Cruz v. Unión Independiente Auténtica de Empleados de la Autoridad de Acueductos y Alcantarillados
| Decision Date | 05 March 2020 |
| Docket Number | CIVIL NO. 17-2261 (PAD) |
| Parties | REYNALDO CRUZ, Plaintiff, v. UNIÓN INDEPENDIENTE AUTÉNTICA DE LOS EMPLEADOS DE LA AUTORIDAD DE ACUEDUCTOS Y ALCANTARILLADOS, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Puerto Rico |
Plaintiff initiated this action under the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that compulsory union membership and fee requirements in a collective bargaining agreement between his employer and a labor union, and in the Puerto Rico Labor Relations Act, Law No. 130 of May 8, 1945, P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 29 § 61 et seq., violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments (Docket No. 1). Before the court are "Plaintiff Reynaldo Cruz's Motion for Attorney's Fees from Intervenors OPEPBAU and SIFEU," with accompanying exhibits (Docket No. 146); "Plaintiff Reynaldo Cruz's Motion to Deem Admitted UIA's Answers to Certain Requests for Admission" (Docket No. 161), which Unión Independiente Auténtica de Empleados de la Autoridad de Acueductos y Alcantarillados ("UIA") opposed (Docket No. 166); and the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority's "Request for Entry of Default" against the UIA (Docket No. 150), which UIA opposed (Docket No. 151), filing later that same day its "Answer to the Crossclaim" (Docket No. 152). For the reasons explained below, the motions are DENIED.
This issue arises out of an attempt by two Puerto Rico public sector unions, the Office and Professional Employees of the Public Building Authority Union ("OPEPBAU") and the State Insurance Fund Employees Union ("SIFEU"), to intervene in this litigation (Docket No. 94). Initially, the court granted the intervention request (Docket No. 95). Plaintiff asked for reconsideration (Docket No. 96), which the moving unions opposed (Docket No. 107). Plaintiff replied (Docket No. 111). The court examined the issue anew, granting plaintiff's motion for reconsideration (Docket No. 141, p. 2). By extension, it denied intervenor status to the OPEPBAU and the SIFEU (Docket No. 143, p. 10). Nevertheless, the court allowed them to participate in the case as amicus. Id. Plaintiff alleges that because he successfully opposed the moving unions request to intervene, he is entitled to $18,437.50 in attorney's fees and $728.81 in expenses under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 (Docket No. 146, pp. 1, 8).
Pursuant to the American Rule, in the United States each litigant "pays his own attorney's fees, win or lose, unless a statute or contract provides otherwise." Hardt v. Reliance Standard Life Insurance Co., 560 U.S. 242, 253 (2010). One of the congressionally created exceptions is found in 42 U.S.C. § 1988, which authorizes reasonable attorney's fees to be awarded to the "prevailing party" as part of the costs brought in a suit to enforce various civil rights statutes, including 42 U.S.C. § 1983.1 In order to determine whether an award of attorney's fees is appropriate, then, thecourt must evaluate "whether the party seeking fees has prevailed in the litigation." CRST Van Expedite, Inc. v. E.E.O.C., ---U.S.----, 136 S.Ct. 1642, 1646 (2016).
The touchstone of the prevailing party inquiry is "the material alteration of the legal relationship of the parties in a manner which Congress sought to promote in the fee statute." Sole v. Wyner, 551 U.S. 74, 82 (2007)(quoting Texas State Teachers Assn. v. Garland, 489 U.S. 782, 792-793 (1989)). For that reason, a plaintiff prevails when he secures an enforceable judgment on the merits or a court-ordered consent decree, as in those instances, he has received a judicially sanctioned change in the legal relationship between the parties. See, CRST Van Expedited, 136 S.Ct. at 1646 ( formulation).
In the absence of an enforceable judgment or remedial order, award of fees pendente lite is authorized but only to a party who has established his entitlement to some relief on the merits of his claims, either in the trial court or on appeal. See, Hanrahan v. Hampton, 446 U.S. 754, 757 (1980)(so noting).2 A party, however, may not be fairly considered a prevailing party on account of interlocutory dispositions affecting the "extent of discovery" or other "procedural or evidentiary rulings." Id. at 759. In consequence, plaintiff is not a prevailing party. While he obtained a favorable ruling on a procedural motion, there is no enforceable judgment or final remedial order, consent decree, or alteration of the relationship between the parties following a favorable ruling on the merits of his claims.
