Opinion ID: 198201
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Merits Test.

Text: 14 A fee-seeker who aspires to prevailing party status may make the requisite showing of causation by satisfying the merits test. [T]he merits test 'states the obvious, namely, that a party has prevailed if [he] wins the litigation.'  Langton v. Johnston, 928 F.2d 1206, 1224 (1st Cir.1991) (quoting Coalition for Basic Human Needs v. King, 691 F.2d 597, 599 (1st Cir.1982)). In this iteration of his plea, the appellant argues that, even though the district court vacated a set of administrative orders favorable to him, its ruling amounted to a victory because the ruling implicitly acknowledged that the State had denied him a FAPE while he languished in the SHU. To mount this argument, Adams positions the denial of a FAPE as the foundation for his overarching claim and posits that, since the district court impliedly recognized such a denial when it directed the parties to negotiate, the court's order was the functional equivalent of a vindication on the merits. 15 This argument reads too much into the district court's ruling. In approving the State's subordination of the IEP's requirements to the security concerns created by Adams' own actions, the district court logically implied that no FAPE violation had occurred. Indeed, the court specifically said during the subsequent hearing on Adams' motion for fees: Marc Adams wasn't denied free appropriate education while in SHU. And the court's subsequent written order on attorneys' fees stated bluntly that it had resolved the central legal issue against Adams. 16 We have held before that a district court is the best explicator of its own orders, see, e.g., Martha's Vineyard Scuba Headquarters, Inc., v. Unidentified, Wrecked and Abandoned Steam Vessel, 833 F.2d 1059, 1066-67 (1st Cir.1987); Lefkowitz v. Fair, 816 F.2d 17, 22 (1st Cir.1987), and this case offers no occasion to contravene that principle. The parties' negotiation of a revised IEP, subsequent to Adams' defeat in the district court, could not transform a loss into a win. 17