Court Opinion

ID: 9482370
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:47:54.329331+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:56.319292
License: Public Domain

HEANEY, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the result, but write separately to underscore the importance of properly *1376instructing the jury on the necessity of awarding nominal damages to redress violations of constitutional rights.
Warren alleged and proved an eighth amendment violation through Dr. Taca’s deliberate indifference to Warren’s serious medical needs, which indifference proximately caused injury to Warren. Jury Instruction No. 10 correctly required the jury to make each of these findings in Warren’s favor before concluding that Dr. Taca’s treatment constituted cruel and unusual punishment. Once the jury made these findings, it was required, and should have been instructed, to award Warren nominal damages if it was unable to place a monetary value on the harm Warren suffered. See Cowans v. Wyrick, 862 F.2d 697, 699 (8th Cir.1988). Nominal damages are required because a finding of cruel and unusual punishment necessarily includes a determination that the plaintiff suffered pain, anguish, or misery of some kind. Id. The jury’s inability to quantify the value of Warren’s pain should have triggered an award of nominal damages.
Jury Instruction No. 14 thus contained a critical flaw: the use of the permissive “may” instead of the mandatory “must” in reference to nominal damages. The verdict form was similarly flawed in that it omitted a space in which to enter a nominal award. Unfortunately for Warren, his counsel’s own drafting produced these flaws and we cannot correct them on appeal.
Had a properly instructed jury awarded nominal damages against Dr. Taca, Warren certainly would have crossed the statutory threshold of eligibility for attorney’s fees and costs under 42 U.S.C. § 1988. See Allen v. Higgins, 902 F.2d 682, 684 (8th Cir.1990) (awarding $10,000 attorney’s fee to plaintiff who prevailed against only one of ten defendants on only one of twenty-one claims for total damages of $1). Prevailing party status for purposes of section 1988 requires only that the plaintiff succeed on any significant issue in litigation which achieves some of the benefit sought in bringing the action. Texas State Teachers Ass’n v. Garland Indep. Sch. Dist., 489 U.S. 782, 791-92, 109 S.Ct. 1486, 1492-93, 103 L.Ed.2d 866 (1989). As the Supreme Court noted, “the degree of the plaintiff's success in relation to the other goals of the lawsuit is a factor critical to the determination of the size of a reasonable fee, not to eligibility for a fee award at all.” Id. at 790, 109 S.Ct. at 1492 (emphasis in original).
I believe the jury’s failure to award nominal damages and Warren’s consequent ineligibility for a fee award resulted solely from an erroneous jury instruction proffered by Warren himself. Accordingly, I reluctantly concur in affirming the district court’s refusal to amend the judgment and to award attorney’s fees.