against the losing party in any federal litigation. The statute specifically enumerates six categories of expenses which may be taxed as costs: fees of the court clerk and marshal; fees of the court reporter; printing fees and witness fees; copying fees; certain docket fees; and fees of court-appointed experts and interpreters. We have held that this list is exclusive. Crawford Fitting Co. v. J. T. Gibbons, Inc., 482 U. S. 437 (1987). Since none of these categories can possibly be construed to include the fees of law clerks and paralegals, I would also hold that reimbursement for these expenses may not be separately awarded at actual cost."
Id., 491 U.S. at 491 U. S. 297-298.
"[T]he fee must take into account the work not only of attorneys, but also of secretaries, messengers, librarians, janitors, and others whose labor contributes to the work product for which an attorney bills her client; and it must also take account of other expenses and profit. The parties have suggested no reason why the work of paralegals should not be similarly compensated, nor can we think of any. We thus take as our starting point the self-evident proposition that the 'reasonable attorney's fee' provided for by statute should compensate the work of paralegals, as well as that of attorneys."
"it would not be surprising to see a greater amount of such work performed by attorneys themselves, thus increasing the overall cost of litigation."
Id. at 491 U. S. 288, n. 10.
"The time so spent by the expert is a substitute for lawyer time, just as paralegal time is, for if prohibited (or deterred by the cost) from hiring an expert, the lawyer would attempt to educate himself about the expert's area of expertise. To forbid the shifting of the expert's fee would encourage underspecialization and inefficient trial preparation, just as to forbid shifting the cost of paralegals would encourage lawyers to do paralegals' work. There is thus no basis for distinguishing Jenkins from the present case, so far as time spent by these experts in educating the plaintiffs' lawyer is concerned. . . ."
Friedrich v. Chicago, 888 F.2d 511, 514 (CA7 1989).
arbitrary and contrary to the broad remedial purpose that inspired the fee-shifting provision of § 1988.
"to remedy anomalous gaps in our civil rights laws created by the United States Supreme Court's recent decision in Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. Wilderness Society, 421 U. S. 240 (1975), and to achieve consistency in our civil rights laws. [Footnote 2/7]"
"[i]f private citizens are to be able to assert their civil rights, and if those who violate the Nation's fundamental laws are not to proceed with impunity, then citizens must have the opportunity to recover what it costs them to vindicate these rights in court."
Id. at 2, 1976 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 5910 (emphasis added). According to the Committee, the bill would create "no startling new remedy," but would simply provide "the technical requirements" requested by the Supreme Court in Alyeska, so that courts could "continue the practice of awarding attorneys' fees which had been going on for years prior to the Court's May decision." Id. at 6.
To underscore its intention to return the courts to their pre-Alyeska practice of shifting fees in civil rights cases, the Senate Committee's Report cited with approval not only several cases in which fees had been shifted, but also all of the cases contained in Legal Fees, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Representation of Citizen Interests of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 93rd Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 3, pp. 888-1024, 1060-1062 (1973) (hereinafter Senate Hearings). See S.Rep. No. 94-1011, p. 4, n. 3 (1976). The cases collected in the 1973 Senate Hearings included many in which courts had permitted the shifting of costs, including expert witness fees. At the time when the Committee referred to these cases, though several were later reversed, it used them to make the point that, prior to Alyeska, courts awarded attorney's fees and costs, including expert witness fees, in civil rights cases, and that they did so in order to encourage private citizens to bring such suits. [Footnote 2/8] It was to this pre-Alyeska regime, in which courts could award expert witness fees along with attorney's fees, that the Senate Committee intended to return through the passage of the fee-shifting amendment to § 1988.
The House Report expressed concerns similar to those raised by the Senate Report. It noted that "[t]he effective enforcement of Federal civil rights statutes depends largely on the efforts of private citizens," and that the House bill was "designed to give such persons effective access to the judicial process. . . ." H.R.Rep. No. 94-1558, p. 1 (1976). The House Committee on the Judiciary concluded that "civil rights litigants were suffering very severe hardships because of the Alyeska decision," and that the case had had a "devastating impact" and had created a "compelling need" for a fee-shifting provision in the civil rights context. Id. at 2-3.
The case before us today is precisely the type of public interest litigation that Congress intended to encourage by amending § 1988 to provide for fee-shifting of a "reasonable attorney's fee as part of the costs." Petitioner, a tertiary medical center in West Virginia near the Pennsylvania border, [Footnote 2/10] provides services to a large number of medicaid recipients throughout Pennsylvania. In January, 1986, when the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare notified petitioner of its new medicaid payment rates for Pennsylvania medicaid recipients, petitioner believed them to be below the minimum standards for reimbursement specified by the Social Security Act. Petitioner successfully challenged the adequacy of the State's payment system under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
"comparable to what 'is traditional with attorneys compensated by a fee-paying client.' S.Rep. No. 94-1011, p. 6 (1976), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1976, pp. 5908, 5913."
