Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/769/1025/197140/
Timestamp: 2019-12-16 06:58:22
Document Index: 746696632

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1988', '§ 1988', '§ 2000', 'art, 461', '§ 1988', '§ 2000', '§ 1981', '§ 1341', '§ 4331', '§ 109', '§ 3601', '§ 2000', '§ 128', '§ 1653', '§ 4332', '§ 2000', 'art, 461', '§ 1988']

Crest Street Community Council, Inc.; Residents of Creststreet Community; Save Our Church & Communitycommittee, Appellants, v. North Carolina Department of Transportation; North Carolinaboard of Transportation; James E. Harrington, Secretary Ofthe North Carolina Department of Transportation and Chairmanof the North Carolina Board of Transportation, Appellees, 769 F.2d 1025 (4th Cir. 1985) :: Justia
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Crest Street Community Council, Inc.; Residents of Creststreet Community; Save Our Church & Communitycommittee, Appellants, v. North Carolina Department of Transportation; North Carolinaboard of Transportation; James E. Harrington, Secretary Ofthe North Carolina Department of Transportation and Chairmanof the North Carolina Board of Transportation, Appellees, 769 F.2d 1025 (4th Cir. 1985)
US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit - 769 F.2d 1025 (4th Cir. 1985) Argued June 7, 1985. Decided Aug. 15, 1985
The prevailing parties in a federal administrative action involving Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 sought to recover attorney's fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 in an independent action in federal district court. The district court denied their request. We reverse.
As required by its regulations, 49 C.F.R. Sec. 21.11(c), DOT investigated the freeway proposals and the allegations of the administrative complaint. On February 20, 1980, after the field investigation, the DOT Director of the Office of Civil Rights informed NCDOT of DOT's preliminary finding of reasonable cause to believe that construction according to the NCDOT proposal would constitute a prima facie violation of Title VI and of DOT's implementing regulations, particularly 49 C.F.R. Sec. 21.5(b) (3).3 The parties then took the next step in DOT's Title VI compliance process and began extensive negotiations to resolve their differences through "voluntary means."4 Representatives from DOT, the Federal Highway Administration, and the City of Durham, as well as defendants, plaintiffs, and other opponents of the freeway, participated in these negotiations. In February 1982, plaintiffs, the City of Durham, and NCDOT reached a preliminary agreement for the freeway design, relocation assistance benefits, and other assistance in mitigation of the adverse impact of the project, but negotiations continued on a final assistance plan and ultimate resolution of all issues raised by the administrative complaint.
The Plan recited that the City and NCDOT denied any liability for plaintiffs' attorney's fees, and that plaintiffs preserved their right to claim such fees. In August 1983, plaintiffs' counsel sent defendants a detailed request for attorney's fees. NCDOT adhered to its position that it was not liable for such fees, and plaintiffs filed this action on November 30, 1983. The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment, and on November 29, 1984, the district court granted defendants' motion and dismissed the action. 598 F. Supp. 258 (M.D.N.C. 1984).
The Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act of 1976 added the following sentence to 42 U.S.C. § 1988, which previously had no provision for such fees:
The next statutory requirement is that the underlying legal complaint have been brought in an "action or proceeding to enforce a provision of" one of the listed laws. Defendants argue that plaintiffs' administrative complaint was not an "action or proceeding" within the meaning of Sec. 1988. The natural or usual meaning of the words "action or proceeding" connotes "civil" action and "administrative" proceeding. Of course, "proceeding" alone may be read broadly enough to include "civil" action. We see no reason to depart from those meanings here. Some of the substantive provisions listed in Sec. 1988 explicitly contemplate civil actions in state or federal court, and some, such as Title VI, explicitly contemplate initial administrative proceedings with possible later judicial review. E.g., 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000d-1, 2000d-2. We think that the disjunctive use of both terms indicates on the face of the statute Congress' intent to award fees for both avenues of legal redress to challenged action.
