Robbins v. Chronister

Decision Date25 January 2006
Docket NumberNo. 02-3115.,02-3115.
Citation435 F.3d 1238
PartiesRalph ROBBINS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Larry CHRONISTER, in his personal and official capacity, Defendant Appellant, United States of America, Intervenor.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

Patrick Matthew Waters, Assistant Counsel (Kenneth J. Moore and F. Charles Dunlay, Assistant Counsel, with him on the briefs), Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City Kansas Legal Department, Kansas City, KS, for the Defendant-Appellant.

Larry J. Leatherman, Palmer, Leatherman & White, Topeka, KS, for the Plaintiff-Appellee.

Jonathan H. Levy, Attorney (Barbara L. Herwig, Attorney, Peter D. Keisler, Assistant Attorney General and Eric F. Melgren, United States Attorney, with him on the briefs), Appellate Staff, Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for the Intervenor.

Before TACHA, Chief Judge, SEYMOUR, EBEL, KELLY, HENRY, BRISCOE, LUCERO, MURPHY, HARTZ, O'BRIEN, McCONNELL & TYMKOVICH, Circuit Judges.

HARTZ, Circuit Judge.

While incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Greenville, Illinois, Ralph Robbins filed a civil lights claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against police officer Larry Chronister based on an incident predating his imprisonment. The district court appointed an attorney to assist him in pursuing the claim. After a three-day bench trial the district court awarded him nominal damages of $1. The Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) limits the attorney-fee award in civil-rights suits filed by prisoners to 150% of the money judgment. See 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(d). The district court, however, awarded a $9,680 fee, ruling that it would be absurd to apply the fee limitation to suits on claims arising before the prisoner was incarcerated. Mr. Chronister appealed the fee award. A divided panel of this court affirmed, agreeing with the district court that applying the plain language of § 1997e(d) would be absurd. Rehearing the matter en banc, we now hold that § 1997e(d) applies and Mr. Robbins's attorney-fee award is limited to $1.50.

I. BACKGROUND

In December 1995 Officer Chronister, returning home from work in his personal truck, recognized Mr. Robbins sitting in his car at a gas station in Kansas City, Kansas. He knew that there were five outstanding traffic warrants for Mr. Robbins's arrest. After pulling into the gas station and parking his truck behind Mr. Robbins's car, Officer Chronister approached the driver's side door of Mr. Robbins's car with his baton in his hand. He identified himself and ordered Mr. Robbins out of the car. Mr. Robbins began to back the car toward Officer Chronister's truck. Officer Chronister swung his baton into a car window, shattering it, and attempted to pull Mr. Robbins from the car. Mr. Robbins managed to maneuver the car away from Officer Chronister's truck, and tried unsuccessfully to accelerate on the icy pavement. His car spun around the parking lot, eventually fishtailing toward Officer Chronister. As the car approached him, Officer Chronister shot at its hood and windshield. Mr. Robbins was able to drive off but wrecked the car a few blocks away. He was taken to the University of Kansas Medical Center for treatment of three gunshot wounds.

Mr. Robbins later pleaded guilty to attempted aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer and was incarcerated at the Greenville prison. While incarcerated he filed a pro se civil rights complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that Officer Chronister had used excessive force, in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The district court appointed counsel for him. After a bench trial the district court ruled that Officer Chronister's use of deadly force in firing the shots was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, but that breaking Mr. Robbins's car window with a baton was not. Because Mr. Robbins was not physically injured by the use of the baton, the district court awarded him nominal damages of one dollar, a determination he does not appeal.

Mr. Robbins filed a motion for attorney fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1988(b), which allows the district court to award a reasonable attorney fee to a prevailing plaintiff in a § 1983 action. Officer Chronister opposed the motion, arguing that the plain language of § 1997e(d) of the PLRA caps Mr. Robbins's attorney fee at 150% of his damages, or $1.50, because he was a prisoner when he filed suit. The district court declined to apply the PLRA cap, holding that applying the cap in these circumstances would produce an absurd result; in its view, Congress could not have intended the statute to apply to meritorious civil rights claims that arose before a prisoner's confinement. The court awarded Mr. Robbins $9,680 in fees and $915.16 in expenses. Officer Chronister appealed.

