Opinion ID: 170451
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: BCA's Efforts in Obtaining a Preliminary Injunction

Text: BCA also claims its success in obtaining a preliminary injunction should confer upon it prevailing party status. In Sole v. Wyner, ___ U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 2188, 167 L.Ed.2d 1069, the Court addressed the question of whether a party had prevailed because it succeeded in obtaining a preliminary injunction. The plaintiff there had filed a lawsuit claiming the state's Bathing Suit rule, which required all patrons of state parks to wear, at a minimum, a thong and (if female) a bikini top, violated the First Amendment. The plaintiff wanted permission to create artwork in the form of nude bodies arranged into a peace sign on the following day, and so the district judge held a hasty hearing. The judge found that the Bathing Suit rule was not narrowly tailored, because the state could put up a barrier to shield beachgoers who did not wish to see the artwork. The district judge granted a preliminary injunction allowing plaintiff's demonstration to go forward, but did not rule on the merits of her First Amendment claim. After the peace symbol display took place, however, participants came out from behind the barrier and went into the water in the nude. In ruling on the final merits of the plaintiff's case, the judge found the Bathing Suit rule constitutional, claiming that the actions of the participants in flouting the barrier during the previous display demonstrated that the prohibition on nudity was essential to protect the public. Plaintiff lost, but the judge nonetheless awarded her attorneys' fees for her success in obtaining a preliminary injunction. The Supreme Court reversed. It held that [a] plaintiff who achieves a transient victory at the threshold of an action can gain no award under that fee-shifting provision if, at the end of the litigation, her initial success is undone and she leaves the courthouse emptyhanded. 127 S.Ct. at 2192. However, the Court explicitly refused to address the question at issue here, stating that it express[ed] no view on whether, in the absence of a final decision on the merits of a claim for permanent injunctive relief, success in gaining a preliminary injunction may sometimes warrant an award of counsel fees. Id. at 2196. We thus must decide whether BCA's preliminary injunction entitles it to prevailing party status. Unlike the injunction in Sole, the preliminary injunction here was not undone by a final decision on the merits. See id. at 2196. It is thus in the area explicitly left open by Sole. The touchstone of the prevailing party inquiry is the material alteration of the legal relationship of the parties in a manner which Congress sought to promote in the fee statute. Texas State Teachers Assn. v. Garland Independent School Dist., 489 U.S. 782, 792-93, 109 S.Ct. 1486, 103 L.Ed.2d 866 (1989) (emphasis added). In order for an alteration of legal relationships to be considered material, however, a plaintiff must receive at least some relief on the merits of his claim.  Hewitt v. Helms, 482 U.S. 755, 760, 107 S.Ct. 2672, 96 L.Ed.2d 654 (1987) (emphasis added). See also Sole, 127 S.Ct. at 2194. In concert with these cases, the Tenth Circuit has held that a preliminary injunction that achieves the full relief on the merits sought by the suit justifies prevailing party status. In Dahlem v. Board of Education of Denver Public Schools, 901 F.2d 1508 (10th Cir.1990), the Tenth Circuit conferred prevailing party status on a student who obtained a preliminary injunction allowing him to participate in gymnastics classes at his high school. The case was mooted by plaintiff's graduation, but because the preliminary injunction awarded plaintiff precisely the relief he sought on the merits, the Tenth Circuit deemed plaintiff a prevailing party. While Sole explicitly declined to decide the question in that case, its reasoning sheds some light on our case. In Sole, the Court explained that although the petitioner received preliminary relief allowing her to engage in protected conduct on one occasion, that relief did not make her a prevailing party because she failed to achieve the final relief she sought: a determination that the state law banning nudity in parks was unconstitutional as applied to expressive, nonerotic nudity. Sole, 127 S.Ct. at 2196. By contrast, in Dahlem, the final relief plaintiff sought  being able to participate in gymnastics classes for the duration of his high school career  was precisely what he gained via preliminary injunction. We need not decide whether Dahlem survives Buckhannon and Sole. But given the requirements set forth by the Supreme Court in recent years, if Dahlem is still good law, it at best stands for the proposition that a preliminary injunction cannot serve as the basis for attorneys' fees if it does not meet the stringent standards set forth in Texas State Teachers Association and Hewitt: A preliminary injunction that does not provide a plaintiff with relief on the merits of her claim cannot serve as the basis for prevailing party status. BCA fails to meet this standard. Here, the district judge's preliminary injunction required the Forest Service to refrain from going forward with the Cement Project, and from taking actions such as constructing or reconstructing new roads and/or . . . selling or awarding such timber by contract. The injunction did not prevent the Forest Service from continuing to meet and plan in regards to the Cement Project. Nor did the preliminary injunction grant the relief that BCA sought. BCA sought a determination that the Cement Project was issued in violation of NEPA, NFMA, and the APA. But no portion of the district court's order issuing the injunction addressed whether the Cement Project was arbitrary and capricious. Instead, it granted preliminary relief in part because the equities of [potential species loss] tip[ped] heavily towards the movant. The relief BCA obtained in the preliminary injunction was not the relief it sought in its complaint. It won the right to have the status quo preserved, so that had it prevailed on the merits, its victory would have meaning. The preliminary injunction thus did not serve to make BCA a prevailing party.