Opinion ID: 628622
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: analysis

Text: 11 It is well-settled that a plaintiff is a prevailing party and thus ordinarily entitled to a fee award of some kind if the plaintiff has succeeded on any significant issue in litigation which achieves some of the benefit the parties sought in bringing suit. Hensley, 461 U.S. at 433, 103 S.Ct. at 1939 (footnotes omitted), followed, Texas State Teachers Ass'n v. Garland Indep. Sch. Dist., 489 U.S. 782, 791-92, 109 S.Ct. 1486, 1493-94, 103 L.Ed.2d 866 (1989). 12 [A]t a minimum, to be considered a prevailing party within the meaning of Sec. 1988 the plaintiff must be able to point to a resolution of the dispute which changes the legal relationship between itself and the defendant ... The touchstone of the prevailing party inquiry [therefore] must be the material alteration of the legal relationship of the parties in a manner which Congress sought to promote in the fee statute. Where such a change has occurred, the degree of the plaintiff's overall success goes to the reasonableness of the award under Hensley, not to the availability of a fee award vel non.... 13 Texas State Teachers, 489 U.S. at 792-93, 109 S.Ct. at 1494. 14 Scientology has met the threshold requirement of prevailing party status. It is undisputed that the suit brought by Scientology caused the City to amend the 1983 Ordinance and it is clear that the amendment significantly affected the parties' legal relationship. The 1984 Ordinance abandoned several challenged provisions, including the limited membership exclusion and the provision providing for unfettered City Attorney investigative and prosecutorial discretion. These successes, while partial only, are neither technical nor de minimis. Id. (citations omitted). 15 Scientology prevailed on its asserted right not to be treated differently from other religious organizations. The gravamen of its challenge was not that the government may not regulate religious organizations, but that it may not do so in a discriminatory manner that favors one religion over another. See Larson v. Valente, 456 U.S. 228, 244, 102 S.Ct. 1673, 1683, 72 L.Ed.2d 33 (1982). That right was plainly vindicated by the repeal of the challenged limited membership exemption, an action which Clearwater conceded at the time was caused by Scientology's articulation of alleged constitutional infirmities. See Nadeau, 581 F.2d at 279 (critical inquiry is whether the suit prompt[ed] defendants to take action to meet plaintiff's claim....). 16 The same conclusion applies with similar force to a challenge based upon alleged vagueness. Even if a challenged provision is clarified against the plaintiff's interests, he has succeeded in materially altering the legal relationship in a manner that confers some benefit, namely, the certainty of clearly stated legal norms that bind him. In this case, some of the provisions were clarified in Scientology's favor, while others were repealed entirely. Cf. Texas State Teachers, 489 U.S. at 792, 109 S.Ct. at 1494 (dictum) (successful challenge of provision as vague might not alone be sufficient to constitute plaintiff as prevailing, especially if provision had never been enforced). 17 Moreover, it is inappropriate to deny prevailing party status merely because Scientology's pleadings in challenging the amended 1984 Ordinance alleged the same or similar constitutional defects as its earlier action. Scientology's challenges were addressed to new features of the amended ordinance, as well as old features carried over from the 1983 Ordinance. The fact that Scientology may (or may not) ultimately prevail in those challenges has little do with the question of whether it prevailed in challenging the repealed provisions of the 1983 Ordinance. Scientology did not fail when Clearwater ceased some of its challenged discriminatory conduct merely because the city persisted in other challenged conduct. For this reason, the fact that Scientology challenges the 1984 Ordinance as invalid is irrelevant. As discussed above, there was a material change in the legal relationship between the parties which benefitted Scientology, and the fact that Scientology continues to challenge that relationship as modified does not mean that it did not prevail as a threshold matter.