491 U.S. at 491 U. S. 286.
In the domain of statutory interpretation, Congress is the master. It obviously has the power to correct our mistakes, but we do the country a disservice when we needlessly ignore persuasive evidence of Congress' actual purpose and require it "to take the time to revisit the matter" [Footnote 2/18] and to restate its purpose in more precise English whenever its work product suffers from an omission or inadvertent error. As Judge Learned Hand explained, statutes are likely to be imprecise.
"All [legislators] have done is to write down certain words which they mean to apply generally to situations of that kind. To apply these literally may either pervert what was plainly their general meaning, or leave undisposed of what there is every reason to suppose they meant to provide for. Thus it is not enough for the judge just to use a dictionary. If he should do no more, he might come out with a result which every sensible man would recognize to be quite the opposite of what was really intended; which would contradict or leave unfulfilled its plain purpose."
L. Hand, How Far Is a Judge Free in Rendering a Decision?, in The Spirit of Liberty 103, 106 (I. Dilliard ed.1952).
of such a provision represents a deliberate decision to forbid such awards. Only time will tell whether the Court, with its literal reading [Footnote 2/19] of § 1988, has correctly interpreted the will of Congress with respect to the issue it has resolved today.
32 Hen. VIII, ch. 1 (1540).
My view, as I have expressed in the past, is that we should follow Justice Cardozo's advice to the judge to "lay [his] own course of bricks on the secure foundation of the courses laid by others who had gone before him." B. Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process 149 (1921).
See, e.g., 28 U.S.C. § 1920; see also Fed.Rule Civ.Proc. 54(d).
Cited in full ante at 499 U. S. 86.
App. to Pet. for Cert. C-2; App. 117.
The expert witnesses here played a pivotal role in their nontestimonial, rather than simply their testimonial, capacity. See Pet. for Cert. 6-7; App. 120-139.
In Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. Wilderness Society, 421 U. S. 240 (1975), the Court held that courts were not free to fashion new exceptions to the American Rule, according to which each side assumed the cost of its own attorney's fees. The Court reasoned that it was not the judiciary's role "to invade the legislature's province by redistributing litigation costs . . . ," id. at 271, and that it would be "inappropriate for the judiciary, without legislative guidance, to reallocate the burdens of litigation. . . ." Id. at 421 U. S. 247.
See, e.g., Beens v. Erdahl, 349 F.Supp. 97, 100 (Minn.1972); Bradley v. School Board of Richmond, 53 F.R.D. 28, 44 (ED Va.1971) ("Fees for expert witnesses' testimony likewise will be allowed as an expense of suit. It is difficult to imagine a more necessary item of proof (and source of assistance to the Court) than the considered opinion of an educational expert"), rev'd, 472 F.2d 318 (CA4 1972), vacated, 416 U. S. 696 (1974); La Raza Unida v. Volpe, 57 F.R.D. 94 (ND Cal., 1972), reprinted in Senate Hearings, pt. 3, pp. 1060, 1062, (expert witness fees allowed because experts' testimony was "helpful to the court"); Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe of Indians v. Morton, 360 F.Supp. 669, 672 (DC 1973) ("The plaintiff's experts played a vital role in the resolution of the case, their work and testimony going to the heart of the matter. Accordingly, it seems entirely appropriate to award their fees as scheduled in the total amount of $20,488.72. . . ."), rev'd, 163 U.S.App. D.C. 90, 499 F.2d 1095 (1974), cert. denied, 420 U.S. 962 (1975).
A frequently expressed concern was the need to undo the damage to public interest litigation caused by Alyeska. See, e.g., Awarding of Attorneys' Fees, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 94th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 2, 41, 42, 43, 54, 82-85, 87, 90 92, 94, 103, 119-121, 123-125, 134, 150, 153-155, 162, 182-183, 269, 272-273, 370, 378-395, 416 418 (1975) (hereinafter House Hearings). Many who testified expressed the view that attorneys needed fee-shifting provisions so that they could afford to work on public interest litigation, see, e.g., id. at 66-67, 76, 78--79, 80, 89, 124-125, 137-142, 146, 158-159, 276 277, 278-280, 306 308; see also id. at 316-326; Senate Hearings, pts. 3, 4, pp. 789-790, 855-857, 1115, and private citizens needed fee-shifting provisions so that they could be made whole again. See, e.g., House Hearings, pp. 60, 189, 192, 254-55, 292, 328; see also id. at 106-111, 343-345, 347-349. For example, the private citizen who was brought into court by the Government and who later prevailed would still not be made whole because he had to bear the costs of his own attorney's fees. The Senate Hearings also examined the average citizen's lack of access to the legal system. See, e.g., Senate Hearings, pts. 1, 2, 3, pp. 1-2, 3-4, 273 (addressing question whether coal miners were receiving adequate legal coverage); id. at 466, 470-471, 505-509, 515 (addressing question whether veterans were denied legal assistance by $10 contingent fee); id. at 789, 791-796, 808-810 (Indians' access to lawyers); id. at 1127, 1253-1254 (average citizen cannot afford attorney).
