Madrid v. Gomez

• Decision Date: 30 August 1999
• Docket Number: Nos. 96-17277,s. 96-17277
• Citation: 190 F.3d 990
• Parties: (9th Cir. 1999) ALEJANDRO MADRID, CARLOS LUTZ, RONNIE DEWBERRY, STEVEN VILLA, BRUCE VORSE,AND MOSES JOHNSON, Individually and on Behalf of all Others Similarly Situated, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. JAMES GOMEZ, STEVEN CAMBRA, SUSAN STEINBERG, M.D., ROBERT AYERS, Defendants-Appellants. 97-16237
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 990

190 F.3d 990 (9th Cir. 1999)

ALEJANDRO MADRID, CARLOS LUTZ, RONNIE DEWBERRY, STEVEN VILLA, BRUCE VORSE,AND MOSES JOHNSON, Individually and on Behalf of all Others Similarly Situated, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. JAMES GOMEZ, STEVEN CAMBRA, SUSAN STEINBERG, M.D., ROBERT AYERS, Defendants-Appellants.

Nos. 96-17277 97-16237

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

Argued and Submitted March 10, 1998

Opinion Decided July 2, 1998

Opinion Withdrawn July 7, 1999

Decided August 30, 1999

[Copyrighted Material Omitted] William Jenkins (argued), Deputy Attorney General, San Francisco, California, for the defendants-appellants.

David S. Steuer, Susan A. Creighton, and Ellen Solomon (argued), Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, Palo Alto, California Donald Specter and Steven Farma, Prison Law Office, San Quentin, California, for the plaintiffs-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California Thelton E. Henderson, Chief District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CV-90-03094-TEH.

Before: Harlington Wood, Jr.,^* Cynthia Holcomb Hall, and Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain, Circuit Judges.

O'SCANNLAIN, Circuit Judge:

We must decide, in light of the Supreme Court's recent decision in Martin v. Hadix, 119 S. Ct. 1998 (1999), whether the district court correctly applied the Prison Litigation Reform Act in awarding attorney's fees.

I

This case arose as a prisoner civil-rights class action challenging the conditions of confinement at the Pelican Bay State Prison in California. Plaintiffs-Appellees Madrid and others ("prisoners") alleged a multitude of constitutional violations, including a pattern and practice of excessive force against them, provision of inadequate medical and psychiatric care, and failure to maintain humane housing conditions. After a three-month trial, the district court verified many of the prisoners' complaints. Finding numerous constitutional infirmities, and concluding that Defendants-Appellants California Department of Corrections Director Gomez and others ("prison officials") would not rectify these problems on their own, the court ordered the parties to collaborate in developing and implementing a remedial plan.

Anticipating that the district court would also order the prison officials to pay the prisoners' legal expenses during the remedial phase -and seeking to minimize the procedural burdens associated with periodic fee awards -the parties stipulated to, and on September 21, 1995, the district court authorized, an "informal process" of expediting the payments of attorney's fees. Pursuant to this stipulation, which reflected the law at the time, see Pennsylvania v. Delaware Valley Citizens' Council for Clean Air, 478 U.S. 546, 561 (1986); Blum v. Stenson, 465 U.S. 886, 895 (1984), the prison officials were to pay fees at the current market rate for all legal services that were useful and necessary to ensure compliance. ¹ If the prison officials ever disputed an amount and refused to pay, the prisoners could seek an order from the district court to resolve the dispute.

Subsequently, on April 26, 1996, Congress enacted the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 ("PLRA"), Pub. L. No. 104-134, 110 Stat. 1321 (1996), limiting the amount of attorney's fees that can be awarded to prisoners' counsel, thereby reducing the burden that prisoners' suits have on the public fisc. Among its restrictions on fee awards, the PLRA caps the maximum hourly rate² and prohibits payment of fees that are not "directly and reasonably" incurred in proving a violation of prisoners' rights.³ See 42 U.S.C. S 1997e(d).

In October 1996, six months after the effective date of the PLRA, the district court made an award of attorney's fees for legal services performed prior to the enactment of the PLRA. In the following June, the district court ordered payment of fees for services performed subsequent to the enactment of the PLRA. In neither case did the district court invoke the PLRA's limitations. According to the court, applying the attorney's fee provisions to a case which was pending at the time of the statute's enactment would produce a "retroactive effect," violative of "basic notions of fair notice, reasonable reliance, and settled expectations."