Title VII contains a nearly identical fee provision,8 and the Supreme Court has repeatedly noted that "the provision for counsel fees in Sec. 1988 was patterned upon the attorney's fees provisions contained in Titles II and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964," and that "the legislative history of Sec. 1988 indicates that Congress intended that 'the standards for awarding fees be generally the same as under the fee provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.' " Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 433 n. 7, 103 S. Ct. 1933, 1939 n. 7, 76 L. Ed. 2d 40 (1983) (quoting S.Rep. No. 1011, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. 4 (1976), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1976, 5908). In New York Gaslight Club, Inc. v. Carey, 447 U.S. 54, 100 S. Ct. 2024, 64 L. Ed. 2d 723 (1980), the Court addressed the same interpretation argument that defendants make here and held that Title VII does authorize a fee award for work done in state administrative and judicial proceedings:
447 U.S. at 61, 100 S. Ct. at 2029. We think that the same reasoning applies to Sec. 1988. Moreover, Congress' expressed policy of uniformity among the fee statutes will be furthered by adopting the same construction of identical language.
Defendants argue that we should make "no distinction whether the administrative proceeding in question is or is not to enforce Title VI but only whether it is mandatory." Thus, a mandatory proceeding would be an "action or proceeding" "to enforce a provision of" Title VI, but an optional proceeding would not fall within that same definition. Other courts have attributed some significance to the optional/mandatory distinction, but we are not persuaded that it should control for Title VI, and therefore we need not address the district court's conclusion, which both sides accept, that Title VI does not require exhaustion of administrative remedies. See 598 F. Supp. at 262 (citing Chowdhury v. Reading Hospital and Medical Center, 677 F.2d 317 (3 Cir. 1982), cert. denied, 463 U.S. 1229, 103 S. Ct. 3569, 77 L. Ed. 2d 1411 (1983)).
As we have said, the language of Sec. 1988 provides broadly that "in any action or proceeding to enforce a provision of ... Title VI ..., the court, in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party ... a reasonable attorney's fee as part of the costs," 42 U.S.C. § 1988 (emphasis added), and the scheme of Title VI confirms what the language of Sec. 1988 suggests. The Department of Transportation regulations under which plaintiffs filed their administrative complaint were specifically established to enforce federal rights created by Title VI,10 so we conclude as a matter of normal statutory interpretation that Congress meant to include them within Sec. 1988's use of the term "proceeding." Moreover, Title VI does not explicitly authorize a private right of action,11 but it does authorize judicial review of agency action taken to effectuate its purposes. 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-2. The federal12 administrative proceedings for which plaintiffs seek compensation thus may be analogized to the mandatory state procedures in Carey: They are the primary and perhaps the only remedy for violation of that title.13
So far as we are aware, only the Third Circuit has considered the precise question before us, i.e., the propriety of awarding attorney's fees under Sec. 1988 for work done in connection with administrative proceedings to enforce Title VI. In NAACP v. Wilmington Medical Center, Inc., 689 F.2d 1161, 1170-71 (3 Cir. 1982), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1052, 103 S. Ct. 1499, 75 L. Ed. 2d 930 (1983), the Third Circuit held that prevailing plaintiffs could recover attorney's fees for work related to an administrative proceeding to which they were not parties but which was prompted by the litigation so long as that work contributed to their ultimate success. The court relied simply on the language of the statute and the Supreme Court's reasoning in Carey.
In Latino Project, Inc. v. City of Camden, 701 F.2d 262 (3 Cir. 1983), a different panel of the Third Circuit distinguished Wilmington Medical Center on the ground that plaintiffs in that case had initially filed a complaint in district court, while the plaintiffs in Latino Project had succeeded, if at all,14 at the administrative level without ever filing suit in court. The Latino Project panel held that "a plaintiff who has not filed a civil complaint on the merits of a claim under one of the civil rights statutes enumerated in [Sec. 1988] is not entitled to attorney's fees ..., even though he may have obtained substantial relief in an administrative proceeding." Id. at 265. We respectfully doubt the correctness of that holding,15 but in any event, ours is not that case. In the case before us, there was intervention in a case pending in court, and for all practical purposes, intervention was permitted.
