Court Opinion

ID: 9431055
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:31:14.776078+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:26.846210
License: Public Domain

Justice Marshall,
with whom Justice Brennan, Justice Blackmun, and Justice Stevens join, dissenting.
The Court makes a number of sweeping statements in its opinion, most of which are of no help in resolving the present case. In my view, the application of settled law to the facts of this case, tangled as they are, leads to conclusions other than those reached by the Court.
I
The Court’s account of the history of this litigation is complete, but a summary may be helpful. Respondent originally claimed in the District Court both procedural and substantive violations of due process in connection with his prison misconduct conviction, and raised in addition a pendent state claim. He sought declaratory and injunctive relief, damages, and the expungement of his prison disciplinary record. App. 19a-21a. Petitioners alleged immunity defenses, as well as contesting the merits of the federal and state claims. The District Court initially dismissed both the procedural and substantive due process causes of action. The Court of Appeals reversed as to both claims. Helms v. Hewitt, 655 F. 2d 487 (CA3 1981). We granted certiorari only as to procedural due process and reversed, reinstating the District Court’s grant of summary judgment for petitioners. Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U. S. 460 (1983). On remand from this Court, the Court of Appeals noted that its substantive due process *765holding concerning the use of anonymous informant evidence was unaffected by our decision, and remanded for entry of judgment in favor of respondent unless petitioners were immune. Helms v. Hewitt, 712 F. 2d 48, 49 (1983); see 655 F. 2d, at 502-503 (“[0]n remand, if the defendants do not establish official immunity . . . the district court should enter summary judgment for Helms”).
The District Court, on remand from the Court of Appeals, concluded that petitioners were immune from the payment of damages because the law concerning the use of anonymous informant evidence in prison disciplinary proceedings “was not so clear and well established” at the time of respondent’s disciplinary proceeding as to overcome petitioners’ qualified official immunity. App. 47a. Respondent appealed from this second order granting summary judgment for petitioners. During the pendency of this appeal the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania issued Administrative Directive 801, App. 85a-116a, which incorporated policies with respect to the use of anonymous informant evidence in prison misconduct proceedings consistent with the earlier holding of the Court of Appeals. Id., at 101a-102a. The Court of Appeals subsequently affirmed the District Court’s judgment in a summary order. Helms v. Hewitt, 745 F. 2d 46 (CA3 1984). Respondent then moved for fees in the District Court pursuant to 42 U. S. C. § 1988.
II
Some aspects of the procedural development of this case may be difficult to fathom, but at the very least the case does not present, as the Court declares, a fee application by “a party who litigates to judgment and loses on all of his claims.” Ante, at 757. Respondent’s complaint alleged two federal causes of action. We held that respondent had not stated a viable cause of action for violation of his right to procedural due process. The final word on the substantive due process claim, however, was spoken by the Court of Appeals, which directed the District Court to enter summary judg*766ment for respondent on that claim unless the petitioners were immune.
The Court devotes much of its opinion to demonstrating on theoretical grounds that this statement by the Court of Appeals. was not a declaratory judgment. I think that effort unnecessary; it is plain from the language of the first opinion of the Court of Appeals that it was not entering judgment for respondent. Instead, consistent with the ordinary practice of appellate courts, it simply found respondent’s cause of action good as a matter of law, and remanded with instructions to enter judgment for respondent insofar as such a judgment was not incompatible with petitioners’ immunity, if any. 655 F. 2d, at 502-503. The District Court then found that petitioners were entitled to qualified immunity. This precluded any remedy in damages against petitioners, but by no means prevented the ordering of delaratory or injunctive relief or a grant of attorney’s fees. See Pulliam v. Allen, 466 U. S. 522, 543-544 (1984). Respondent’s complaint sought relief in the form of a declaratory judgment and an injunction expunging his prison disciplinary record.1 Under the Court of Appeals’ remand order, the District Court could, and probably should, have entered judgment granting the requested declaratory and injunctive relief. Instead, the District Court *767first took up the question of immunity, and upon finding qualified immunity precipitately issued an order closing the case. App. 48a. No order was entered disposing of respondent’s pending claims for equitable relief.2
Respondent contends, and the Court of Appeals agreed, that the issuance of Administrative Directive 801 during the pendency of the subsequent appeal might be the sort of informal relief justifying a fee award, if the Commonwealth’s change of policy was “catalyzed” by respondent’s lawsuit. There is no dispute that informal relief may be sufficient to support a fee award under § 1988. See Maher v. Gagne, 448 U. S. 122, 129-130 (1980). The Court wisely leaves for another day any discussion of the general circumstances under which action “catalyzed” by a lawsuit may be characterized as informal relief for purposes of § 1988. Ante, at 763. But the Court errs in holding that Administrative Directive 801 cannot constitute relief, even under a “catalyst” theory, because respondent derived no benefit from it. The Directive does not, of course, provide an informal equivalent to respondent’s request for injunctive relief, because it did not effect an expungement of his disciplinary record. But the Directive may be, in substance, functionally equivalent to respondent’s requested declaratory relief. As the Court correctly states, in a declaratory judgment action “if the defendant, under pressure of the lawsuit, alters his conduct (or threatened *768conduct) towards the plaintiff . . . the plaintiff will have prevailed.” Ante, at 761. The Court observes that respondent is once again an inmate of the Commonwealth’s prisons. Ante, at 764. The behavior of the Commonwealth’s officials toward respondent is as effectively constrained by Directive 801 today as it would have been by a formal declaratory judgment.3
In sum, respondent’s claim for fees is based upon the following premises: that the Court of Appeals held his civil rights cause of action good as a matter of law; that at the time of the District Court’s judgment on the issue of immunity, respondent had outstanding meritorious claims for equitable relief; that the judgment as to petitioners’ immunity did not foreclose the granting of equitable relief or an award of attorney’s fees; and that the issuance of Directive 801 during the pendency of litigation provided respondent, by the voluntary action of petitioners and those in privity with them, informal relief substantially equivalent to the relief sought in respondent’s prayer for a declaratory judgment. None of these propositions is subject to serious dispute, and none is rejected by the Court today. The question remains, of course, whether there is any causal connection between the litigation instituted by respondent and the Commonwealth’s promulgation of Directive 801. This is an issue of fact which can only be resolved in the District Court. Should the District Court find that the promulgation of Directive 801 was not “catalyzed” by this litigation, then the error of respondent’s counsel in failing to move in the District Court for formal entry of a declaratory judgment, to which respondent was clearly en*769titled under the Court of Appeals’ two remand orders, would probably foreclose any fee award. But any such conclusion must await further factfinding.
h-H h-H
The disposition of this chaotic case depends upon the procedural accidents of extended litigation conducted with less than exemplary precision by the parties and the District Court. While the Court sensibly declines to establish any broadly applicable doctrine upon a basis as unreliable as the present record, it nonetheless indulges in a theoretical exposition which varies substantially from the few ascertainable facts. If further review of this litigation was a prudent exercise of our certiorari jurisdiction, which I doubt, it should have occurred after the necessary facts had been found, and the general fog of confusion dispelled, by the District Court. I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals insofar as it remanded to the District Court for factual findings on respondent’s “catalyst” theory.

