Opinion ID: 1346280
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The PLRA Fee Cap Applies to Plaintiffs' Suits

Text: We must also decide whether the PLRA's fee cap applies to Plaintiffs' suits. The PLRA limits the availability of attorneys' fees under § 1988 [i]n any action brought by a prisoner who is confined to any jail, prison, or other correctional facility. 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(d)(1). One of the ways it does this is by capping the fees that a court can award at an hourly rate no greater than 150 percent of the hourly rate established by the Judicial Conference for payment of court-appointed counsel in a given district. Id. § 1997e(d)(3). [9] Plaintiffs argue that this cap does not apply, for two reasons. First, they claim, the Order of Settlement exempted their suits from the fee cap by explicitly allowing Plaintiffs to move for attorneys' fees. Second, they argue, the fee cap applies only to prisoners who are still incarcerated at the time of their case's resolution. We hold against Plaintiffs on both grounds.
Plaintiffs first claim that the Order of Settlement explicitly exempted this case from the PLRA fee cap. For support, they point to the following language: (i) Plaintiffs expressly reserve the right to move [the District Court], pursuant to any state or federal statute or common law for payment of their respective attorneys fees and reimbursement of costs and expenses, (ii) Plaintiffs shall be permitted to file the appropriate motion for attorney's fees and costs with this Court as Plaintiffs deem fit and; (iii) County Defendants shall have an opportunity to oppose any such motion for attorney's fees and reimbursement of costs and expenses. By explicitly reserving to Plaintiffs the right to move for fees and not explicitly reserving to Defendants a PLRA fee cap defense, Plaintiffs argue, this language exempted their case from the fee cap. The language on which Plaintiffs rely, however, does not support this conclusion. It only reserves to Plaintiffs the right to move for fees pursuant to any state or federal statute or common law. That is, it only allows the Court to award such fees as are otherwise authorized by law  specifically, fees under § 1988, which are limited by the PLRA. [10] Rather than providing Plaintiffs with a new claim for fees, subject only to the District Court's discretion, the language simply preserves to Plaintiffs a right they already had (but might perhaps have been deemed to have relinquished, had the Order of Settlement been silent on the issue). Torres, upon which Plaintiffs rely, is not to the contrary. In Torres, as discussed supra n. 5, we found that plaintiffs were not prevailing parties because the district court had merely so ordered a stipulation of dismissal, and had not incorporated the terms of the settlement. Torres, 356 F.3d at 242-45. Accordingly, in Torres fees could not be awarded under § 1988. Because the PLRA fee cap affects only actions in which attorney's fees are authorized under [§ 1988], 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(d)(1), it had no application to Torres. The reference in the Torres order to allowing plaintiffs to obtain fees could only be interpreted as providing independent contractual authority for fee-shifting. Moreover, as we noted in Torres, the language of that stipulation plainly and unambiguously provided for the payment of Torres' reasonable attorneys' fees, to be determined by the District Court.  Torres, 356 F.3d at 245 (emphasis added). The instant settlement contains no similar language.
Plaintiffs also argue that the plain text of the PLRA applies only to prisoners who are still incarcerated at the time of the successful resolution of their suits, and has no application to plaintiffs who were incarcerated when they filed suit but who have since been released. They rely heavily on Morris v. Eversley, 343 F.Supp.2d 234 (S.D.N.Y.2004), in which Judge Chin conducted a thoughtful analysis of the question and concluded that the fee cap applied only to currently incarcerated prisoners. Plaintiffs, following Morris, point to the statutory text, which applies the fee cap to any action brought by a prisoner who is confined to any jail, prison, or other correctional facility.  42 U.S.C. § 1997e(d)(1) (emphasis added). The highlighted portion, the argument runs, must refer to the status of the plaintiff at the conclusion of the suit, rather that its inception, or else it would be redundant. For, they assert, a prisoner is, by definition, an individual confined to [a] jail, prison, or other correctional facility. See Morris, 343 F.Supp.2d at 241. Additionally, they argue, Congress intended the PLRA to curb frivolous lawsuits, not meritorious ones. As a result, they contend, any ambiguities should be construed in ways that are favorable to successful (and, by implication, meritorious) suits. See id. at 241-42. Finally, they say, applying the fee cap to released prisoners would give rise to absurd results. It would create a senseless disparity between prisoners who file toward the end of their incarceration and those who wait until their release to file. Even more absurdly, it would create incentives for prisoners to withdraw suits filed while in jail, only to refile their claims upon the prisoners' release. See id. at 244. While not without some merit, these arguments do not persuade us. First, we believe that the text of the PLRA, although not entirely unambiguous, is most naturally read as referring solely to a plaintiff's status at the time of filing, not at subsequent stages of the proceedings. The act applies to any action brought by a prisoner who is confined to any jail, prison, or other correctional facility. § 1997e(d)(1) (emphasis added). Its only temporal hook is to the time the action is brought  that is, when it is filed. See Jackson v. State Bd. of Pardons & Paroles, 331 F.3d 790, 795 (11th Cir.2003) ([T]he term `brought' as used in § 1997e(d)'s `in any action brought' language means filed.). The reference to a prisoner's confine[ment in] any jail, prison, or other correctional facility thus seems to describe the status of a plaintiff at the time of filing, not that of the plaintiff at some later time. Nor do we find the redundancy that Plaintiffs say attaches to such a reading. Plaintiffs are right, of course, that we construe statutes to avoid surplusage whenever possible. See, e.g., Cal. Pub. Employees' Ret. Sys. v. Worldcom, Inc., 368 F.3d 86, 106 (2d Cir.2004) (Statutes should be construed, if possible, to give effect to every clause and word.). But our understanding of § 1997e(d)(1) does not leave us with a bare redundancy. The phrases prisoner and confined to any jail, prison, or other correctional facility are not synonymous. The term prisoner, as defined in the PLRA, means any person incarcerated or detained in any facility who is accused of, convicted of, sentenced for, or adjudicated delinquent for, violations of criminal law or the terms and conditions of parole, probation, pretrial release, or diversionary program. § 1997e(h) (emphasis added). The fee cap, instead, applies to only three types of facilities: jails, prisons, and other correctional facilities in which a prisoner may be confined. § 1997e(d)(1). As a result, some prisoners are not made subject to the fee cap: for example, those incarcerated or detained in medical facilities or mental institutions. Without going further into the matter, we conclude that Plaintiffs' reliance on the canon against surplusage is misplaced. Contrary to Plaintiffs' claim, we also do not believe that applying the fee cap to suits filed when Plaintiffs are incarcerated produces absurd results. True, the fee cap draws a distinction between otherwise identical claims, leading one plaintiff to file while incarcerated and others to wait until their release from incarceration to file suit. Cf. Doe v. Wash. County, 150 F.3d 920, 924 (8th Cir.1998) (holding that the fee cap does not apply to suits brought by former prisoners). But this is not a wholly artificial distinction; Congress may well have thought that persons still incarcerated were more inclined to bring suits than those who were back in the world and now had less time on their hands and better things to do with it. See Hearing on S. 3 and S. 866 Before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 104th Cong., 1995 WL 496909 (F.D.C.H.) (July 27, 1995) (prepared statement of O. Lane McCotter, Exec. Dir., Utah Dep't of Corrections) (The driving force behind this flood of litigations is that inmates have `nothing to lose' in filing even the most frivolous case....). Moreover, Plaintiffs' preferred reading would produce results at least as peculiar: a plaintiff who obtained a settlement or a verdict on the eve of her release would be covered by the fee cap, while one who obtained similar success immediately after her release would not. All in all, we conclude that the more likely textual reading survives any absurdity test.