Geier v. Richardson
| Decision Date | 12 April 1989 |
| Docket Number | No. 88-5155,88-5155 |
| Parties | 49 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 38,903, 57 USLW 2599, 52 Ed. Law Rep. 941 Rita Sanders GEIER, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, United States of America, Plaintiff Intervenor-Appellant, v. Raymond RICHARDSON, Jr.; et al., Plaintiffs Intervenors-Appellees. H. Coleman McGINNIS, et al., Plaintiffs Intervenors-Appellees, v. Ned McWHERTER, et al., Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
George Barret, Nashville, Tenn., for plaintiffs-appellees.
Joe B. Brown, James C. Thomason, III, Asst. U.S. Atty., Office of the U.S. Atty., Nashville, Tenn., Wm. Bradford Reynolds, Asst. Atty. Gen., Nathaniel Douglas, Levern M. Younger, Roger Clegg, Deputy Asst. Atty. Gen., argued, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Civ. Rights Div., Educational Opportunities Litigation Section, David M. Thompson, Dennis J. Dimsey, William R. Yeomans, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Civ. Rights Div., Appellate Section, Washington, D.C., for plaintiff-appellant.
Richard H. Dinkins, Jr., Williams & Dinkins, Nashville, Tenn., Joel Berger, NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, (Charles Ralston, argued), New York City, for Raymond Richardson Jr., et al.
Aleta Arthur, Gilbert & Milom, John Norris, Hollins, Wagster & Yarbrough, Nashville, Tenn., for H. Coleman McGinnis, et al.
Susan Spugeon, Christine A. Modisher, (argued), Asst. Attys. Gen., Office of the Atty. Gen., of Tennessee, Nashville, Tenn., for Ned McWherter, et al.
Before MERRITT, MARTIN and JONES, Circuit Judges.
The United States, an intervenor in an action seeking desegregation of public institutions of higher learning in Tennessee, appeals the district court's order granting attorney's fees against the United States in favor of original plaintiffs, individual intervening plaintiffs, and original defendants pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1988 and 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2412(b).
The facts of this protracted litigation are set forth in this court's prior opinion, Geier v. Alexander, 801 F.2d 799 (6th Cir.1985). This action began with a complaint by several individuals seeking to enjoin the University of Tennessee from constructing a new facility to expand a non-degree granting program in Nashville. The plaintiffs argued that any extension of the Nashville site would hinder the desegregation process at predominantly black Tennessee A & I State University. The United States intervened as a plaintiff in the action two months after its filing pursuant to Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000h-2 (1982). The Richardson and McGinnis plaintiffs intervened shortly thereafter. The United States, after intervening, requested the district court to "order the state defendants to present a plan calculated to produce meaningful desegregation of the public universities of Tennessee," relief more expansive than sought by the original plaintiffs. Sanders v. Elington, 288 F.Supp. 937, 939 (M.D.Tenn.1968). After a long period of court ordered steps from 1968 to 1984 taken to eliminate the residual effects of de jure segregation in Tennessee's system of higher education, all the parties except the United States agreed to a comprehensive consent decree requiring numerous new desegregation programs throughout Tennessee's system of higher education. After more than fifteen years of litigation, the United States was the only party to object to the consent decree. In approving the consent decree, the district court found that less drastic remedial orders had failed to eliminate the residual effects of de jure segregation in Tennessee's higher education system and that the order approving the consent decree was designed to achieve the goal of "a system of higher education in Tennessee tax supported colleges and universities in which race is irrelevant, in which equal protection and equal application of the laws is a reality." Geier v. Alexander, 593 F.Supp. 1263, 1267 (M.D.Tenn.1984).
After the district court approved the consent decree, the United States filed a memorandum which challenged many of the programs contained in the proposed consent decree. The district court, after hearing oral argument on the government's objections, rejected each of them and entered the proposed consent decree. The government filed a timely appeal before this court from the district court's entry of the decree. In Geier v. Alexander, 801 F.2d 799 (6th Cir.1988), the United States challenged only a specific part of the consent decree which established a pre-professional program under which seventy-five qualified black sophomores were to be selected every year and guaranteed admission to one of the state's professional schools upon completion of his or her undergraduate work and satisfaction of the relevant school's admission standards. The government argued that the use of "racial quotas" to prefer minority students under the challenged program deprived non-minority students of equal protection. This court unanimously rejected the "racial quotas" argument of the government and affirmed the district court's entering of the consent decree.
