Coalition for Basic Human Needs v. King, 82-1359

• Decision Date: 01 November 1982
• Docket Number: No. 82-1359,82-1359
• Citation: 691 F.2d 597
• Parties: COALITION FOR BASIC HUMAN NEEDS, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. Edward J. KING, et al., Defendants, Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 597

691 F.2d 597

COALITION FOR BASIC HUMAN NEEDS, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. Edward J. KING, et al., Defendants, Appellees.

No. 82-1359.

United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.

Argued Sept. 9, 1982.

Decided Nov. 1, 1982.

Ernest Winsor, Boston, Mass., for appellants.

Carl Valvo, Asst. Atty. Gen., Boston, Mass., with whom Francis X. Bellotti, Atty. Gen., Boston, Mass., was on brief, for appellees.

Before COFFIN, Chief Judge, SWYGERT, ^* Senior Circuit Judge, and BREYER, Circuit Judge.

BREYER, Circuit Judge.

During the summer of 1981, a budget impasse in the Massachusetts legislature cut off funding to state welfare recipients under the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and state General Relief (GR) programs. The appellants in this case, who will be referred to collectively as "the Coalition," brought suit in federal district court to compel the appellees, including Governor King and other state officials, to resume AFDC and GR payments. Following the district court's denial of a motion for a temporary restraining order, this court granted the Coalition an injunction pending appeal that required the appellees to resume AFDC payments. Before the injunction took effect, however, the legislature passed a full budget that mooted the controversy. The Coalition now appeals a decision by the district court denying attorney's fees to the Coalition for its work in the 1981 litigation on the ground that the Coalition was not a "prevailing party" within the meaning of the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1988, which provides in relevant part:

In any action or proceeding to enforce a provision of (42 U.S.C.) sections 1981, 1982, 1983, 1985, and 1986 ..., title IX of Public Law 92-318, or title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 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.

We vacate the first paragraph of the order of the district court and remand for an award of attorney's fees and costs.

I

The details of the 1981 Massachusetts budget crisis and the ensuing litigation between the Coalition and the appellees are set out in the opinion of the district court denying fees. See Coalition for Basic Human Needs v. King, 535 F.Supp. 126 (D.Mass.1982). In brief, the governor and the legislature proved unable to agree on a new budget before the previous fiscal year's authorization expired at midnight on June 30, 1981. As a result, the state stopped making payments under the AFDC and GR programs and stopped issuing pensions and salaries to state employees. On July 1, the Coalition filed suit, seeking preliminary and permanent injunctive relief to compel the appellees to resume the AFDC and GR payments. The Coalition claimed that the failure to make the payments or to provide advance notice of their termination conflicted with provisions of the Social Security Act and with the due process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.

On July 2, the district court denied the Coalition's motion for a temporary restraining order, as well as an alternative request that the court order the governor to exercise his exclusive power to commence interim budget proceedings. On the same day, the governor submitted to the legislature the first in what would prove to be a series of proposed interim funding measures covering AFDC and GR payments as well as other emergency expenditures. The bill was approved by the state House of Representatives but was effectively killed by the state Senate.

On July 7, the Coalition appealed the district court's denial of its motion for a temporary restraining order to this court. Pursuant to Fed.R.App.P. 8(a), the Coalition requested that this court issue an injunction pending appeal ordering the appellees to resume AFDC and GR payments. At 6:00 p.m. on July 13, this court granted in part the motion for injunction pending appeal. Coalition for Basic Human Needs v. King, 654 F.2d 838 (1st Cir. 1981). The court not only found that "irreparability of harm is now excruciatingly obvious," id. at 840-41, but concluded that the Coalition had demonstrated a probability of success on the merits of its claim that the interruption of the AFDC payments violated provisions of the Social Security Act. Id. at 841-42. The court accordingly ordered the appellees "to take all steps that may be necessary to ensure that the second semi-monthly checks of July will issue promptly and on schedule to all AFDC recipients." Id. at 843. The July 13 order was to take effect three days later, on July 16.

