Court Opinion

ID: 9428017
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:22:35.190535+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:11.183072
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Blackmun,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I join the Court’s opinion except Part II-A thereof and except the first sentence of Part IV thereof.
Essentially for the reasons stated in the first three paragraphs of the respective opinions of The Chief Justice and of Mr. Justice Stevens, I do not join Part II-A. I add to those reasons my concern that the Court’s analysis means that 28 U. S. C. § 1927 does not permit imposition on opposing counsel of “excess” attorney’s fees generated by his vexatio.usness and otherwise shifted to his client under 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5 (k), 42 U. S. C. § 1988, or any other specialized attorney’s fees provisions. See Alyeska Pipeline Co. v. Wilderness Society, 421 U. S. 240, 260, n. 33 (1975) (collecting statutes). This construction of the statute penalizes the innocent client, while insulating his wrongdoing attorney. That result, in my view, clashes with common sense, basic fairness, and the plain meaning of the statute. See Owen v. City of Independence, 445 U. S. 622, 654 (1980) (“Elemental notions of fairness dictate that one who causes a loss should bear the loss”). See also 122 Cong. Rec. 31832 (1976) (regarding proposed § 1988: “Mr. ABOUREZK. So if somebody thought, some lawyer thought, he was going to make a lot of money by bringing civil rights suits he would be subject to being penalized himself; is that not correct? Mr. HATHAWAY. The Senator is correct”) (emphasis added).1
*769Significantly different considerations of policy and fairness bear on the inherent-power issue addressed in Part III of the Court’s opinion. I believe, however, that the opinion marshals persuasive reasons for recognizing a component of the bad-faith exception of the American Rule authorizing recovery of attorney’s fees directly from a vexatious opposing counsel.2

 One point regarding the Court’s analysis of § 1927 seems to me to merit special mention. In rejecting the District Court’s reading of that statute, the Court concludes that “a prevailing defendant may be awarded counsel fees only when the plaintiff’s underlying claim is 'frivolous, unreasonable, or groundless.’” Ante, at 762 (emphasis added), citing Christiansburg Garment Co. v. EEOC, 434 U. S. 412, 422 (1978). This state*769ment has two troubling implications. First, it would seem to pretermit the § 1927 issue, which the Court goes on to consider at length. Clearly, the District Court based its attorney’s fee award on counsel’s conduct during the suit, rather than on the absence of a meritorious claim. If only the latter can support fee-shifting under §1988 or §2000e-5(k), attorney’s fees were not “reasonable” in the first place, the predicate for applying § 1927 was lacking, and this case presents no occasion to construe that provision. Second, the Court’s reading of Christiansburg Garment is a questionable one that may produce undesirable results in future cases. Christiansburg Garment simply did not present the issue whether “frivolous, unreasonable, or groundless” conduct by a plaintiff in the course of prosecuting a colorable claim might justify fee-shifting in favor of the defendant under § 1988 or § 2000e-5 (k). In my view, there are strong arguments that attorney’s fees generated by such conduct would be “reasonable” within the meaning of those statutes. I am troubled that the Court reaches the opposite conclusion without explaining why.

 The Court does not explore the specific features of this exception. Most significantly, it does not address the permissibility of applying this new exception to award attorney’s fees beyond those actually attributable to the culpable attorney’s vexatious actions (i. e., “excess costs” under § 1927). Like the Court, I am willing to let this issue be considered in the first instance on the remand.