Brinn v. Tidewater Transportation Dist. Comm'n., 00-2116

• Decision Date: 24 January 2001
• Docket Number: No. 00-2116,00-2116
• Citation: 242 F.3d 227
• Parties: (4th Cir. 2001) L. DOUGLAS BRINN; KEN JESSUP; STEVEN W. JACKSON; JOYCE A. WILLIAMS, on behalf of themselves and all those similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. TIDEWATER TRANSPORTATION DISTRICT COMMISSION, t/a Tidewater Regional Transit, Defendant-Appellant. . Argued:
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 227

242 F.3d 227 (4th Cir. 2001)

L. DOUGLAS BRINN; KEN JESSUP; STEVEN W. JACKSON; JOYCE A. WILLIAMS, on behalf of themselves and all those similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. TIDEWATER TRANSPORTATION DISTRICT COMMISSION, t/a Tidewater Regional Transit, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 00-2116.

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS, FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT.

Argued: January 24, 2001.

Decided: March 1, 2001.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Norfolk.

Rebecca B. Smith, District Judge. (CA-99-1637-2)

[Copyrighted Material Omitted] COUNSEL: ARGUED: Donald H. Clark, WILLIAMS, MULLEN, CLARK & DOBBINS, Virginia Beach, Virginia, for Appellant. Jonathan Gerald Martinis, COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT FOR RIGHTS OF VIRGINIANS WITH DISABILITIES, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: A. W. VanderMeer, Jr., WILLIAMS, MULLEN, CLARK & DOBBINS, Virginia Beach, Virginia, for Appellant.

Before MOTZ and TRAXLER, Circuit Judges, and Malcolm J. HOWARD, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of North Carolina, sitting by designation.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Motz wrote the opinion, in which Judge Traxler and Judge Howard joined.

OPINION

DIANA GRIBBON MOTZ, Circuit Judge:

After L. Douglas Brinn, Ken Jessup, Steven Jackson, and Joyce Williams, obtained an advantageous settlement of their claims against Tidewater Transportation District Commission under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, they sought attorney's fees. The district court awarded them $29,506.24 in attorney's fees. Tidewater appeals, not disputing the reasonableness of the amount of the fee award, but contending that the award of any attorney's fees in this case violates state and federal law. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm.

I.

The ADA makes mandatory the provision of special transportation services, known as paratransit services, to individuals with disabilities. See 42 U.S.C. S 12143(a)(1994). Section 12143 of the ADA expressly provides:

It shall be considered discrimination for purposes of section 12132 of this title and section 794 of [the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. S 701 (1994)] for a public entity which operates a fixed route system . . . to fail to provide with respect to the operations of its fixed route system . . paratransit and other special transportation services to individuals with disabilities . . . that are sufficient to provide to such individuals a level of service . . . which is comparable to the level of designated public transportation services provided to individuals without disabilities using such system . . . .

Thus, federal law requires public entities operating fixed-route public transportation systems to provide paratransit services "comparable to the level of designated public transportation services provided to individuals without disabilities using such system." Id.

Under the regulations implementing S 12143, local transportation entities must comply with specified service criteria in order to provide sufficiently "comparable paratransit services." See 49 C.F.R. pt. 37, App. D, S 37.121, p. 499 (1999). One of the specified service criteria concerns the scheduling of paratransit trips. Although local entities may accept reservations up to fourteen days in advance, they also must "schedule and provide paratransit service to any ADA paratransit eligible person at any requested time on a particular day in response to a request for service made the previous day." 49 C.F.R. S 37.131(b). In other words, local transportation entities must provide paratransit services for eligible individuals on a next-day basis.

Tidewater governs the transportation district that operates the public transportation system in and around the cities of Chesapeake, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk, and Virginia Beach, Virginia. See Va. Code S 15.2-4504. Since 1978, Tidewater has provided paratransit services to the elderly and disabled within its service area. From 1996 through 1999, Tidewater experienced a significant increase in the demand for paratransit services. As a result, meeting advance reservation requests often exhausted the available services, forcing Tidewater to refuse requests for next-day paratransit service.

