Source: https://www.legalcrystal.com/case/104464/christiansburg-garment-co-vs-eeoc
Timestamp: 2018-03-22 15:59:38
Document Index: 478619890

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 706', '§ 706', '§ 706', '§ 706', '§ 706', '§ 706', '§ 706', '§ 14', '§ 706', '§ 77', '§ 78', '§ 1365', '§ 1857', '§ 4911']

Christiansburg Garment Co Vs Eeoc - Citation 104464 - Court Judgment | LegalCrystal
Christiansburg Garment Co. Vs. Eeoc - Court Judgment
LegalCrystal Citation legalcrystal.com/104464
Case Number 434 U.S. 412
Appellant Christiansburg Garment Co.
.....case before us is what standard should inform a district court's discretion in deciding whether to award attorney's fees to a successful defendant in a title vii action. not surprisingly, the parties in addressing the question in their briefs and oral arguments have taken almost diametrically opposite positions. [ footnote 11 ] the company contends that the piggie park criterion for a successful plaintiff should apply equally as a guide to the page 434 u. s. 418 award of attorney's fees to a successful defendant. its submission, in short, is that every prevailing defendant in a title vii action should receive an allowance' of attorney's fees "unless special circumstances would render such an award unjust." [ footnote 12 ] the respondent commission, by.....
Christiansburg Garment Co. v. EEOC - 434 U.S. 412 (1978)
U.S. Supreme Court Christiansburg Garment Co. v. EEOC, 434 U.S. 412 (1978)
Christiansburg Garment Co. v.
Argued November 28-29, 1977
434 U.S. 412
1. Although a prevailing plaintiff in a Title VII proceeding is ordinarily to be awarded attorney's fees by the district court in all but special circumstances, a prevailing defendant is to be awarded such fees only when the court, in the exercise of its discretion, has found that the plaintiff's action was frivolous, unreasonable, or without foundation. Pp. 434 U. S. 415 -422.
(a) There are at least two strong equitable considerations favoring an attorney's fee award to a prevailing Title VII plaintiff that are wholly absent in the case of a Title VII defendant, viz., the plaintiff is Congress' chosen instrument to vindicate "a policy that Congress considered of the highest priority," Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, 390 U. S. 400 , 390 U. S. 402 , and when a district court awards counsel fees to a prevailing plaintiff, it is awarding them against a violator of federal law. Pp. 434 U. S. 418 -419.
Page 434 U. S. 413
(b) No statutory provision would have been necessary had an award of attorney's fees to a prevailing defendant been based only on the plaintiff's bad faith in bringing the action, for even under the American common law rule (which ordinarily dos not allow attorney's fees to the prevailing party), such fees can be awarded against a party who has proceeded in bad faith. P. 434 U. S. 419 .
2. The District Court properly applied the foregoing standards, and did not abuse its discretion in concluding that an award to petitioner of attorney's fees was not justified. Pp. 434 U. S. 423 -424
"In any action or proceeding under this title the court,
Page 434 U. S. 414
in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party . . . a reasonable attorney's fee. . . . [ Footnote 1 ]"
Two years after Rosa Helm had filed a Title VII charge of racial discrimination against the petitioner Christiansburg Garment Co. (company), the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission notified her that its conciliation efforts had failed and that she had the right to sue the company in federal court. She did not do so. Almost two years later, in 1972, Congress enacted amendments to Title VII. [ Footnote 2 ] Section 14 of these amendments authorized the Commission to sue in its own name to prosecute "charges pending with the Commission" on the effective date of the amendments. Proceeding under this section, the Commission sued the company, alleging that it had engaged in unlawful employment practices in violation of the amended Act. The company moved for summary judgment on the ground, inter alia, that the Rosa Helm charge had not been "pending" before the Commission when the 1972 amendments took effect. The District Court agreed, and granted summary judgment in favor of the company. 376 F.Supp. 1067 (WD Va). [ Footnote 3 ]
Page 434 U. S. 415
The company then petitioned for the allowance of attorney's fees against the Commission pursuant to § 706(k) of Title VII. Finding that "the Commission's action in bringing the suit cannot be characterized as unreasonable or meritless," the District Court concluded that "an award of attorney's fees to petitioner is not justified in this case." [ Footnote 4 ] A divided Court of Appeals affirmed, 550 F.2d 949 (CA4), and we granted certiorari to consider an important question of federal law, 432 U.S. 905.
