Fox v. Vice

• Decision Date: 06 June 2011
• Docket Number: No. 10–114.,10–114.
• Citation: 131 S.Ct. 2205,563 U.S. 826,180 L.Ed.2d 45
• Parties: Ricky D. FOX, Petitioner, v. Judy Ann VICE, as executrix of the Estate of Billy Ray Vice, et al.
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

563 U.S. 826

131 S.Ct. 2205

180 L.Ed.2d 45

Ricky D. FOX, Petitioner,

v.Judy Ann VICE, as executrix of the Estate of Billy Ray Vice, et al.

No. 10–114.

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued March 22, 2011.

Decided June 6, 2011.

E. Joshua Rosenkranz, New York, NY, for petitioner.

Mark T. Stancil, Washington, DC, for respondents.

J. Steven Broussard, Randall E. Hart, Broussard & Hart, LLC, Lake Charles, LA, E. Joshua Rosenkranz, Counsel of Record, Jessica S. Pers, Michael K. Gottlieb, Orrick, Herrington, Sutcliffe LLP, New York, NY, for Petitioner.

Toby J. Heytens, Daniel R. Ortiz, University of Virginia School of Law Supreme Court, Litigation Clinic, Charlottesville, VA, Counsel for Respondents.

J. Mark Miller, Joseph B. Stamey, Stamey & Miller, LLC, Natchitoches, LA, for Respondent the Town of Vinton.

Mark T. Stancil, Counsel of Record, Robbins, Russell, Englert, Orseck, Untereiner & Sauber LLP, Washington, DC, Counsel for Respondents.

Christopher P. Ieyoub, Kendrick J. Guidry, Plauche, Smith & Nieset, LLC, Lake Charles, LA, for Respondent Billy Ray Vice.

John P. Elwood, Vinson & Elkins LLP, Washington, DC, for Respondents.

Justice KAGAN delivered the opinion of the Court.

Federal law authorizes a court to award a reasonable attorney's fee to the prevailing party in certain civil rights cases. See 42 U.S.C. § 1988. We have held that a defendant may receive such an award if the plaintiff's suit is frivolous. In this case, the plaintiff asserted both frivolous and non-frivolous claims. We hold today that a court may grant reasonable fees to the defendant in this circumstance, but only for costs that the defendant would not have incurred but for the frivolous claims. A trial court has wide discretion in applying this standard. But here we must vacate the judgment below because the court used a different and incorrect standard in awarding fees.

I

This case arises out of an election for chief of police in the town of Vinton, Louisiana. The candidates were petitioner Ricky Fox (the challenger) and respondent Billy Ray Vice (the incumbent).¹ By Fox's account, Vice resorted to an assortment of dirty tricks to try to force Fox out of the race. In particular, Vice sent an anonymous letter to Fox threatening to publish damaging charges against him if he remained a candidate. Vice also arranged for a third party to publicly accuse Fox of using racial slurs and then to file a criminal complaint against Fox repeating those allegations. And when prosecutors ignored that faux complaint, Vice leaked it to the press. Yet all of these machinations failed; Fox won the election. And Vice got an even greater comeuppance: He was subsequently convicted of criminal extortion for his election-related conduct.

Fox, however, chose not to let the matter rest; he filed this suit in Louisiana state court against Vice and the town of Vinton, also a respondent here. Fox's complaint asserted both state-law claims, including defamation, and federal civil rights claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, including interference with his right to seek public office. Vice and the town (Vice, for short) removed the case to federal court on the basis of the § 1983 claims.

At the end of discovery in the suit, Vice moved for summary judgment on Fox's federal claims. Fox conceded that the claims were "no[t] valid," App. 169, and the District Court accordingly dismissed them with prejudice. In the same ruling, the court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining state-law claims. Docket No. 2:06–cv–135 (WD La., Oct. 16, 2007), App. to Pet. for Cert. 38a–40a. The court instead remanded the now slimmed-down case to state court for adjudication. In doing so, the District Court observed that "[a]ny trial preparation, legal research, and discovery may be used by the parties in the state court proceedings." Id., at 40a.

Vice then asked the federal court for an award of attorney's fees under § 1988, arguing that Fox's federal claims were "baseless and without merit." App. 198. Vice stated that his lawyers had had to participate in five lengthy depositions and review numerous records to defend against Fox's charges. Id., at 199. In support of his fee request, Vice submitted attorney billing records estimating the time spent on the whole suit, without differentiating between the federal and state-law claims. See Supp.App. 8–67.

The District Court granted the motion for attorney's fees on the ground that Fox's federal claims were frivolous. Although the state-law allegations had not been found frivolous (and indeed remained live), the court did not require Vice to separate out the work his attorneys had done on the two sets of claims. Docket No. 2:06–cv–135 (WD La., Sept. 22, 2008), App. to Pet. for Cert. 28a. According to the court, such "segregation" was unnecessary because the "various claims arose out of the same transaction and were so interrelated that their prosecution or defense entailed proof or denial of essentially the same facts." Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). Similarly, the court declined to reduce the fee award to reflect the surviving state-law claims. "[T]hroughout the litigation," the court stated, both sides "focus [ed]" on Fox's frivolous § 1983 claims. Id., at 32a–33a. The court therefore concluded that Vice should receive all of the fees he reasonably incurred in defending the suit—a total of $48,681. Id., at 34a.