In the twelve days between the filing of the Coalition's suit and this court's issuance of the injunction pending appeal, the governor had submitted four interim budget bills without success. Within six hours of the July 13 order, however, the governor submitted and both houses of the legislature approved a two-week retroactive funding bill covering AFDC and GR payments as well as other expenditures. As a result, the appellees returned to this court on July 15, seeking to have the July 13 order modified or vacated. This court did modify the July 13 order, but only to the limited extent of postponing the effective date of the injunction from July 16 to July 23. Five days later, on July 20, the governor and legislature approved a full budget that mooted the Coalition's suit before the injunction took effect.

Following these events, the Coalition submitted a request for the award of costs and attorney's fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1988, which provides in relevant part that a court may allow the "prevailing party" in an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to recover reasonable attorney's fees. The Coalition relied principally on this court's opinion in Nadeau v. Helgemoe, 581 F.2d 275 (1st Cir. 1978). Nadeau addressed two central issues: 1) under what circumstances could a party recover attorney's fees for obtaining judicial relief on some but not all of his claims; and 2) under what circumstances could a party recover fees when his suit does not result in a formal judgment in his favor but prompts actions outside the courtroom that afford the relief sought by the suit. With respect to the first issue, Nadeau held that plaintiffs are to be considered "prevailing parties" if "they succeed on any significant issue in litigation which achieves some of the benefit the parties sought in bringing suit." 581 F.2d at 278-79. With respect to the second issue, Nadeau set forth a two-pronged test. A plaintiff constitutes a "prevailing party" under Nadeau, even if he obtained relief from outside the courtroom rather than within, provided that: 1) as a matter of fact, his suit was a "necessary and important factor in achieving the improvements"; and 2) as a matter of law, the suit was not " 'frivolous, unreasonable, or groundless.' " Id. at 281 (quoting Christiansburg Garment Co. v. EEOC, 434 U.S. 412, 422, 98 S.Ct. 694, 700, 54 L.Ed.2d 648 (1978)). This may be referred to as the "catalyst" theory.

The Coalition argued below, and argues here on appeal, that it was entitled to attorney's fees as a "prevailing party" under each of the two theories set forth in Nadeau. It first argued that by obtaining preliminary injunctive relief from this court, it "succeed(ed) on (a) significant issue in litigation which achieve(d) some of the benefit" that the Coalition had sought. It added that in any event, its suit was not "frivolous, unreasonable, or groundless" and that the preliminary injunction it obtained had caused the governor to submit the interim budget that finally provided AFDC and GR funding on July 13; thus, it argued, it satisfied Nadeau 's "catalyst" test.

The district court rejected the Coalition's fee request. It found that the total amount of costs and fees requested by the Coalition was reasonable, and it agreed that the Coalition's claims were not "frivolous, unreasonable, or groundless." But it found that the litigation was not a "necessary factor" in the executive and legislative actions that provided AFDC and GR funding. This lack of a causal connection between the Coalition's suit and the effective delivery of relief, in the court's view, disqualified the Coalition from attorney's fees. We question the district court's parsing of "necessary and important" into separate requirements of necessity and importance, but we need not resolve now how strong a causal showing is required under Nadeau, for even accepting the district court's finding of no causal connection, we do not agree with the legal conclusion it drew from that finding.

II

At the outset we should make clear that Nadeau 's two tests are separate and distinct; satisfying either of them is sufficient to qualify a party as "prevailing." The first test states the obvious, namely, that a party has prevailed if it wins the litigation. The only reason that the "prevailing party" status of the plaintiff was not obvious in Nadeau was because the question there concerned a party who prevailed as to some, but not all, of his claims. It was with this question in mind that the court wrote that plaintiffs are "prevailing" if "they succeed on any significant issue in litigation which achieves some of the benefit the parties sought in bringing suit." 581 F.2d at 278-79 (emphasis added). The second test-the "catalyst" test-concerned the more difficult question presented by parties that do not win on any significant issue in court but obtain what they seek anyway. The court's practical answer was that, as long as the suit is not "frivolous, unreasonable, or groundless," the party is "prevailing" if the suit is a "necessary and important factor" in achieving what was sought. Given our resolution of the issue, we are here concerned only with the first test: Did the Coalition achieve a sufficient judicial victory?

The Coalition's first problem arises out of a phrase used in Nadeau to describe the kind of judicial success that...