Court Opinion

ID: 9471648
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:37:56.452339+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:31.119161
License: Public Domain

*357ON PETITION FOR REHEARING AND SUGGESTION FOR REHEARING EN BANC
Before CLARK, Chief Judge, POLITZ and HIGGINBOTHAM, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
The petition for rehearing is denied. We iterate that plaintiff Smith satisfied the two-part test we enunciated in Williams v. Leatherbury, 672 F.2d 549 (5th Cir.1982). There we noted that a litigant whose victory is not won in the courtroom “may still recover attorney’s fees if he can show both a causal connection between the filing of the suit and the defendant’s action and that the defendant’s conduct was required by law, i.e., not a wholly gratuitous response to an action that in itself was frivolous or groundless.” Id. at 551.
Capitulation by a defendant seeking to avoid the costs of protracted litigation will not invariably result in an award of attorney’s fees. “Strike suits” having no sound legal basis and pursued for purposes of harassment and easy profit should not be so rewarded. This suit was not of this genre.
The Petition for Rehearing is DENIED, and no member of this panel nor Judge in regular active service on this Court having requested that the Court be polled on rehearing en banc (Rule 35 Fed.R.App.P.; Local Fifth Circuit Rule 16), the Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc is also DENIED.