A divided Court of Appeals affirmed. 594 F.3d 423 (C.A.5 2010). The majority first rejected Fox's contention that all claims in a suit must be frivolous for the defendant to recover any fees. That rule, the court explained, would " ‘allow plaintiffs to prosecute frivolous claims without consequenc[e]’ " so long as they added a single non-frivolous claim. Id., at 428 (quoting Tutor–Saliba Corp. v. Hailey, 452 F.3d 1055, 1064 (C.A.9 2006) ). The Court of Appeals then turned to the District Court's decision that Vice was entitled to fees for all time thus far spent on the case, even though state-law claims remained unadjudicated. Repeating the trial court's view that the whole litigation had focused on the frivolous federal claims, the Fifth Circuit upheld the fee award. See 594 F.3d, at 428.

Judge Southwick dissented. He agreed that Vice was entitled to some reimbursement for fees. Id., at 430. But he thought the District Court had erred in declining to "allocate the fees separately between the successful claims and the unsuccessful" ones just because all of them were "interrelated." Ibid. "[W]hen some claims are dismissed as frivolous and others are not," he stated, the defendants should receive fees only for "the legal work allocable solely or dominantly to the dismissed" claims. Id., at 431. Because in this case "almost all of the defendant[s'] discovery and factual analysis would have been necessary even if no federal claims had been brought," he concluded, the fee award should have been much smaller. Ibid.

The Fifth Circuit's decision deepened a Circuit split about whether and to what extent a court may award fees to a defendant under § 1988 when a plaintiff asserts both frivolous and non-frivolous claims.² One Court of Appeals has forbidden any compensation unless all of the plaintiff's claims are frivolous. See Balmer v. HCA, Inc., 423 F.3d 606, 617 (C.A.6 2005). Others have rejected this approach, but struggled with how to allocate fees in a suit that involves a mix of frivolous and non-frivolous claims. Compare, e.g., 594 F.3d 423 (C.A.5 2010) (opinion below), with Colombrito v. Kelly, 764 F.2d 122, 132 (C.A.2 1985) (declining to award fees when the frivolous claim "added no additional testimony or expense to the trial"). We granted certiorari to resolve these questions. 562 U.S. ––––, 131 S.Ct. 505, 178 L.Ed.2d 369 (2010).

II

Our legal system generally requires each party to bear his own litigation expenses, including attorney's fees, regardless whether he wins or loses. Indeed, this principle is so firmly entrenched that it is known as the "American Rule." See Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. Wilderness Society, 421 U.S. 240, 247, 95 S.Ct. 1612, 44 L.Ed.2d 141 (1975). But Congress has authorized courts to deviate from this background rule in certain types of cases by shifting fees from one party to another. See Burlington v. Dague, 505 U.S. 557, 562, 112 S.Ct. 2638, 120 L.Ed.2d 449 (1992) (listing federal fee-shifting provisions).

The statute involved here, 42 U.S.C. § 1988, allows the award of "a reasonable attorney's fee" to "the prevailing party" in various kinds of civil rights cases, including suits brought under § 1983. Most of our decisions addressing this provision have concerned the grant of fees to prevailing plaintiffs. When a plaintiff succeeds in remedying a civil rights violation, we have stated, he serves "as a ‘private attorney general,’ vindicating a policy that Congress considered of the highest priority." Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., 390 U.S. 400, 402, 88 S.Ct. 964, 19 L.Ed.2d 1263 (1968)(per curiam) . He therefore "should ordinarily recover an attorney's fee" from the defendant—the party whose misconduct created the need for legal action. Christiansburg Garment Co. v. EEOC, 434 U.S. 412, 416, 98 S.Ct. 694, 54 L.Ed.2d 648 (1978) (internal quotation marks omitted). Fee-shifting in such a case at once reimburses a plaintiff for "what it cos[t][him] to vindicate [civil] rights," Riverside v. Rivera, 477 U.S. 561, 577–578, 106 S.Ct. 2686, 91 L.Ed.2d 466 (1986) (internal quotation marks omitted), and holds to account "a violator of federal law," Christiansburg, 434 U.S., at 418, 98 S.Ct. 694.

In Christiansburg, we held that § 1988 also authorizes a fee award to a prevailing defendant, but under a different standard reflecting the "quite different equitable considerations" at stake. Id., at 419, 98 S.Ct. 694. In enacting § 1988, we stated, Congress sought "to protect defendants from burdensome litigation having no legal or factual basis." Id., at 420, 98 S.Ct. 694. Accordingly, § 1988 authorizes...