Opinion ID: 532137
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Colorable Constitutional Claim

Text: 35 Appellants prevailed. We must next examine whether, consistent with the policy underlying Sec. 1988, [they] in some way vindicate[d] a civil right at issue in the litigation against the violation of that civil right ... Doe v. Busbee, 684 F.2d 1375, 1381 (11th Cir.1982) (emphasis supplied). As the Fifth Circuit has noted in Williams v. Leatherbury, 672 F.2d 549, 551 (5th Cir.1982), even if a defendant unilaterally undertakes action that moots the controversy, a plaintiff may nevertheless recover attorneys' fees if he can demonstrate (1) a causal connection between the filing of the suit and the defendant's action; and (2) that the defendant's conduct was required by law. In a similar context, the Fifth Circuit stated: 36 The second prong of the Leatherbury test, consequently, does not require appellants to show that they would have won on the merits. Rather, as the Leatherbury case said, appellants need only show that the action taken by the appellees was not a wholly gratuitous response to an action that in itself was frivolous or groundless. (citation omitted). A claim is not frivolous if it is arguably supported by case or statutory law. 37 Garcia v. Guerra, 744 F.2d 1159, 1162-63 (5th Cir.1984). 3 38 The scenario in the instant case is a complicated one. Appellees complied with appellants' requests; they amended the Rules of the Florida Bar to ensure that lay assistants could provide limited aid to those in need of a divorce, who could not proceed pro se, and who could not afford the services of an attorney. Appellants have achieved their goal, yet despite this result, they do not merit relief if constitutional factors do not require that end. Once more we borrow language from the Fifth Circuit: 39 ... [A] plaintiff who brings an action that has no colorable, or even reasonable, likelihood of success on the merits is not entitled to recover attorney's fees if the defendant simply complies with the plaintiff's demands and moots the case for reasons that have nothing to do with the potential merit of the suit. Whether activated by economic, political, or purely personal concerns, a defendant may choose voluntarily to make the change sought in the suit rather than undergo protracted and expensive litigation. 40 Hennigan v. Ouachita Parish School Bd., 749 F.2d 1148, 1153 (5th Cir.1985). 41 At this point, we must squarely examine the nature of the appellants' claim. We approach this subject with caution, for we do not wish to suggest that the novelty of the appellants' claim compels its defeat: 42 Actions based on novel legal theories generally require greater attorney effort than actions based upon familiar legal theories. This effort, in turn, may pay later dividends in ensuring that previously unprotected classes receive the benefit of rights that the Constitution or statutes guarantee. 43 Teitelbaum v. Sorenson, 648 F.2d 1248, 1250 (9th Cir.1981). 4 The practice of constitutional law has never been a glib or facile exercise; no court, and no counsel, can state with ease or accuracy the limitations on rights enumerated or implied by the Constitution: 44 A constitution, to contain an accurate detail of all the subdivisions of which its great powers will admit, and of all the means by which they may be carried into execution, would partake of the prolixity of a legal code, and could scarcely be embraced by the human mind. It would, probably, never be understood by the public. Its nature, therefore, requires, that only its great outlines should be marked, its important objects designated, and the minor ingredients which compose those objects, be deduced from the nature of the objects themselves. 45 McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 (4 Wheat.) U.S. 316, 407, 4 L.Ed. 579 (Wheaton) (1819). Constitutional law, of necessity, evolves; claims once novel may become established. Our task, therefore, is a difficult one; we must examine prior case and statutory law, not only to ascertain their holdings and text, but to examine their ramifications, and to determine to our own satisfaction that the Constitution could not, under even the most expansive of interpretations, lend color to appellants' claim. 46 Appellants based their constitutional claim upon two Supreme Court decisions, Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U.S. 371, 91 S.Ct. 780, 28 L.Ed.2d 113 (1971) and Johnson v. Avery, 393 U.S. 483, 89 S.Ct. 747, 21 L.Ed.2d 718 (1969), and referred to a third, Bounds v. Smith 430 U.S. 817, 97 S.Ct. 1491, 52 L.Ed.2d 72 (1977). Boddie held that due process prohibits a state from denying, solely on account of inability to pay court fees and costs, access to its courts to indigents who in good faith seek a divorce. Johnson concerned inmates in a state prison; the Court held that, in the absence of some provision by the state for a reasonable alternative to assist illiterate or poorly educated inmates in preparing petitions for post-conviction relief, the state may not validly enforce a regulation which absolutely bars inmates from furnishing such assistance to other prisoners. Finally, in Bounds, the Court held that, where lawyers or paralegals were unavailable to provide assistance to prisoners, the inmates must be given access to a law library to protect access to the courts. 47 None of these cases support appellants' claim. We begin with Boddie. In United States v. Kras, 409 U.S. 434, 450, 93 S.Ct. 631, 640, 34 L.Ed.2d 626 (1973), the Court declined to extend the principle of Boddie to the no asset bankruptcy proceeding. The Court reexamined Boddie, and noted: 48 Mr. Justice Harlin, in his opinion for the Court in Boddie, meticulously pointed out, as we have noted above, that the Court went 'no further than necessary to dispose of the case before us' and did 'not decide that access for all individuals to the courts is a right that is, in all circumstances, guaranteed by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment so that its exercise may not be placed beyond the reach of any individual.' (Citation omitted). The Court obviously stopped short of an unlimited rule that an indigent at all times and in all cases has the right to relief without the payment of fees. 49 (Emphasis supplied). Kras, 409 U.S. at 451, 93 S.Ct. at 641. The Supreme Court has already explicitly