Source: https://openjurist.org/559/f2d/241
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 02:03:42+00:00

Document:
John COLLIER et al., Defendants-Appellants, Cross-Appellees.
A. F. Summer, Atty. Gen., P. Roger Googe, Jr., Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Peter M. Stockett, Jr., Jackson, Miss., for defendants-appellants, cross-appellees.
Frank R. Parker, III, Jackson, Miss., Roy S. Haber, Boulder, Colo., for plaintiffs-appellees, cross-appellants.
Shawn F. Moore, Walter W. Barnett, Jessica Dunsay Silver, Attys., J. Stanley Pottinger, Asst. Atty. Gen., Civil Rights Div., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C., H. M. Ray, U. S. Atty., Oxford, Miss., for plaintiff-intervenor, appellee.
Before COLEMAN, GOLDBERG and GEE, Circuit Judges.
P.L. 94-559, 90 Stat. 2641. Given this statutory authorization and the Supreme Court's decision to vacate and remand Stanton v. Bond,5 we need only determine whether the new Act permits awards against state officials in their official capacities despite the proscription of the Eleventh Amendment,6 as elucidated in Edelman v. Jordan, supra.
In Edelman v. Jordan, the Supreme Court overturned a retroactive award of wrongfully withheld welfare benefits holding that "a suit by private parties seeking to impose a liability which must be paid from public funds in the state treasury is barred by the Eleventh Amendment." 415 U.S. at 663, 94 S.Ct. at 1356. The Court was careful to say that the Eleventh Amendment did not prohibit prospective injunctions even when such relief would require the expenditure of state revenues. "Such an ancillary effect on the state treasury is a permissible and often an inevitable consequence of the principle announced in Ex parte Young, supra." Id. at 668, 94 S.Ct. at 1358. Lower courts were left to wonder if attorneys' fees were akin to the monetary restitution prohibited by Edelman or were merely ancillary to injunctive relief. The Third and Sixth Circuits have held that the Eleventh Amendment prohibits the award of attorneys' fees against a state.7 The First, Second and Fourth Circuits have found them to have only the ancillary effect on the state treasury permissible under Edelman.8 All of these holdings predate the Supreme Court's holding in Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427 U.S. 445, 96 S.Ct. 2666, 49 L.Ed.2d 614 (1976), that an amendment to Title VII authorizing a federal court to award monetary damages to a private individual against a state government does not violate the Eleventh Amendment.
(W)e think that the Eleventh Amendment, and the principle of state sovereignty which it embodies, see Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U.S. 1, 10 S.Ct. 504, 33 L.Ed. 842 (1890), are necessarily limited by the enforcement provisions of § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. . . . We think that Congress may, in determining what is "appropriate legislation" for the purposes of enforcing the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, provide for private suits against states or state officials which are constitutionally impermissible in other contexts.
427 U.S. 445 at 456, 96 S.Ct. at 2671, 49 L.Ed.2d at 621-22. The Court went on to affirm the lower court's award of attorneys' fees against state officials, finding that they were expressly authorized by Congress in Title VII cases and that "Congress' exercise of power in this respect is also not barred by the Eleventh Amendment." Id., 427 U.S. at 457, 96 S.Ct. at 2672, 49 L.Ed.2d at 622.
As with cases brought under 20 U.S.C. § 1617, the Emergency School Aid Act of 1972, defendants in these cases are often State or local bodies or State or local officials. In such cases it is intended that the attorneys' fees, like other items of costs, will be collected either directly from the official, in his official capacity, from funds of his agency or under his control, or from the State or local government (whether or not the agency or government is a named party).
S.Rep. No. 94-1011, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. (1976), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1976, pp. 5908, 5913. Congress expressly intended the new act to apply to all cases pending at the time of its enactment.9 H.R. No. 1558 at 4, n.6, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. (1976). See also Bradley v. School Board of City of Richmond, 416 U.S. 696, 94 S.Ct. 2006, 40 L.Ed.2d 476 (1974). In Rainey v. Jackson State College, 551 F.2d 672 (5th Cir. 1977), our court concluded that "(t)he combination of Fitzpatrick and the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act of 1976 establishes that the Eleventh Amendment is no longer a bar to the award of attorney's fees against a state in actions under the statutes enumerated in the Act." Id. at 675.
Nor does Muzquiz v. City of San Antonio, 528 F.2d 499 (5th Cir. 1976) (en banc), prevent the award of attorneys' fees against state officials in their official capacities. In its narrowest reading Muzquiz held that § 1983 injunctive relief tantamount to a money judgment for restitution does not lie against individual members of a governmental entity in their official capacities when the entity itself is not a person for § 1983 purposes. Post-Muzquiz decisions of this court have recognized § 1983 jurisdiction against individual members of a governmental board in their official capacities when injunctive or declaratory relief was sought. Campbell v. Gadsden County District School Board, 534 F.2d 650 (5th Cir. 1976); McGill v. Parsons, 532 F.2d 484, 485-86 n.1 (5th Cir. 1976); Thurston v. Dekle, 531 F.2d 1264 (5th Cir. 1976). The question of attorneys' fees against official defendants after Muzquiz was specifically pretermitted in Abbott v. Thetford, 529 F.2d 695, 701 (5th Cir. 1976). In light of the Supreme Court's holdings in Bradley and Fitzpatrick and the clear congressional directive to allow attorneys' fees to be awarded in civil rights cases, we choose not to interpret Muzquiz so expansively as to challenge such formidable authority.
The award of $41,750 for reasonable attorneys' fees and $10,986.05 for reimbursable expenses, plus interest from the date of judgment, is affirmed. The denial of attorneys' fees for appellate proceedings is reversed and the case is remanded with instructions to award reasonable attorneys' fees for post-judgment proceedings as authorized by the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act of 1976.
I concur in the award of $41,750 for attorneys' fees and $10,986.05 for reimbursable expenses, but I do so only because Congress has seen fit to require it.
I also concur in the remand for the purpose of allowing the District Court to consider an award, in its discretion, of reasonable attorneys' fees for post-judgment proceedings. Speaking for myself only I do not mean to infer that attorneys are mandatorily entitled to be paid for time and effort expended to ascertain the amount of, or to collect, a fee. That is primarily for their benefit, not for the benefit of the in forma pauperis plaintiffs. The opinion does not speak to this subject but I wish to state my awareness of the point, which is now left for the initial consideration and decision of the District Court.
On February 14, 1973, the district court awarded attorneys' fees on $41,750 and reimbursed plaintiffs' expenses of $10,986.05. This award was affirmed at 489 F.2d 298 (5th Cir. 1973). The intervening cases of Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 94 S.Ct. 1347, 39 L.Ed.2d 662 (1974), and Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. Wilderness Society, 421 U.S. 240, 95 S.Ct. 1612, 44 L.Ed.2d 141 (1975), caused the Fifth Circuit sitting en banc to vacate and remand these judgments for reconsideration of attorneys' fees in light of these two decisions. 522 F.2d 81 (5th Cir. 1975) (en banc). The district court's reassessment of attorneys' fees following Edelman and Alyeska is the subject of this appeal. 70 F.R.D. 341 (N.D.Miss.1976).

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