Defendants contend that the reasoning in Webb v. Board of Education of Dyer County, 471 U.S. ----, 105 S. Ct. 1923, 85 L. Ed. 2d 233 (1985), and other non-Title VI cases compels a conclusion different from what the face of the statute indicates. We disagree. The petitioner in Webb was a black man who was fired from his position as a tenured public elementary school teacher. He obtained counsel and challenged his discharge at several hearings before the county board of education on the grounds that the discharge was racially motivated, that it violated his right to due process, and that it violated state laws governing teachers' dismissals. He was unsuccessful before the board, so he filed a complaint in federal district court, alleging that his rights under the Constitution and 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1982, 1983, and 1985 had been violated. The parties settled the federal suit by agreeing that Webb would be reinstated and awarded $15,400 in damages. Upon litigation of the attorney's fees issue, the board conceded that Webb was a prevailing party, but it contended that the fee should be no more than $5,000, rather than the $21,165 requested. The district court ruled in Webb's favor on all issues except his claim for fees before the state tribunals, and it awarded a fee of $9,734.38 plus expenses.
Webb argued on appeal (1) that the school board hearings were "proceeding [s] to enforce a provision of [Sec. 1983]" within the meaning of Sec. 1988, and (2) that the time spent in those hearings was nevertheless compensable as reasonably spent in preparation for the court action. On the first point, the Court noted the similarity between Sec. 706(k) of Title VII and Sec. 1988, but it stated that "the reasoning in Carey is not applicable to this case," because Sec. 1983 contains no exhaustion requirement, as Title VII does,16 and because "the school board proceedings in this case simply do not have the same integral function under Sec. 1983 that state administrative proceedings have under Title VII." 471 U.S. at ----, 105 S. Ct. at 1927-28, 85 L. Ed. 2d at 240-41. The Court stated:
Id. 471 U.S. at ----, 105 S. Ct. at 1928, 85 L. Ed. 2d at 241 (footnotes omitted).
The Court in Webb then went on to consider petitioner's second theory--that even if there was no automatic entitlement for the time spent on the administrative proceedings, that time was reasonably expended in preparation for the later litigation. It emphasized that each case must be decided on its own facts, and that although some services performed before formally filing a lawsuit are compensable under Sec. 1988, it was not error for the district court to exclude the five years of easily separable administrative time in computing a "reasonable attorney's fee" for Webb's counsel. Id. 471 U.S. at ----, 105 S. Ct. at 1927-29, 85 L. Ed. 2d at 241-43.17
What we find most significant about Webb is not that it denied an increase in fees to a prevailing Sec. 1983 plaintiff, but that it did so on a basis that did not categorically exclude administrative proceedings from Sec. 1988. We deem this an indication that in an appropriate case such fees may be recoverable,18 and we believe that Webb 's reasoning further suggests that this is such an appropriate case. In all three of the most pertinent Supreme Court cases-- Carey, Smith, and Webb --the Court applied the attorney's fees statutes as written but examined the congressional enforcement scheme for the underlying rights involved to see if the particular proceedings for which fees were sought were part of those statutory schemes. The Court has concluded that certain state administrative proceedings do qualify under Title VII and that mandatory Education of the Handicapped Act and optional state tenure proceedings do not qualify under Secs. 1983 and 1988. We believe that each provision listed in Sec. 1988 must be examined separately, cf. Redd v. Lambert, 674 F.2d 1032, 1036-37 (5 Cir. 1982) (disallowing fees for plaintiff whose Sec. 1983 claim was not decided by the state courts but carefully distinguishing 28 U.S.C. § 1341 from Title VII and Carey on the basis of Sec. 1341's remedial scheme), and that the enforcement scheme of Title VI aligns it solidly with Title VII rather than with Sec. 1983. Resort to optional administrative proceedings that are creatures of state law cannot be linked to the congressional enforcement scheme under Sec. 1983, so there is no apparent basis to infer that Congress intended to include them within Sec. 1988 when it drafted that statute. In contrast, mandatory state procedures under Title VII and certain federal procedures under Title VI are important parts of the statutory enforcement scheme. As we discussed above, the proceedings that plaintiffs initiated here certainly serve an "integral function," Webb, 471 U.S. at ----, 105 S. Ct. at 1927, 85 L. Ed. 2d at 241, under Title VI.
