Opinion ID: 2633165
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Friends is the prevailing party even though the city succeeded in privatizing management of the center.

Text: The city asserts that Friends is not the prevailing party because the city accomplished exactly what it set out to accomplish and what Friends's lawsuit sought to preventprivate management of the center. It argues that because Friends did not achieve its goal, Friends is not the prevailing party. When determining prevailing party status, we have consistently looked to whether the party successfully prosecuted or defended the action and to whether the party prevailed on the main issue. [38] Our determination of prevailing party status has therefore traditionally focused on the litigation itself. Furthermore, the purposes of the public interest litigant exception to Civil Rule 82 suggest that the city's political success in amending KMC 7.15.050(5) and entering into a second management contract with the club is not an appropriate basis for concluding that Friends is not the prevailing party. We award prevailing public interest litigants full reasonable attorney's fees to encourage plaintiffs to raise issues of public interest. [39] This suggests that the focus of the prevailing party determination should be on the litigation, rather than on contemporaneous political or contractual developments. The city has not convinced us that a public interest litigant that brings a meritorious claim against a governmental unit and obtains a preliminary injunction loses its prevailing party status if, through the political process, the governmental unit later moots the lawsuit and accomplishes its challenged goals. Because Friends succeeded in obtaining the only judicial relief granted in this case before it was dismissed without objection as moot following amendment of the ordinance, the superior court did not abuse its discretion in finding that Friends was the prevailing party. [40]