The prison officials have appealed both district court orders. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C.S 1291.⁴

II

After we issued our prior (now withdrawn) opinion in this case, see Madrid v. Gomez, 150 F.3d 1030 (9th Cir. 1998), the Supreme Court specifically dealt with how the attorney's fee provisions of the PLRA apply to cases that were pending when the Act became effective. In Martin v. Hadix, 119 S. Ct. 1998 (1999), the Court held that the PLRA "limits attorney's fees with respect to post-judgment monitoring services performed after the PLRA's effective date but it does not so limit fees for post-judgment monitoring performed before the effective date." Id. at 2001. Because Martin directly addresses the legal question presented here, it is dispositive.

The Martin Court held that application of the Act's provisions to work performed before the enactment of the Act would have an impermissible retroactive effect because it would upset the attorneys' "reasonable expectation[s] that work they performed prior to the enactment of the PLRA . . . would be compensated at the pre-PLRA rates . . . . " Id. at 2006. With respect to work performed after the effective date of the Act, however, the Court concluded that attorneys "were on notice that their hourly rate had been adjusted " and, thus, "any expectation of compensation at pre-PLRA rates was unreasonable." Id. at 2007. Consequently, applying the PLRA's attorney's fees limitations to work performed after the Act's effective date "does not raise retroactivity concerns." Id.

Here, the district court held that application of the attorney's fees provisions of the PLRA to cases pending before the Act's effective date, like Madrid, would have an impermissible "retroactive effect," violative of "basic notions of fair notice, reasonable reliance, and settled expectations." Thus, the district court refused to apply the PLRA's attorney's fees provisions to either the October 1996 order (for services performed before the Act's effective date) or the June 1997 order (for services performed after the Act's effective date).

In light of Martin, we must conclude that the district court correctly refused to apply the attorney's fees limitations in its October 1996 order because, although it was entered after the PLRA's effective date, the award was for services performed prior to enactment of the PLRA. Id. The district court erred, however, in refusing to apply the PLRA's attorney's fees limitations in its June 1997 order because it awarded fees for services performed after the enactment. Id. Thus, we affirm the October 1996 order but reverse the June 1997 order and remand with directions to award fees consistent with the fees limitations of the PLRA.

III

The prisoners argue that the PLRA, which limits the amount of fees paid to prisoners' counsel but not to non-prisoners' counsel, violates the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment.

A

Were we to subject the PLRA's classification to strict scrutiny, we might well conclude it to be unconstitutional unless shown to be narrowly tailored to the achievement of a compelling government interest. See, e.g., Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena, 515 U.S. 200, 227 (1995). We strictly scrutinize a classification, however, only if it discriminates based on a suspect criterion or impinges upon a fundamental right. See, e.g., Clark v. Jeter, 486 U.S. 456, 461 (1988).

According to the prisoners, strict scrutiny is appropriate in this case because the attorney's fee limitations burden prisoners' fundamental right of access to the courts. ⁵ The Supreme Court has held that this right of access requires prison authorities to provide prisoners with "the capability of bringing contemplated challenges to sentences or conditions of confinement before the courts." Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 356 (1996). Authorities must, for example, "assist inmates in the preparation and filing of meaningful legal papers by providing prisoners with adequate law libraries or adequate assistance from persons trained in the law." Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 828 (1977). Prisoners possess a right of access not only to pursue appeals from criminal convictions but also to assert "civil rights actions, " Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 579 (1974), such as the one brought by the prisoners at Pelican Bay to vindicate their Eighth Amendment rights.

The scope of the right of access to the courts is quite limited, however. Prisoners need only have "the minimal help necessary" to file legal claims. Casey, 518 U.S. at 360. The Constitution does not even mandate "that prisoners (literate or illiterate) be able to conduct generalized research, but only that they be able to present their grievances to the courts." Id. Certainly, a prisoner has no fundamental right to a high-priced attorney.⁶ The PLRA does not restrict access to the courts; at most, it restricts prisoners' access to the most sought-after counsel who insist on their going rate for representation.

Moreover, "an inmate cannot establish relevant actual injury simply by establishing that his . . . legal assistance program is sub-par in some theoretical sense." Id. at 351. The prisoner must "go one step further and demonstrate that the alleged shortcomings in the . . . legal assistance program hindered his efforts to pursue a legal claim." Id. There has been no such showing in this case. Thus, we reject the prisoners' argument that we must subject the PLRA's attorney's fee provision to strict scrutiny.

B

Instead, we simply ask whether there is a rational basis for the classification. Under this minimal standard, the PLRA certainly passes constitutional muster. As the Supreme Court has made clear, ...