Opinion ID: 588801
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Purely Technical or de minimis Success

Text: 28 Notwithstanding the majority view prevailing among the courts of appeals--allowing section 1988 attorney fee awards based on an enforceable judgment for nominal damages--see supra at pp. 407-408, the residual prevailing party standard recently enunciated by a unanimous Court in Texas Teachers concededly gives us pause. The opinion cautioned that a district court might conclude that a civil rights claimant was not eligible for prevailing party status if the success [achieved] on a legal claim can be characterized as purely technical or de minimis.... Texas Teachers, 489 U.S. at 792, 109 S.Ct. at 1493. Under the de minimis success standard, therefore, we must determine whether an enforceable judgment awarding nominal damages on a procedural due process claim can effect a sufficiently material alteration in the parties' legal relationship to entitle the claimant to prevailing party status. 29 First, we examine the illustration of purely technical or de minimis success taken from the Texas Teachers case itself, where the plaintiff teachers' organizations successfully challenged a school policy forbidding teacher meetings during non-school hours absent prior approval from the school principal. The Court hypothesized that plaintiffs would not have qualified for prevailing party status on this basis alone, as [t]he District Court [had] characterized this issue as 'of minor significance' and noted that there was 'no evidence that the plaintiffs were ever refused permission to use school premises during non-school hours.'  Texas Teachers, 489 U.S. at 792, 109 S.Ct. at 1493 (quoting App. to Pet. for Cert. 60a n. 26) (emphasis added). Since there was no evidence that the particular school policy ever had been, or would be, applied, their successful challenge did not avail plaintiffs of sufficient relief to effect a material alteration in the legal relationship between the parties. Compare Rhodes, 488 U.S. at 4, 109 S.Ct. at 203. 30 We interpret the Texas Teachers hypothetical to require some justiciable past, present or impending civil rights deprivation entitling the claimant to relief. Moreover, no matter how comprehensive the relief obtained by the claimant, unless the wrong occasioned or threatened by the challenged procedure is significant the alteration effected in the overall legal relationship out of which the claim arose will be considered too insubstantial to satisfy the prevailing party test. Thus, the success achieved may be ruled purely technical or de minimis if the civil rights violation is either too abstract or too remote in prospect for the relief obtained in litigation to have effected a material alteration in the relevant legal relationship between the parties. 31 The second illustration of technical or de minimis success is found in Naprstek v. City of Norwich, 433 F.Supp. 1369 (N.D.N.Y.1977). See Texas Teachers, 489 U.S. at 792, 109 S.Ct. at 1493. Some years ago, Nadeau v. Helgemoe, 581 F.2d 275, 279 n. 3 (1st Cir.1978) (Coffin, C.J.), cited Naprstek as a case in which fee shifting would have been inappropriate since the grounds for attacking an antiquated and rarely enforced curfew statute [were found] to be 'more contrived than real.'  Id. (quoting Naprstek, 433 F.Supp. at 1370) (emphasis added). The Supreme Court in Texas Teachers essentially identified Naprstek as an example of a purely technical victory that neither prevented any significant risk of prospective wrongdoing nor vindicated any genuine previous or contemporaneous wrong. 32 These exemplars imply qualitative criteria for determining technical or de minimis success, requiring careful analysis of the materiality of the relief obtained in litigation to the wrong occasioned the claimant. If the wrong redressed was illusory or contrived, even comprehensive relief may amount to mere technical or de minimis success. 33 The third exemplar cited in Texas Teachers is New York City Unemployed and Welfare Council v. Brezenoff, 742 F.2d 718, 724 n. 4 (2d Cir.1984) [hereinafter Brezenoff II ], where the district court denied a section 1988 award because plaintiffs' success was considered purely technical or de minimis. In Brezenoff II, the constitutional violations alleged in the complaint were compared with the relief obtained in litigation. 19 The plaintiff organization and some of its members launched a broadside against the regulatory framework through which the defendant agency allegedly fettered access to government buildings and restricted organizational activities inside government buildings. 