Carter v. Noble

Decision Date28 January 1976
Docket NumberNo. 75-2699 Summary Calendar.,75-2699 Summary Calendar.
Citation526 F.2d 677
PartiesWarren CARTER, Individually and on Behalf of all Others Similarly Situated, Plaintiffs-Appellees, Cross Appellants, v. W. B. NOBLE, Individually and as Sheriff of Madison County, Mississippi, et al., Defendants, Jack Pentecost, Individually and as Jailer of the Madison County Jail, Defendant-Appellant, Cross Appellee.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

James G. McIntyre, Jackson, Miss., for defendant-appellant, cross appellee.

Nausead Stewart, Fred L. Banks, Jr., Constance I. Slaughter, Jackson, Miss., for plaintiffs-appellees, cross appellants.

Joe R. Fancher, Jr., Canton, Miss., for other interested parties.

Before WISDOM, BELL and CLARK, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Warren Carter was placed in the Madison County, Mississippi jail overnight because he did not have $34 to pay two traffic violation fines he had incurred that day. His mother paid the fines early the next morning and went to the county jail to obtain the release of her son. She had to wait in an outside room until the jailer, Deputy Sheriff Jack Pentecost, arrived. He had been directed by the Sheriff to release the prisoner. It is uncontradicted that, when Pentecost arrived at the jail, he directed a jail employee to cut Carter's hair. His assertion that this was justified by the jail policy of cutting prisoners' hair for sanitation reasons is frivolous because Pentecost knew that Carter was about to be released. Moreover, the district court found that severe bodily injuries were inflicted upon Carter by Pentecost "with force excessive of that necessary to protect himself, or were inflicted by trusties under the direct order of Pentecost", while Carter's mother was waiting in an outside room for her son's release. This finding is not clearly erroneous. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a); Zenith Radio Corp. v. Hazeltine Research, Inc., 1969, 395 U.S. 100, 123, 89 S.Ct. 1562, 23 L.Ed.2d 129. We therefore affirm both the district court's holding that Pentecost deprived Carter of his constitutional rights in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the court's award of $1000 damages against Pentecost.1

Carter's attorneys filed a post-trial motion for an award of attorneys' fees and affidavits setting out their educational and professional backgrounds and the number of hours they had worked on the case. The district court overruled the motion because this case is "essentially a simple tort action arising from a single incident affecting but one person ...." The Supreme Court has stated, however, that a court may assess attorneys' fees "when the losing party has `acted in bad faith, vexatiously, wantonly, or for oppressive reasons'". Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. Wilderness Society, 1975, 421 U.S. 240, 258, 95 S.Ct. 1612, 1622, 44 L.Ed.2d 141, 154, quoting F. D. Rich Co. v. Industrial Lumber Co., Inc., 1974, 417 U.S. 116, 129, 94 S.Ct. 2157, 40 L.Ed.2d 703. The underlying rationale of this fee shifting "is, of course, punitive, and the essential element in triggering the award of fees is therefore the existence of `bad faith' on the part of the unsuccessful litigant". Hall v. Cole, 1973, 412 U.S. 1, 5, 93 S.Ct. 1943, 1946, 36 L.Ed.2d 702. It is thus irrelevant to the awarding of attorneys' fees based on bad faith that the case involved only a single incident affecting one person. The sole defense Pentecost advanced for his malicious action was a patently frivolous claim that it advanced a policy of prisoner sanitation. The result of this spurious contention was that Carter was forced to...

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8 cases
  • Shimman v. International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 18
    • United States
    • United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (6th Circuit)
    • 1 Octubre 1984
    ...a frivolous defense in bad faith, forcing plaintiff to go to court, may result in a fee award for the plaintiff. See Carter v. Noble, 526 F.2d 677 (5th Cir.1976); Fairley v. Patterson, 493 F.2d 598 (5th Cir.1974); Monroe v. Board of Commissioners, 453 F.2d 259 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 406 ......
  • Perkins State Bank v. Connolly
    • United States
    • United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit)
    • 19 Diciembre 1980
    ...See Alyeska Pipeline Serv. v. Wilderness Society, 421 U.S. 240, 258-59 (, 95 S.Ct. 1612, 1622, 44 L.Ed.2d 141) (1975); Carter v. Noble, 526 F.2d 677 (5th Cir. 1976); Pupa v. Thompson, 517 F.2d 693 (5th Cir. 1975); Fairley v. Patterson, 493 F.2d 598 (5th Cir. 1974); 6 Moore's Federal Practic......
  • Schwarz v. Folloder
    • United States
    • United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit)
    • 1 Agosto 1985
    ...district court had applied the proper test of bad faith, and meaningful review would have been impossible. See also Carter v. Noble, 526 F.2d 677, 678-79 (5th Cir.1976) (reversing denial of attorney's fees where district court based denial on erroneous legal theory).14 Alexander Grant asks ......
  • Federal Deposit Ins. Corp. v. Sumner Financial Corp., 76-2515
    • United States
    • United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit)
    • 4 Septiembre 1979
    ...an obvious jurisdictional defect until after final judgment had been entered against it, and generally on such cases as Carter v. Noble, 5 Cir., 1976, 526 F.2d 677, and Exhibitors Poster Exchange v. National Screen Service Corp., 5 Cir., 1976, 543 F.2d 1106, Cert. denied, 431 U.S. 938, 97 S......
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