We agree with the District Court that the availability of a federal fee award for work done in state proceedings following EEOC referral and deferral should not depend upon whether the complainant ultimately finds it necessary to sue in federal court to obtain relief other than attorney's fees. But our agreement with the District Court compels us to reject its conclusion. It would be anomalous to award fees to the complainant who is unsuccessful or only partially successful in obtaining state or local remedies, but to deny an award to the complainant who is successful in fulfilling Congress' plan that federal policies be vindicated at the state or local level. Since it is clear that Congress intended to authorize fee awards for work done in administrative proceedings, we must conclude that Sec. 706(f) (1)'s authorization of a civil suit in federal court encompasses a suit solely to obtain an award of attorney's fees for legal work done in state and local proceedings.
447 U.S. at 65-66, 100 S. Ct. at 2032. We believe the same anomalous consequences would result here if we were to deny fees solely because plaintiffs resolved their dispute without court action, as Title VI and its implementing regulations encouraged them to do.
Some cases have stated that Sec. 1988 does not create an independent cause of action, but the district court correctly distinguished these as having been decided before, or relying on reasoning that does not apply after, the 1976 amendment to Sec. 1988 that added the attorney's fee provision at issue here. 598 F. Supp. at 262. The two cases defendants cite, Estes v. Tuscaloosa County, 696 F.2d 898 (11 Cir. 1983), and Horacek v. Thone, 710 F.2d 496 (8 Cir. 1983), may also be distinguished on the ground that the attorney's fees sought in those cases were incurred in state administrative proceedings that did not concern enforcement of the civil rights statutes. Section 1988 clearly does not apply and does not create an independent cause of action in such circumstances.
The administrative complaint challenged defendants' proposal under provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act, 42 U.S.C. § 4331, the Federal-Aid Highway Act, 23 U.S.C. § 109, Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (fair housing), 42 U.S.C. § 3601, and various implementing regulations, as well as under Title VI
Title VI directs that "no such action [cutting off funding] shall be taken until the department or agency concerned has advised the appropriate person or persons of the failure to comply with the requirement and has determined that compliance cannot be secured by voluntary means." 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-1. DOT's regulations similarly provide that " [i]f an investigation pursuant to paragraph (c) of this section indicates a failure to comply with this part, the Secretary will so inform the recipient and the matter will be resolved by informal means whenever possible." 49 C.F.R. Sec. 21.11(d) (1) (1984). Formal agency action is to be avoided unless the "threatened noncompliance cannot be corrected by informal means." 49 C.F.R. Sec. 21.13(a) (1984)
Plaintiffs in the ECOS action were ECOS, Inc. (a non-profit, educational, ecological corporation), an association of Duke University students and some of its members, and two Durham residents. The defendants were state and federal transportation officials and a construction company. The action had alleged violations of the public hearing requirement and the preservation of parkland requirements of the Federal-Aid Highway Act, 23 U.S.C. §§ 128, 138, the parkland preservation policy of the Department of Transportation Act of 1966, 49 U.S.C. § 1653(f), and the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, 42 U.S.C. § 4332. The order enjoined steps toward construction of a section of the proposed freeway including that through the Crest Street area until the defendants achieved full compliance with the statutes allegedly violated
