Court Opinion

ID: 9518778
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 01:01:46.750863+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:35:52.126776
License: Public Domain

BAKER, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s determination that the plaintiffs were the prevailing parties in this action for the purpose of awarding attorneys’ fees and costs under 42 United States Code section 1988 (Section 1988). As the United States Supreme Court' observed in Farrar v. Hobby, a “plaintiff prevails when actual relief on the merits of his claim materially alters the legal relationship between the parties by modifying the defendant’s behavior in a way that directly benefits the plaintiff.” 506 U.S. 103, 111-12, 113 S.Ct. 566, 121 L.Ed.2d 494 (1992). Moreover, in Nagy v. Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corp., this court observed that with regard to Section 1988 claims, “[pjarties are considered to have ‘prevailed’ in litigation if they succeed on any significant issue in litigation which achieves some benefit the parties sought in bringing suit.” 870 N.E.2d 12, 19 (Ind.Ct.App.2007) (citing King v. Ill. State Bd. of Elections, 410 F.3d 404, 414 (7th Cir.2005)). However, Section 1988 is not intended to produce windfalls for attorneys. Farrar, 506 U.S. at 115, 113 S.Ct. 566.
In this case, before the first appeal, the trial court determined that the plaintiffs had suffered no injury with regard to their federal constitutional claims. In essence, the trial court found that the plaintiffs’ federal constitutional claims were not viable, and we did not overturn that decision on appeal. Villegas v. Silverman, 832 N.E.2d 598 (Ind.Ct.App.2005). Indeed, we did not strike down the BMV’s identification requirements as contrary to law. Rather, we only determined that such identification requirements amounted to rule-making and the BMV was obligated to comply with Indiana Administrative Rules and Procedures Act (ARPA)10 with regard to notice, public hearings, and review by branch officials in promulgating those rules. Id. at 609-10. Nowhere in our opinion did we declare that the substance of the rule had changed, and we found it unnecessary to reach the merits of the plaintiffs’ constitutional claims. Id. at 610 n. 15.
That said, it is apparent to me that the plaintiffs’ arguments with regard to the BMV’s failure to comply with ARPA are completely unrelated to the state and federal constitutional claims that were advanced in the complaint. Put another way, the BMV’s failure to adopt the identification requirements as rules was wholly separate and distinct from whether the BMV could constitutionally employ identification requirements that precluded the plaintiffs *265from obtaining driver’s licenses and identification cards.
I also note that the plaintiffs did not achieve the goal of their federal claims, which was the opportunity to obtain Indiana driver’s licenses and identification cards. In fact, the trial court’s judgment subsequent to the first appeal did not afford the plaintiffs an opportunity to obtain driver’s licenses or identification cards in the absence of compliance with the challenged identification requirements. Rather, the trial court only determined that the process that the BMV used was defective, and the plaintiffs caused no substantive changes in how the identification process was handled by the BMV before the first case on appeal had concluded.
As the majority observes, the BMV formally and properly adopted rules that were essentially the same as those that it had not previously promulgated. Thus, it cannot be said that the plaintiffs achieved any substantive change in the law as a result of their lawsuit, and they were not granted any additional affirmative relief in the trial court’s order on remand. In short, the plaintiffs were still not able to obtain driver’s licenses or identification cards as a result of the litigation.
The majority seemingly takes the view that a claimant need only advance “some” type of constitutional claim and succeed on a non-related state claim to become entitled to attorneys’ fees under Section 1988, regardless of any failure to prove the constitutional claim or even make a showing that the federal claims were substantial. To me, such a notion contradicts the spirit of the Section 1988 provisions. Because the plaintiffs’ counsel did not achieve any recovery that was beneficial to their clients pursuant to their federal claim, I believe that the award of attorneys’ fees in this case was not warranted under Section 1988. Thus, I would reverse the judgment of the trial court.

. Ind.Code § 4-22-2 et seq.