Opinion ID: 163658
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Award of Attorney’s Fees to Gregg

Text: “A prevailing defendant may recover an attorney’s fee only where the suit was vexatious, frivolous, or brought to harass or embarrass the defendant.” Jane L. , 61 F.3d at 1513 (quotation omitted). The district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that Dill’s First Amendment retaliatory transfer claim was frivolous as to Gregg. In its initial findings of fact following the first two trials in this case, the court found that “Gregg played no role in [Dill’s] transfer from detective to patrol officer.” Aplt. App. at 323. Subsequently, after we remanded the case to the district court for further proceedings, Dill again failed to -9- put forth any evidence linking Gregg to the transfer. Instead, Dill informed the court that Gregg was entitled to summary judgment on the First Amendment claim if it was limited to his transfer to patrol officer. See id . at 185. As a result, after the court refused to allow Dill to expand his theory of liability on his First Amendment claim beyond the retaliatory transfer issue, it granted Gregg summary judgment on the claim. See id. at 161-62. Dill claims that, during the limited period of discovery on remand, he discovered evidence showing that his investigative assignments had been restricted in retaliation for his exercising his First Amendment rights, and that Gregg was involved in the retaliation. Based on this evidence, Dill claims his First Amendment claim was not frivolous as to Gregg. This argument is without merit, however, because the district court refused to permit Dill to expand the scope of his First Amendment claim to include this post-remand theory of liability, and the court’s refusal to expand the scope of the remand proceedings is not at issue in this appeal. Consequently, the only issue before us is whether the court abused its discretion in determining that Dill’s retaliatory transfer claim was frivolous as to Gregg. We hold that it did not since Dill failed to put forth any evidence linking Gregg to the transfer. 1 1 Dill also claims the district court improperly awarded Gregg attorney’s fees for work his attorney performed on a separate lawsuit. We disagree. The district (continued...) -10-