Plaintiff argues that federal courts can award attorney's fees denying intervention because such interim orders result in the final resolution of a separate dispute that is sufficiently significant and discrete from the underling claims (Docket No. 146, p. 10). As support, he directs the court's attention to Van Hoomissen v. Xerox Corp., 503 F.2d 1131 (9th Cir. 1974), García-Rubiera v. Fortuño, 727 F.3d 102 (1st Cir. 2013), and In re Nineteen Appeals Arising Out of San Juan Dupont Plaza Hotel Fire Litigation, 982 F.2d 603 (1st Cir. 1992). See, Docket No. 146, p. 10. These cases do not lead to the remedy that plaintiff is after.
In Van Hoomissen, plaintiff sued Xerox, his former employer, for allegedly dismissing him in relation for efforts to recruit minorities. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") sought leave to intervene, alleging that Xerox engaged in discriminatory hiring practices and retaliation. The district court granted the EEOC's motion to intervene but limited intervention to the issue of retaliation. The EEOC appealed, and the Ninth Circuit dismissed the appeal because the district court's order was not final, and therefore, not appealable. See, Van Hoomissen v. Xerox Corp., 497 F.2d 180, 183 (9th Cir. 1974)(opinion dismissing interlocutory appeal).
Xerox moved for an award of attorney's fees against the EEOC as part of its costs on appeal, which the Ninth Circuit granted, reasoning that the event was significant enough to be treated separately. See, Van Hoomissen, 503 F.2d at 1133 (). So, the award was not predicated on a successful opposition to a motion to intervene, but on dismissal of the interlocutory appeal for lack of jurisdiction. As the Ninth Circuit stated, "the fact that Xerox prevailed on this appeal qualifies it as a prevailing party eligible for an award of attorney's fees connected with the appeal." Van Hoomissen, 503 F.2d at 1133 (emphasis added). But there was no interlocutory appeal here. Even more, the Ninth Circuit warned that "litigation should not be dissected to the point that the losing party be permitted to recover attorney's fees connected with every procedural motion on which it prevails." Id. at 1133. Yet that is precisely what plaintiff seeks: attorney's fees linked to a procedural motion.
Recognizing the same substantive-procedural dichotomy, the First Circuit noted in Coalition for Basic Human Needs, 691 F.2d 597, 600 (1st Cir. 1982), that the requirement that legal success achieve some of the benefits the parties sought in order to obtain an award of fees "merely distinguishes cases in which plaintiffs obtain some substantive relief from those in which the victories are purely procedural"). Id. In like manner, Mary Frances Derfner and Arthur D. Wolf, Court Awarded Attorney's Fees, Lexis Nexis (2018), point out that in general, a plaintiff must obtain some form of judicial relief on the merits of a claim to be considered prevailing party under a fee shifting statute, and because mere procedural victories do not make the plaintiff a prevailing party, courts generally do not award attorney's fees against unsuccessful applicants for intervention. Id. at pp. 8-33, 8-41, 34-79.
In this light, in Coalition for Basic Human Needs, fees were awarded to the plaintiff Coalition because it had established its entitlement to some relief on the merits on appeal "by obtaining an injunction pending appeal that effectively determined the parties' rights." 691 F.2d at 601.3 Similarly, in García-Rubiera, 727 F.3d at 102, the plaintiffs had prevailed in court on the merits of their procedural due process claims. Id. at 105-106. And in In re Nineteen Appeals, 982 F.2d at 603, plaintiffs had prevailed on the liability phase of the case, and applying Supreme Court and appellate caselaw, the First Circuit held that an order "which definitively resolves claimsfor attorney's fees and expenses payable out of a common fund is severable from the decision on the merits and sufficiently final to be separately appealable under 28 U.S.C. § 1291." Id. at 609-610. By contrast, there has been no ruling on liability in this case, and no dispute over a common-fund award.
Plaintiff contends the court should focus on whether he prevailed against the union movants, not the merits of his claims against the original defendants (Docket No. 145, p. 11). He cites to a number of cases where fees were awarded for successfully opposing intervention. Id. For the most part, these cases are distinguishable under the Supreme Court's Hanrahan framework. For example, in Moten v. Bricklayers, Masons and Plasterer Intern. Union of America, 543 F.2d 224 (D.C. Cir. 1976), plaintiffs filed a class action against two unions in the bricklaying industry. The parties entered into a stipulation of settlement, which the district court approved. Construction industry employers argued that they should be a party to any agreement and that the settlement should not be permitted to go into effect, lacking, as it did, any employer input. The district court entered a final judgment approving the stipulation of settlement and dismissing the action with prejudice. The District of Columbia Circuit affirmed the settlement order and granted plaintiffs' motion to tax attorney's fees and other costs, noting that in order to maintain their hard-won settlement agreement, plaintiffs were compelled...
To continue reading
Request your trial