National Black Police Ass'n v. District of Columbia Bd. of Elections and Ethics

• Decision Date: 05 March 1999
• Docket Number: 98-7177,Nos. 98-7120,s. 98-7120
• Citation: 168 F.3d 525
• Parties: NATIONAL BLACK POLICE ASSOCIATION, et al., Appellees, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BOARD OF ELECTIONS AND ETHICS, et al., Appellants. D.C. Statehood Party, Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

Page 525

168 F.3d 525

335 U.S.App.D.C. 17

NATIONAL BLACK POLICE ASSOCIATION, et al., Appellees, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BOARD OF ELECTIONS AND ETHICS, et al Appellants D.C. Statehood Party, Appellees.

Nos. 98-7120, 98-7177.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued Feb. 12, 1999.

Decided March 5, 1999.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 94cv01476).

Edward Schwab, Assistant Corporation Counsel, argued the cause for appellants. With him on the briefs were John M. Ferren, Corporation Counsel, and Charles L. Reischel, Deputy Corporation Counsel.

Thomas J. Judge argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief were Daniel J. Standish, Lisa A. Burns, Arthur B. Spitzer and Lawrence H. Mirel.

Before: WILLIAMS, SENTELLE and GARLAND, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge SENTELLE.

SENTELLE, Circuit Judge:

The District of Columbia appeals an award of attorney's fees to the National Black Police Association and associated plaintiffs (collectively the "NBPA") who won an injunction against a D.C. citizen initiative capping campaign contributions to candidates for D.C. Mayor, City Council, and Board of Education. In the litigation resulting in the fee award, the district court held that the contribution limits improperly infringed on the free speech of candidates and the free association rights of contributors in violation of the First Amendment. The District argues that the victory won by the plaintiffs was de minimis, and that the more than $619,000 in fees awarded was so disproportionate to the value of the victory, measured in campaign contributions, as to amount to an abuse of discretion. We disagree. First Amendment freedoms are neither so amenable to financial measurement nor so easily discounted as the District would have us believe. For the reasons stated below, we uphold the district court's award of attorney's fees.

I. BACKGROUND

The history of this litigation is recounted in detail in our prior opinion in this case, National Black Police Association v. District of Columbia, 108 F.3d 346, 348-49 (D.C.Cir.1997), and we repeat here only so much as is needed to explain our decision. The citizen initiative, the D.C. Campaign Contributions Limitation Initiative of 1992 ("Initiative 41") (codified at D.C.Code § 1-1441), prohibited contributions of more than $100 to any candidate for Mayor, D.C. Council Chairman, or at-large Council member, and $50 for any ward council member or Board of Education candidate. It also prohibited any contributor from giving more than $600 to all candidates in any election. The overall cap did not apply to contributions made to initiative, referendum or recall measures. D.C. Law 9-204, D.C.Code § 1-1441.1, amended by D.C. Law 11-144, 43 D.C.Reg. 2174 (1996). The initiative, popularly known as Initiative 41, took effect March 17, 1993. In February 1994, less than a year after Initiative 41 passed, Council Member Jack Evans introduced a bill that would have reinstated the campaign limits in place prior to Initiative 41. See Jonetta Rose Barras, Campaign Limits Face Repeal, WASH. TIMES , Mar. 11, 1994, at C6. The proponents of the initiative made it clear that they would again go to the polls to reinstate the contribution limits if the Council passed Evans's legislation. See Statement of Donna F. Edwards, Executive Director, Center for a New Democracy, April 20, 1994, Appendix II at 10. The bill ultimately failed.

The appellees, five individual and four organizational plaintiffs, filed suit on July 6, 1994, challenging the campaign finance contribution limits on First and Fifth Amendment grounds, and as a violation of the Home Rule Charter, seeking an injunction against the contribution limits. The district court denied preliminary injunctive relief, and tried the case over a five-day period in February 1996. Prior to trial, Council Member Harold Brazil introduced another bill designed to raise Initiative 41's limits. The Council vote approving the bill came after the close of trial, but before the district court issued its injunction.

