Court Opinion

ID: 9495998
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:15:04.962566+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:18.377821
License: Public Domain

BOGGS, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in Judge Gibbons’s thorough opinion in this case. I write separately to emphasize two points. The first is the importance of Rule 68 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, and its potential use in reducing litigation when used correctly, as it was in this case. Rule 68 should force parties on both sides of the case to focus their attention on a realistic assessment of the value of their case. It encourages defendants to make a realistic offer, by providing them with a potential benefit, the payment of their costs, should their assessment be vindicated by the outcome, as it was in this case. It should also force plaintiffs to make a realistic assessment, which perhaps did not occur in this case, to the ultimate sorrow of the plaintiffs. It can be an important tool for the prompt and satisfactory disposition of disputes. See Hopper v. Euclid Manor Nursing Home, Inc., 867 F.2d 291, 294 (6th Cir.1989).
With respect to the other portion of the court’s opinion, it is important to note the reason for Pouillon’s failure to obtain attorney’s fees in this case, even though he did receive a fairly significant benefit in that the court’s judgment upheld his right to protest on the steps of City Hall, at least in the specific manner that he did on December 22, 1994. Our holding that the extent of his victory was nugatory is wholly explained by the fact that he only sought money damages. As the court carefully notes at pages 6-7, he “did not file a complaint for a declaratory judgment or for injunctive relief.” Such a complaint might have even more emphatically vindicated his right to be free from arbitrary and unjustified arrest for his protests, which might then have led to a different outcome as to attorney’s fees. Since he did not do this, I concur in the court’s opinion.