Although the precise amount and reasonableness of plaintiffs' requested fees will be subject to negotiations between the parties and if necessary to the district court's discretion, we see no reason categorically to exclude the time spent in preparing the motion to intervene or otherwise spent in the ECOS proceedings. Cf. Chrapliwy v. Uniroyal, 670 F.2d 760, 765-67 (7 Cir. 1982) (Title VII plaintiff may recover attorney's fees for optional, collateral federal administrative proceeding that aided ultimate settlement of dispute), cert. denied, 461 U.S. 956, 103 S. Ct. 2428, 77 L. Ed. 2d 1315 (1983). Plaintiffs' participation in the ECOS action was part of their overall strategy, and whether or not it alone was a catalyst to the relief they obtained, the facts and plaintiffs' theories in the ECOS action were intimately connected with their administrative complaint
Title VI directed all federal agencies "to effectuate the provisions of section 2000d of this title ... by issuing rules, regulations, or orders of general applicability." 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-1. DOT did issue such regulations, which are titled in part "Effectuation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964" and whose stated purpose is "to effectuate the provisions of Title VI." 4 C.F.R. Sec. 21.1 (1984)
In Sumpter v. Harper, 683 F.2d 106, 109 n. 4 (4 Cir. 1982), we rejected a specific private claim under Title VI but reserved "the broader question of whether any right of action is available to a private litigant under [Title VI]." (original emphasis). We similarly express no opinion on the latter issue
The Court in Carey rejected the argument that "proceeding" under Title VII should be limited to federal administrative proceedings, but acknowledged that such an interpretation "at least would not render the words 'or proceeding' a complete nullity." 447 U.S. at 62, 100 S. Ct. at 2030. We do not adopt such an interpretation independently, but we recognize that as a practical matter our analysis may lead to that result under Title VI. That title applies to "any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance," and, while it is certainly possible for the states to have administrative procedures that may be able to redress alleged violations of Title VI, those procedures are not mandated by Congress and presumably they can fare no better than the state-created procedures in Webb. See Section IV infra
Cf. S.Rep. No. 1011, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. 5, reprinted in 1976 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News 5908, 5913 (hereinafter cited as "Senate Report") (" [T]he Committee has found that fee awards are essential if the Federal statutes to which [Sec. 1988] applies are to be fully enforced. We find that the effects of such fee awards are ancillary and incident to securing compliance with these laws, and that fee awards are an integral part of the remedies necessary to obtain such compliance.")
471 U.S. at ----, 105 S. Ct. at 1927, 85 L. Ed. 2d at 240-41 (footnote omitted) (quoting Smith v. Robinson, 468 U.S. ----, ---- n. 14, 104 S. Ct. 3457, 3469 n. 14, 82 L. Ed. 2d 746, 764 n. 14 (1984)).
"We reemphasize that the district court has discretion in determining the amount of a fee award." [Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 437, 103 S. Ct. 1933, 1941, 76 L. Ed. 2d 40 (1983) ]. When such an award is appealed, the reviewing court must evaluate its reasonableness with appropriate deference. Considering the governing legal principles, the petitioner's burden of establishing his entitlement to the requested fee, and the evidence and arguments presented below, we conclude that the District Court's decision to deny any fees for time spent pursuing optional administrative remedies was well within the range of reasonable discretion.
471 U.S. at ----, 105 S. Ct. at 1929, 85 L. Ed. 2d at 243.
See id. 471 U.S. at ----, 105 S. Ct. at 1929-35, 85 L. Ed. 2d at 243-49 (Brennan, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (Court's conclusion authorizes limited awards of fees under Sec. 1988 for work performed in optional state administrative proceedings); Delaware Valley Citizens' Council for Clean Air v. Pennsylvania, 762 F.2d 272, 277 n. 7 (3 Cir. 1985) (" [T]he Supreme Court recently held in Webb ... that fees may be recovered under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 for time spent by counsel pursuing 'optional administrative proceedings,' ... so long as counsel's work 'was both useful and of a type ordinarily necessary to advance the [civil rights] litigation' to the point where the party prevailed.")