In April and May of 1999, L. Douglas Brinn, Ken Jessup, Steven Jackson, and Joyce Williams, among others, complained to the Department for Rights of Virginians with Disabilities (DRVD) that Tidewater had failed to provide them next-day paratransit services. DVRD, a state agency charged with rendering assistance to persons seeking to protect their rights under the ADA, the Rehabilitation Act, and the Virginians with Disabilities Act, see Va. Code S 51.5-37 (1998), is part of Virginia's state system for protecting the rights of the disabled. By choosing to create systems designed"to protect the legal and human rights of individuals with disabilities," states become eligible for federal funding under the Rehabilitation Act. See 29 U.S.C. S 794e(a)(1). To receive this federal funding, a state system must "have the authority to pursue legal, administrative, and other appropriate remedies or approaches to ensure the protection of, and advocacy for, the rights of [disabled] individuals within the State." 29 U.S.C. S 794e(f)(3). In Virginia, this authority is vested in DRVD. See Va. Code S 51.5-37.

In June 1999, DRVD sent Tidewater formal notice that it represented a group of individuals aggrieved by Tidewater's failure to provide next-day paratransit services and that this denial constituted a violation of the ADA. On July 16, 1999, Tidewater's Executive Director, Michael Townsend, met with lawyers from DRVD and executed a written agreement under which Tidewater promised to bring its provision of paratransit transportation services into "full compliance with the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act" and"all regulations promulgated thereto" not later than 45 days after October 1, 1999. In the agreement, the parties also arranged to meet on July 22, 1999 to decide on "specific levels of compliance, including levels of service and a graduated time schedule (with the first target date to be 21 August 1999) for meeting those requirements, concluding with full compliance with the requirements no later than 15 November 1999."

On July 22, 1999, counsel for the parties met as agreed. At that meeting, DRVD submitted a ten-page proposed settlement agreement, which contained detailed standards of compliance, reporting requirements, and penalties for noncompliance. A few weeks later, on August 17, 1999, counsel met for a third time. At that meeting, counsel for Tidewater presented a counter-proposal, in which, Tidewater did not bind itself to bring its provision of next-day paratransit services into compliance with the ADA or the Rehabilitation Act, but rather only committed to "use its best efforts" not to "engage in any operational practice or activity that would establish a pattern of trip denials." DRVD refused to accept Tidewater's counter-proposal, and, after this meeting, settlement negotiations ceased.

Brinn, Jessup, Jackson, Williams, and others continued to experience difficulty obtaining next-day paratransit services. Believing that further settlement negotiations would be fruitless, they filed suit under the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act, on behalf of themselves and all similarly situated individuals, alleging that Tidewater failed to provide next-day paratransit services as required by federal law. The suit sought an injunction requiring Tidewater to bring its provision of next-day paratransit services into full compliance with the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act. During a pretrial conference on November 30, 1999, the plaintiffs, represented by DRVD, offered to engage in formal mediation, but Tidewater refused. The parties then proceeded with discovery.

After discovery was completed, the plaintiffs moved for summary judgment. However, on January 18, 1999, before argument on the summary judgment motion could be heard, the parties entered into a settlement agreement, under which Tidewater agreed both to provide the relief sought in the complaint and to produce monthly monitoring reports on its compliance with these terms. The district court incorporated the settlement agreement into a court order, and ultimately entered a permanent injunction based on the terms of the settlement agreement.

The plaintiffs then moved for an award of attorney's fees, as "prevailing" plaintiffs under the ADA, 42 U.S.C.S 12205, and the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. S 794a(b). The district court awarded them $29,506.24 in attorney's fees and costs. Tidewater now appeals; it does not dispute the reasonableness of the award amount, but instead contends that state and federal law prohibit the award of any fees in this case.

II.

Section 505 of the ADA states that: "In any action or administrative proceeding commenced pursuant to this chapter, the court or agency, in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party, other than the United States, a reasonable attorney's fee . . .." 42 U.S.C. S 12205. The Rehabilitation Act contains an almost identical provision. See 29 U.S.C. S 794a(b) ("In any action or proceeding to enforce or charge a violation of a provision of this subchapter, the court, in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party, other than the United States, a reasonable attorney's fee as part of the costs.").

The district court noted that the Supreme Court has held that a "plaintiff is considered a `prevailing party'" if "actual relief on the merits of his claim materially alters the legal relationship between the parties by modifying the defendant's behavior in a way that directly benefits the plaintiff." Brinn v. Tidewater Transp. Dist. Comm'n, 105 F. Supp. 2d 500, 503 (E.D. Va. 2000) (quoting Farrar v. Hobby, 506 U.S. 103, 111-12 (1992)). The court then held that"[t]here is no question that the...