A "tertiary" hospital provides a level of medical services that is generally complex and not provided by community hospitals. Brief for Petitioner 3, n. 1.
Other examples of cases in which the Court eschewed the literal approach include Steelworkers v. Weber, 443 U. S. 193 (1979), and Johnson v. Transportation Agency, Santa Clara County, 480 U. S. 616 (1987). Although the dissenters had the better textual argument in both cases, and urged the Court to read the words of the statute literally, the Court, in both cases, opted for a reading that took into account congressional purpose and historical context. See Steelworkers v. Weber, 443 U.S. at 443 U. S. 201 (Court rejected "literal construction of §§ 703(a) and (d)" and held that the statute must "be read against the background of the legislative history of Title VII and the historical context from which the Act arose"); Johnson v. Transportation Agency, 480 U.S. at 480 U. S. 627 (legality of employer's Affirmative Action Plan to be assessed according to criteria announced in Weber). Neither decision prompted an adverse congressional response.
"when Congress has been displeased with [the Court's] interpretation . . . , it has not hesitated to amend the statute to tell us so. . . . Surely, it is appropriate to find some probative value in such radically different congressional reactions to this Court's interpretations. . . ."
Johnson v. Transportation Agency, 480 U.S. at 480 U. S. 629-630, n. 7; see Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U.S. at 491 U. S. 200 (Brennan, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part) ("Where our prior interpretation of congressional intent was plausible, . . . we have often taken Congress' subsequent inaction as probative to varying degrees, depending upon the circumstances, of its acquiescence"). Since Congress has had an opportunity, albeit brief, to correct our broad reading of attorney's fees in Jenkins if it thought that we had misapprehended its purpose, the Court has no reason to change its approach to the fee-shifting provision of § 1988 as the majority does today.
See Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, Pub.L. 95-555, 92 Stat. 2076, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e(k) (overturning General Electric Co. v. Gilbert, 429 U. S. 125 (1976)).
Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, Pub.L. 99-603, Sec. 315(b), 100 Stat. 3359 (1986) ("An alien shall not be considered to have failed to maintain continuous physical presence in the United States . . . if the absence from the United States was brief, casual and innocent and did not meaningfully interrupt the continuous physical presence").
See Grove City College v. Bell, 465 U. S. 555, 465 U. S. 579 (1984) (STEVENS, J., concurring in part and concurring in result) (Court should refrain from deciding issue not in dispute).
"Congress finds that -- "
"(1) certain aspects of recent decisions and opinions of the Supreme Court have unduly narrowed or cast doubt upon the broad application of title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 . . . ; and"
"(2) legislative action is necessary to restore prior consistent and longstanding executive branch interpretation and broad, institution-wide application of those laws as previously administered."
20 U.S.C. § 1687 note.
"The purposes of this Act are to -- "
"(1) respond to the Supreme Court's recent decisions by restoring the civil rights protections that were dramatically limited by those decisions; and"
"(2) strengthen existing protections and remedies available under Federal civil rights laws to provide more effective deterrence and adequate compensation for victims of discrimination."
Ibid. The fact that the President vetoed the legislation does not undermine the conclusion that Congress viewed the Court's decisions as incorrect interpretations of the relevant statutes.
See Pub.L. 100-690, § 7603, 102 Stat. 4508, 18 U.S.C. § 1346 ("[T]he term scheme or artifice to defraud' includes a scheme or artifice to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services").
Smith v. Robinson, 468 U. S. 992, 468 U. S. 1031 (1984) (Brennan, J., dissenting).
"[Some judges'] notion of their duty is to match the colors of the case at hand against the colors of many sample cases spread out upon their desk. The sample nearest in shade supplies the applicable rule. But, of course, no system of living law can be evolved by such a process, and no judge of a high court, worthy of his office, views the function of his place so narrowly. If that were all there was to our calling, there would be little of intellectual interest about it. The man who had the best card index of the cases would also be the wisest judge. It is when the colors do not match, when the references in the index fail, when there is no decisive precedent, that the serious business of the judge begins."
B. Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process 20-21 (1921) .

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