II. DISCUSSION

We review issues of statutory construction de novo. United States v. Oberle, 136 F.3d 1414, 1423 (10th Cir.1998). The PLRA provides in relevant part:

(1) In any action brought by a prisoner who is confined to any jail, prison, or other correctional facility, in which attorney's fees are authorized under section 1988 of this title, such fees shall not be awarded, except to the extent that —

(A) the fee was directly and reasonably incurred in proving an actual violation of the plaintiffs right protected by a statute pursuant to which a fee may be awarded under section 1988 of this title;....

(2) Whenever a monetary judgment is awarded in an action described in paragraph (1), a portion of the judgment (not to exceed 25 percent) shall be applied to satisfy the amount of attorney's fees awarded against the defendant. If the award of attorney's fees is not greater than 150 percent of the judgment, the excess shall be paid by the defendant.

42 U.S.C. § 1997e(d) (footnotes omitted). The statutory language may be inartful, but appellate courts have consistently interpreted the statute to limit a defendant's liability for attorney fees to 150% of the money judgment. See, e.g., Royal v. Kautzky, 375 F.3d 720, 725 (8th Cir.2004); Walker v. Bain, 257 F.3d 660, 667 (6th Cir.2001) (citing cases).

Mr. Robbins does not contest that the statute's plain language imposes a 150% fee cap if (1) the plaintiff was a prisoner at the time he brought the action and (2) the plaintiff was awarded attorney fees under § 1988. It is undisputed that Mr. Robbins was a prisoner when he filed his § 1983 action and that the district court entered judgment in his favor by awarding him one dollar in nominal damages and reasonable attorney fees under § 1988(b). Accordingly, the plain statutory language limits the award of attorney fees to $1.50.

Mr. Robbins argues, however, that the district court was correct in ruling that it would be absurd to apply the cap in this case. The clear intent of Congress, he contends, was to control the torrent of litigation by prisoners concerning their treatment by prison authorities, not to deter prisoner suits arising from allegations of preincarceration misconduct. Why, he asks, should a prisoner's attorney-fee award be limited just because the prisoner did not get around to filing suit until he was incarcerated? After all, he could have filed suit earlier, and then the fee cap would not have applied. To explain why we reject this argument, we first address the absurdity doctrine and then we discuss its application to the PLRA.

The United States Supreme Court has long recognized the absurdity doctrine as a means to avoid applying the unequivocal language of a statute. But the doctrine has been strictly limited. Chief Justice Marshall wrote:

[I]f, in any case, the plain meaning of a provision, not contradicted by any other provision in the same instrument, is to be disregarded, because we believe the framers of that instrument could not intend what they say, it must be one in which the absurdity and injustice of applying the provision to the case, would be so monstrous, that all mankind would, without hesitation, unite in rejecting the application.

Sturges v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheat. 122, 17 U.S. 122, 202-03, 4 L.Ed. 529 (1819). This court has said that an interpretation of a statute is absurd if it leads to "results `so gross as to shock the general moral or common sense.'" United States v. Newsome, 898 F.2d 119, 121 n. 3 (10th Cir. 1990) (quoting Crooks v. Harrelson, 282 U.S. 55, 60, 51 S.Ct. 49, 75 L.Ed. 156 (1930)).

The absurdity doctrine should not be confused with a useful technique for resolving ambiguities in statutory language. When statutory language reasonably admits of alternative constructions, there is nothing remarkable about resolving the textual ambiguity against the alternative meaning that produces a result the framers are highly unlikely to have intended. We choose the reasonable result over the "absurd" one. Application of this technique is not what Mr. Robbins is suggesting. He acknowledges that § 1997e(d) cannot be read to permit more than a $1.50 attorney-fee award in this case.

One claiming that the plain, unequivocal language of a statute produces an absurd result must surmount a formidable hurdle. It is not enough to show that the result is contrary to what Congress (or, perhaps more accurately, some members of Congress) desired. In other words, we cannot reject an application of the plain meaning of the words in a statute on the ground that we are confident that Congress would have wanted a different result. Instead, we can apply the doctrine only when it would have been unthinkable for Congress to have intended the result commanded by the words of the statute— that is, when the result would be "so bizarre that Congress could not have intended it," Demarest v. Manspeaker, 498 U.S. 184, 190-91, 111 S.Ct. 599, 112 L.Ed.2d 608 (1992) (internal quotation marks omitted). Accordingly, whether some members of Congress (or even a committee) expressed a view contrary to the statute's language is beside the point. For the same reason, we cannot reject the plain meaning of statutory language just because Congr...

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