It is the general rule in the United States that, in the absence of legislation providing otherwise, litigants must pay their own attorney's fees. Alyeska Pipeline Co. v. Wilderness Society, 421 U. S. 240 . Congress has provided only limited exceptions to this rule "under selected statutes granting or protecting various federal rights." Id. at 421 U. S. 260 . Some of these statutes make fee awards mandatory for prevailing plaintiffs; [ Footnote 5 ] others make awards permissive but limit them to certain parties,
Page 434 U. S. 416
usually prevailing plaintiffs. [ Footnote 6 ] But many of the statutes are more flexible, authorizing the award of attorney's fees to either plaintiffs or defendants, and entrusting the effectuation of the statutory policy to the discretion of the district courts. [ Footnote 7 ] Section 76(k) of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 falls into this last category, providing as it does that a district court may in its discretion allow an attorney's fee to the prevailing party.
In Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, 390 U. S. 400 , the Court considered a substantially identical statute authorizing the award of attorney's fees under Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. [ Footnote 8 ] In that case, the plaintiffs had prevailed, and the Court of Appeals had held that they should be awarded their attorney's fees "only to the extent that the respondents' defenses had been advanced for purposes of delay and not in good faith.'" Id. at 390 U. S. 401 . We ruled that this "subjective standard" did not properly effectuate the purposes of the counsel fee provision of Title II. Relying primarily on the intent of Congress to cast a Title II plaintiff in the role of "a `private attorney general,' vindicating a policy that Congress considered of the highest priority," we held that a prevailing plaintiff under Title II "should ordinarily recover an attorney's fee unless special circumstances would render such an award
Page 434 U. S. 417
unjust." Id. at 390 U. S. 402 . We noted in passing that, if the objective of Congress had been to permit the award of attorney's fees only against defendants who had acted in bad faith, "no new statutory provision would have been necessary," since even the American common law rule allows the award of attorney's fees in those exceptional circumstances. Id. at 434 U. S. 402 n. 4. [ Footnote 9 ]
In Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U. S. 405 , the Court made clear that the Piggie Park standard of awarding attorney's fees to a successful plaintiff is equally applicable in an action under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. 422 U.S. at 422 U. S. 415 . See also Northcross v. Memphis Board of Education, 412 U. S. 427 , 412 U. S. 428 . It can thus be taken as established, as the parties in this case both acknowledge, that under § 706(k) of Title VII a prevailing plaintiff ordinarily is to be awarded attorney's fees in all but special circumstances. [ Footnote 10 ]
The question in the case before us is what standard should inform a district court's discretion in deciding whether to award attorney's fees to a successful defendant in a Title VII action. Not surprisingly, the parties in addressing the question in their briefs and oral arguments have taken almost diametrically opposite positions. [ Footnote 11 ]
The company contends that the Piggie Park criterion for a successful plaintiff should apply equally as a guide to the
Page 434 U. S. 418
award of attorney's fees to a successful defendant. Its submission, in short, is that every prevailing defendant in a Title VII action should receive an allowance' of attorney's fees "unless special circumstances would render such an award unjust." [ Footnote 12 ] The respondent Commission, by contrast, argues that the prevailing defendant should receive an award of attorney's fees only when it is found that the plaintiff's action was brought in bad faith. We have concluded that neither of these positions is correct.
First, as emphasized so forcefully in Piggie Park, the plaintiff is the chosen instrument of Congress to vindicate "a policy that Congress considered of the highest priority." 390 U.S. at 390 U. S. 402 . Second, when a district court awards counsel fees to a prevailing plaintiff, it is awarding them against a violator of federal law. As the Court of Appeals clearly perceived,
"these policy considerations which support the award of fees to a
Page 434 U. S. 419
prevailing plaintiff are not present in the case of a prevailing defendant."
But if the company's position is untenable, the Commission's argument also misses the mark. It seems clear, in short, that, in enacting § 706(k) Congress did not intend to permit the award of attorney's fees to a prevailing defendant only in a situation where the plaintiff was motivated by bad faith in bringing the action. As pointed out in Piggie Park, if that had been the intent of Congress, no statutory provision would have been necessary, for it has long been established that even under the American common law rule attorney's fees may be awarded against a party who has proceeded in bad faith. [ Footnote 13 ]
Furthermore, while it was certainly the policy of Congress that Title VII plaintiffs should vindicate "a policy that Congress considered of the highest priority," Piggie Park, 390 U.S. at 390 U. S. 402 , it is equally certain that Congress entrusted the ultimate effectuation of that policy to the adversary judicial process, Occidental Life Ins. Co. v. EEOC, 432 U. S. 355 . A fair adversary process presupposes both a vigorous prosecution and a vigorous defense. It cannot be lightly assumed that, in enacting § 706(k), Congress intended to distort that process by giving the private plaintiff substantial incentives to sue, while foreclosing to the defendant the! possibility of recovering his expenses in resisting even a groundless action unless he can show that it was brought in bad faith.