Within thirty days after the district court entered the proposed consent decree in August of 1984, the private plaintiffs filed protective motions for attorney's fees and costs under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1988. The motions asserted that the private plaintiffs were "prevailing parties" under Sec. 1988 and were entitled to fees and costs. In February of 1987, the district court asked the parties to brief the question whether Sec. 1988 fees and costs could be awarded against the United States, noting that the government's unsuccessful appeal had "caused a lot of people ... to spend a lot of time and effort and energy and incur a lot of costs." Soon thereafter, the Richardson and McGinnis intervenors as well as the State of Tennessee filed requests for attorney's fees and costs against the United States. On September 16, 1987, the United States filed a memorandum denying all fee liability based on Christiansburg Garment Co. v. E.E.O.C., 434 U.S. 412, 98 S.Ct. 694, 54 L.Ed.2d 648 (1978), claiming that attorney's fees could not be awarded against it as a civil rights plaintiff unless its action was "frivilous, unreasonable and without foundation." The government argued that its opposition to the consent decree fell far short of the Christiansburg standard and, therefore, the government was not liable under Sec. 1988 for fees and costs.
On October 27, 1987, the district court concluded that Christiansburg did not apply in the case before the court and awarded fees against the government. On January 15, 1988, the United States filed a timely notice of appeal from the district court's order.
We review as a question of law whether attorney's fees and costs under Sec. 1988 may be awarded against the United States, an intervenor, who has objected to a consent decree approved by the district court, the substance of which the United States originally supported.
The district court correctly held that the Equal Access to Justice Act, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2412(b) (1982), and 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1988, operate together to permit the district court in its discretion to award reasonable attorney's fees against the United States to a prevailing party. 1 The Supreme Court in Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983), stated that a "prevailing party" under Sec. 1988 is one who "succeeds on any significant issue which achieves some of the benefits plaintiffs sought in bringing suit." Id. at 433, 103 S.Ct. at 1939. The Supreme Court noted that the definition of a prevailing party is "a generous formulation that brings the plaintiff only across the statutory threshold." Id. at 433, 103 S.Ct. at 1939. In Hewitt v. Helms, 482 U.S. 755, 107 S.Ct. 2672, 96 L.Ed.2d 654 (1987), the Court stated that a plaintiff must receive at least "some relief on the merits of his claim before he can be said to prevail." Id. at 2675. The court noted in Helms that:
It is settled law, of course, that relief need not be judicially decreed in order to justify a fee award under Sec. 1988. A law suit sometimes produces voluntary action by the defendant that affords the plaintiff all or some of the relief he sought through a judgment.... When that occurs, the plaintiff is deemed to have prevailed despite the absence of a formal judgment in his favor. A party may obtain relief through judicial resolution or pronouncement or its equivalent. The focus is on the settling of some dispute which affects the behavior of the defendant towards the plaintiff. The equivalency doctrine is simply an acknowledgment of the primacy of the redress over the means by which it is obtained.
Under Hensley and Helms, the private plaintiffs and the State of Tennessee are prevailing parties. Both were aligned against the United States when the United States challenged the consent decree. The private plaintiffs and the State of Tennessee prevailed against the attempt of the United States to restrict the scope of relief available to them under the consent decree. This circuit in Geier v. Alexander, 801 F.2d 799 (6th Cir.1986), settled the dispute between the private plaintiffs, the State of Tennessee and the United States over the scope and content of the consent decree in favor of the private plaintiffs and the State of Tennessee. Such favorable relief granted to the private plaintiffs and the State of Tennessee has enabled the original plaintiffs, private intervening plaintiffs, and the State of Tennessee to finally begin the implementation of a program to eliminate the residual effects of de jure segregation in Tennessee's higher education system--clearly a goal which Congress intended to accomplish under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983. As the Supreme Court noted in Hensley, the test to determine whether a party is a prevailing plaintiff and, therefore, can cross the statutory threshold of Sec. 1988 and...
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