limited Boddie to its holding; this court, therefore, cannot expand it. 50 In Johnson v. Avery, the plaintiff was incarcerated in a state prison: the Supreme Court held that the state could not absolutely bar him from furnishing assistance to other inmates in the preparation of their petitions for post-conviction relief. The Court based its holding on ... the fundamental importance of the writ of habeas corpus in our constitutional scheme. Johnson, 393 U.S. at 484, 89 S.Ct. at 748. In Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 828, 97 S.Ct. 1491, 1498, 52 L.Ed.2d 72 (1977), similarly, the Supreme Court held that the fundamental constitutional right of access to the courts requires prison authorities to assist inmates in the preparation and filing of meaningful legal papers by providing prisoners with adequate law libraries or adequate assistance from persons trained in the law. 51 No stretch of logic can extend those holdings to the case before us now. No one has incarcerated appellants; no one has restricted their opportunity to seek help from family, friends and acquaintances in the preparation of their petitions for divorce. 5 5] Cases involving inmates simply do not furnish the sort of support necessary for plaintiffs' claims to flourish here. 52 In Hooks v. Wainwright, 775 F.2d 1433, 1436 (11th Cir.1985), moreover, this court made clear that we would not extend the Supreme Court's holding in Bounds; we noted that Bounds was a limited decision[,] and commented that [a]s stated in Bounds, access to the courts may be provided in whatsoever manner the state desires. We found it highly unlikely, in fact, that courts could constitutionally [require] the state to provide legal counsel for the imprisoned, not available as a matter of constitutional right to the unimprisoned in civil cases. Hooks, 775 F.2d at 1437 (emphasis supplied). We continued: 53 The district court was commendably compassionate for the plight of prisoners and their difficulty in getting proper legal help. But prisoners are not alone in that situation. Vast numbers of the unimprisoned, both convicted and unconvicted, can make a similar case for the need of legal counsel, but to date no constitutional obligation of the state to provide that help has been articulated. 54 Id. at 1437. (emphasis supplied). While it is true, in short, that Boddie v. Connecticut, Johnson v. Avery, and Bounds v. Smith all ensure easier access to the courts for certain classes of persons, they do not burden the state with a constitutional obligation to provide lay assistance to a narrowly proscribed class of indigents. 6 55 States have, in fact, traditionally expressed important reasons for controlling the unauthorized practice of law. In Goldfarb v. Virginia State Bar, 421 U.S. 773, 792, 95 S.Ct. 2004, 2016, 44 L.Ed.2d 572 (1975), to use a widely quoted example, the Supreme Court recognize[d] that the states have a compelling interest in the practice of professions within their boundaries, and that as part of their power to protect the public health, safety and other valid interests they have broad power to establish safeguards for licensing practitioners and regulating the practice of professions. The Florida Supreme Court, in turn, in State v. Sperry, 140 So.2d 587, 591 (Fla.1962) has rightly observed that the prohibition of the practice of law is not to aid or protect the members of the legal profession, but to protect the public from being advised and represented in legal matters by unqualified persons over whom the judicial department can exercise little, if any, control in the matter of infractions of the code of conduct which, in the public interest, lawyers are bound to observe. Sperry, 140 So.2d at 595. Courts traditionally have placed great emphasis on the state's power to regulate the practice of law. We defer to that power now, and find that the plaintiff's attempt in the instant case to strike or curb the state's restrictions on lay assistants on constitutional grounds would lead courts into a quagmire unsupported by any directive from any court. 56 Appellees in this matter relaxed their traditional prohibition against the unauthorized, or unlicensed, practice of law. We cannot find that they did so under any constitutional compulsion. At an oral hearing on December 2, 1985, the original judge in this matter, Judge Melton, engaged in colloquy with counsel for the Florida Supreme Court. At one point, the Court said:Now it seems to me through this: that assuming--let's get away from the constitutional ground just a moment. And let's just talk about what's right and what's wrong. It's a problem that I recognize because I've got several volumes here of it already. You have spent a lot of time.... 57 Therefore, if we have a problem and the Florida Bar and the Supreme Court and these parties can solve the problem for these people, even though maybe they have--let's assume for the sake of what we're talking about now that they really have no right to it, that there's no constitutional right and really they shouldn't--maybe nothing could be done about it unless somebody does. What's wrong with correcting a wrong just for the sake of doing something that would be in the best interests of everyone? 58 Mr. Taylor: From my personal standpoint, not a thing. 59 (emphasis supplied). Judge Melton denied defendants' motion for summary judgment in November, 1989; that same month, the Unlicensed Practice of Law/Access Joint Committee met with the Board of Governors' Committee on Access to the Legal System; the former committee recommended that the latter study and take action regarding access to the courts. Moreover, on February 18, 1987, Mr. Dittmar, The Florida Bar's counsel, revealed that Judge Melton's views were reported to the Florida Bar Committees. We conclude that the State Bar and Supreme Court of Florida amended their Bar Rules ... just for the sake of doing something that would be in the best interests of everyone, and we see no reason to doubt the wisdom of their course. We cannot conclude, however, that they were propelled in this direction by any compulsion stronger than the dictates of public policy. We commend appellees on their willingness to explore new directions in their efforts to satisfy various public needs. We hold that considerations of policy and strategy, rather than any constitutional directive, motivated the conduct of the appellees.