Page 434 U. S. 420
The sparse legislative history of § 706(k) reveals little more than the barest outlines of a proper accommodation of the competing considerations we have discussed. The only specific reference to § 706(k) in the legislative debates indicates that the fee provision was included to "make it easier for a plaintiff of limited means to bring a meritorious suit." [ Footnote 14 ] During the Senate floor discussions of the almost identical attorney's fee provision of Title II, however, several Senators explained that its allowance of awards to defendants would serve "to deter the bringing of lawsuits without foundation," [ Footnote 15 ] "to discourage frivolous suits," [ Footnote 16 ] and "to diminish the likelihood of unjustified suits being brought." [ Footnote 17 ] If anything can be gleaned from these fragments of legislative history, it is that while Congress wanted to clear the way for suits to be brought under the Act, it also wanted to protect defendants from burdensome litigation having no legal or factual basis. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit seems to have drawn the maximum significance from the Senate debates when it concluded:
The first federal appellate court to consider what criteria should govern the award of attorney's fees to a prevailing
Page 434 U. S. 421
Title VII defendant was the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in United States Steel Corp. v. United States, 519 F.2d 359. There a District Court had denied a fee award to a defendant that had successfully resisted a Commission demand for documents, the court finding that the Commission's action had not been " unfounded, meritless, frivolous or vexatiously brought.'" Id. at 363. The Court of Appeals concluded that the District Court had not abused its discretion in denying the award. Id. at 365. A similar standard was adopted by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Carrion v. Yeshiva University, 535 F.2d 722. In upholding an attorney's fee award to a successful defendant, that court stated that such awards should be permitted
Id. at 727. [ Footnote 18 ]
In applying these criteria., it is important that a district court resist the understandable temptation to engage in post
Page 434 U. S. 422
hoc reasoning by concluding that, because a plaintiff did not ultimately prevail, his action must have been unreasonable or without foundation. This kind of hindsight logic could discourage all but the most airtight claims, for seldom can a prospective plaintiff be sure of ultimate success. No matter how honest one's belief that he has been the victim of discrimination, no matter how meritorious one's claim may appear at the outset, the course of litigation is rarely predictable. Decisive facts may not emerge until discovery or trial. The law may change or clarify in the midst of litigation. Even when the law or the facts appear questionable or unfavorable at the outset, a party may have an entirely reasonable ground for bringing suit.
That § 706(k) allows fee awards only to prevailing private plaintiffs should assure that this statutory provision will not, in itself, operate as an incentive to the bringing of claims that have little chance of success. [ Footnote 19 ] To take the further step of assessing attorney's fees against plaintiffs simply because they do not finally prevail would substantially add to the risks inhering in most litigation and would undercut the efforts of Congress to promote the vigorous enforcement of the provisions of Title VII. Hence, a plaintiff should not be assessed his opponent's attorney's fees unless a court finds that his claim was frivolous, unreasonable, or groundless, or that the plaintiff continued to litigate after it clearly became so. And, needless to say, if a plaintiff is found to have brought or continued such a claim in bad faith, there will be an even stronger basis for charging him with the attorney's fees incurred by the defense. [ Footnote 20 ]
Page 434 U. S. 423
In denying attorney's fees to the company in this case, the District Court focused on the standards we have discussed. The court found that "the Commission's action in bringing the suit cannot be characterized as unreasonable or meritless" because "the basis upon which petitioner prevailed was an
Page 434 U. S. 424
issue of first impression requiring judicial resolution" and because the "Commission's statutory interpretation of § 14 of the 1972 amendments was not frivolous." The court thus exercised its discretion squarely within the permissible bounds of § 706(k). Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals upholding the decision of the District Court is affirmed.
See, e.g., Trust Indenture Act of 1939, 53 Stat. 1171, 15 U.S.C. § 77 ooo (e); Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 889, 897, 15 U.S.C. §§ 78i(e), 78r(a); Federal Water Pollution Control Act, 86 Stat. 889, 33 U.S.C. § 1365(d) (1970 ed., Supp. V); Clean Air Act, 84 Stat. 1706, 42 U.S.C. § 1857h-2(d); Noise Control Act of 1972, 86 Stat. 1244, 42 U.S.C. § 4911(d) (1970 ed., Supp. V).
The propriety under the American common law rule of awarding attorney's fees against a losing party who has acted in bad faith was expressly reaffirmed in Alyeska Pipeline Co. v. Wilderness Society, 421 U. S. 240 , 421 U. S. 258 -259.