20 Ultimately, the only relief the plaintiffs obtained was an order requiring that at least one representative be permitted to move freely about the designated IMC reception area. A comparative analysis of the unconstitutional action and the relief obtained demonstrates that the lawsuit effected no material alteration in the relevant legal relationship out of which the litigation arose. The remedial alteration in the legal relationship between the parties amounted to a nick in the agency's regulatory armor. Neither the fabric nor the design of the regulatory framework was altered by the ruling--hardly an indictment of agency overdrafting--that one member of each organization must be allowed to walk about the reception area. Thus, the Court's citation to Brezenoff II illustrates that the success achieved may be considered technical or de minimis if the relief effected too insubstantial an alteration in the overall legal relationship out of which the litigation arose. 34 The fourth exemplar offered in Texas Teachers provides similar guidance. In Chicano Police Officers Ass'n v. Stover, 624 F.2d 127, 131 (10th Cir.1980), the Tenth Circuit ruled that nuisance settlements do not represent relief of the sort required for prevailing party status. Its instruction is not unlike that found in a seminal First Circuit case. See Nadeau, 581 F.2d at 281 (action must not have been frivolous, unreasonable, or groundless). Furthermore, it is in the nature of nuisance settlements that the benefits tendered in settlement have less to do with the intrinsic merit of the claim than with the cost of defending against it. 21 35 The next guidepost in Texas Teachers is its admonition that the degree of success achieved in litigation goes to the reasonableness of the amount of the award and not to the availability of a fee award vel non, Texas Teachers, 489 U.S. at 793, 109 S.Ct. at 1493; id. at 790, 109 S.Ct. at 1492; that is, not to the prevailing party determination. Texas Teachers clearly considers degree of success a non qualitative criterion relating exclusively to the amount of an award, rather than its availability. 36 Thus, Texas Teachers and its precursors are not prologue to the quantitative prevailing party test advocated by appellants. Instead, differences in the degree of success achieved are reflected in the amount awarded; whereas differences in kind, as suggested by the Court's articulation of the residual de minimis success standard (significance, materiality), require qualitative assessments pertaining principally to the claimant's eligibility for a fee award. Throughout its discussion in Texas Teachers, and particularly its references to the degree of success achieved in litigation, see id. at 790, 793, 109 S.Ct. at 1492, 1493, the Court appears to intend a quantitative assessment of the claimant's success only in relation to the reasonableness of the amount of the fee awarded a prevailing party. 37 The prevailing party criteria endorsed in Texas Teachers inquire whether the plaintiff (i) obtained relief on a significant claim in litigation, (ii) effecting a material alteration in the parties' legal relationship, (iii) that is not merely technical or de minimis in nature. See Texas Teachers, 489 U.S. at 791-93, 109 S.Ct. at 1492-93 (emphasis added). Whereas the degree of success achieved in litigation may affect the amount awarded, the third criterion for prevailing party status superimposes a residual limitary standard on its companion criteria designed to ensure that entitlement to an award will depend on the qualitative significance of the relief obtained, in terms of its materiality to the legal relationship which occasioned the unconstitutional action. 22 38 Domegan obtained a final judgment for damages on a significant constitutional claim. See Carey v. Piphus, 435 U.S. 247, 266, 98 S.Ct. 1042, 1054, 55 L.Ed.2d 252 (1978) (as procedural due process is an absolute right, its denial is actionable without proof of actual injury, because of the importance to organized society that procedural due process be observed). 