 Petitioners have taken the position that these requests for declaratory and injunctive relief were somehow mooted by respondent’s release on parole in the early stages of this litigation. Brief for Petitioners 24. Indeed, petitioners represent to the Court that the District Court found that “[respondent’s] claim for injunctive relief had been rendered moot by his release from prison in 1980.” Id., at 10. This statement is flagrantly inaccurate. The District Court in fact held that “plaintiff did not seek any relief which became mooted during the controversy.” App. to Pet. for Cert 38a. Petitioners have offered no authority, nor can they, for the remarkable proposition that the request for expungement of respondent’s record became moot upon his parole. Nor, since the expungement would have depended upon the finding that respondent’s due process rights were violated, have they explained how the request for declaratory relief supposedly became moot.

 The record does not contain the briefs, if any, filed with the Court of Appeals on respondent’s appeal from the District Court’s order. Accordingly it is not clear whether respondent challenged only the District Court’s holding on immunity, or also its failure to award equitable relief. Nor is it clear, since the District Court’s order did not dispose of all respondent’s outstanding claims, whether respondent might not even now move in the District Court for the equitable relief requested in the complaint. The issuance of such equitable relief would, of course, support a fee award under 42 U. S. C. § 1988. The remand ordered by the Court of Appeals in the judgment presently before us would give the District Court an opportunity to rectify the substantial confusion engendered by its earlier proceedings.

 The Court characterizes respondent’s renewed incarceration as a “fortuity,” evidently implying that it has no relevance to this case. But the record does not disclose whether respondent was imprisoned after parole revocation proceedings, or instead as the result of a subsequent criminal conviction. If respondent’s parole was revoked, then it is his temporary release during the course of the litigation, rather than his reincarceration, which is a “fortuity” in determining respondent’s entitlement to attorney’s fees.