23 Although the monetary damage award is minuscule in amount, in the eyes of the law its remedial significance is substantial, as society recognizes the intrinsic deterrent effect in judgments against public officials who violate procedural due process rights guaranteed under the Constitution. See id. & infra note 32; see also Memphis Community Sch. Dist. v. Stachura, 477 U.S. 299, 308 n. 11, 106 S.Ct. 2537, 2544 n. 11, 91 L.Ed.2d 249 (1986) (stating: Carey makes clear that nominal damages ... are the appropriate means of 'vindicating' rights whose deprivation has not caused actual, provable injury.). Thus, in these circumstances, the final judgment awarding nominal damages for violations of the inmate-plaintiff's absolute constitutional right to procedural due process cannot be characterized, in any legitimate qualitative sense, as purely technical or de minimis success. Furthermore, since the procedural due process deprivation in the present case is not amenable to monetary reparation, a quantitative assessment of the relief obtained in litigation would defeat the congressional intent underlying the principles governing fee shifting in civil rights cases. 39 The Supreme Court made it abundantly clear in Texas Teachers that the ultimate monitor for the prevailing party test is congressional intent. Congress avowedly designed section 1988 to enable private citizens to vindicate civil rights violations in circumstances where the unlikelihood of significant financial recoveries would deter their remediation due to the otherwise unaffordable litigation costs. 40 If private citizens are to be able to assert their civil rights, and if those who violate the Nation's fundamental laws are not to proceed with impunity, then citizens must have the opportunity to recover what it costs them to vindicate these rights in court. 41 .... 42 ... [F]ee awards are essential if the Federal statutes to which [§ 1988] applies are to be fully enforced. We find that the effects of such fee awards are ancillary and incident to securing compliance with these laws, and that fee awards are an integral part of the remedies necessary to obtain such compliance.... 43 It is intended that the amount of fees awarded under [§ 1988] ... not be reduced because the rights involved may be nonpecuniary in nature.... 44 ... If the cost of private enforcement actions becomes too great, there will be no private enforcement. If our civil rights laws are not to become mere hollow pronouncements which the average citizen cannot enforce, we must maintain the traditionally effective remedy of fee shifting in these cases. 45 S.Rep. No. 1011, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. 2, 5, 6 (1976), reprinted in 1976 U.S.C.C.A.N. 5908, 5910, 5913. See also Furtado v. Bishop, 635 F.2d 915, 919 (1st Cir.1980) (emphasizing that § 1988 is meant to finance litigation in cases which apply (rather than create) legal rules, and stating that pathbreaking holdings that will not be enforced are of limited public value, adding that the 'principle' of enforcement is served by suits that 'merely' seek damages. (emphasis in original)). 46 Especially significant in the circumstances of the instant case is Congress' explicit pronouncement that the amount of fees awarded under [§ 1988] ... not be reduced because the rights involved may be nonpecuniary in nature. S.Rep. No. 1011, at 6, reprinted in 1976 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 5913. As the Supreme Court similarly observed, Congress enacted § 1988 specifically to enable plaintiffs to enforce the civil rights laws even where the amount of damages at stake would not otherwise make it feasible for them to do so.... City of Riverside v. Rivera, 477 U.S. 561, 577, 106 S.Ct. 2686, 2696, 91 L.Ed.2d 466 (1986) (plurality op.). 24 47 Unless private citizens are to be denied the opportunity to recover what it costs them to vindicate [their civil] rights in court, S.Rep. No. 1011, at 2, reprinted in 1976 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 5910, contrary to the explicit intent of Congress and the instruction in Texas Teachers, 25 an enforceable final judgment on a significant constitutional claim which materially alters the rights and responsibilities of the parties to the legal relationship in which the claim arose cannot be deemed purely technical or de minimis success simply because it vindicates a nonpecuniary deprivation. As we are persuaded that the nominal damage award effected a material alteration of the legal relationship of the parties in a manner which Congress sought to promote in the fee statute, Texas Teachers, 489 U.S. at 792-93, 109 S.Ct. at 1493 (emphasis added), it cannot be deemed purely technical or de minimis success simply because the plaintiff sustained no injury of the sort traditionally considered amenable to compensatory damages. 48