On March 5, 1996, and again on April 2, 1996, the Council voted in favor of the Brazil bill. On April 18, 1996, Mayor Marion Barry signed the legislation repealing the citizen initiative, and the thirty-day waiting period for congressional review of city ordinances began to run. The District is required to submit Council-enacted laws to Congress for a thirty-day period that excludes Saturdays, Sundays, holidays, and days when Congress is in recess or not in session; a law will only take effect if Congress does not enact a joint resolution of disapproval during the thirty-day period. D.C.Code § 1-233(c)(1) (Supp.1998). The new campaign legislation increased Initiative 41's campaign ceilings so that the limits became $2,000 for mayoral candidates, $1,500 for Council Chairman candidates, $1,000 for at-large Council member candidates, $500 for ward Council member candidates and at large Board of Education candidates, and $200 for ward Board of Education member candidates, and raised the total cap on contributions in a given election to $8,500. D.C. Law 11-144, 43 D.C.Reg. 2174, 2174-75 (1996).

On April 19, 1996, ¹ the district court issued an injunction on the grounds that the limitations unconstitutionally infringed the free speech rights of candidates and the free association rights of contributors. See National Black Police Ass'n v. District of Columbia Bd. of Elections and Ethics, 924 F.Supp. 270 (D.D.C.1996), judgment vacated, 108 F.3d 346 (D.C.Cir.1997). Fifty-two days later, on June 13, 1996, the new legislation repealing the contribution limits became effective after the thirty-day period for congressional review. The District appealed, initially supporting the initiative as constitutional, then changing its position after the Brazil bill passed and asked that the judgment be vacated as moot. We agreed and the judgment in the case was vacated as moot because the District of Columbia had passed the new ordinance. See National Black Police Ass'n, 108 F.3d at 347-48.

On May 27, 1998, the district court issued an order awarding the NBPA $544,325.85 in attorney's fees and $41,327 in costs for litigating the case, and on July 17, 1998, issued an order awarding appellees $31,413.15 in attorney's fees and $2,765.87 in costs for litigating the attorney's fees request. The total of the two awards is $619,831.87. The court held that the plaintiffs/appellees were the prevailing parties despite the eventual mootness of the case because there was an enforceable judgment against the District during the thirty-day congressional review period, which expired June 13, 1996. During that period, it held, the injunction changed the legal relationship of the parties, and contributors were able to make substantial contributions that otherwise would not have been legal.

The District now appeals the award of attorney's fees on the grounds that the appellees either were not a prevailing party within the meaning of the statute, or in the alternative that their victory was de minimis, and thus it was an abuse of discretion to award the attorney's fees when the benefit to the plaintiffs was so disproportionate to the fee award. Specifically, they argue that because the injunction was granted against a repealed statute, and the judgment was ultimately vacated, the fact that the appellants did achieve a victory limited to the congressional review period was insufficient to support the award of more than $600,000 in attorney's fees. Finally, they argue that the unfettered exercise of political speech during a period when there were no campaign contribution limits is harmful, and thus weighs in favor of overturning the fee award. We consider these arguments in turn.

II. PREVAILING PARTY

42 U.S.C. § 1988(b) provides: "In any action or proceeding to enforce a provision of section[ ] 1983 ... of this title ... 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." The Supreme Court stated the basic test for prevailing party status in Farrar v. Hobby, 506 U.S. 103, 111-12, 113 S.Ct. 566, 121 L.Ed.2d 494 (1992).

[T]o qualify as a prevailing party, a civil rights plaintiff must obtain at least some relief on the merits of his claim. The plaintiff must obtain an enforceable judgment against the defendant from whom fees are sought, or comparable relief through a consent decree or settlement. Whatever relief the plaintiff secures must directly benefit him at the time of the judgment or settlement.... In short, a plaintiff "prevails" when actual relief on the merits of his claim materially alters the legal relationship between the parties by modifying the defendant's behavior in a way that directly benefits the plaintiff.

Id. (citations omitted).

The District argues that the plaintiffs are not entitled to attorney's fees because their victories are "purely symbolic," technical and de minimis. Initiative 41 had already been repealed when the injunction issued, and the injunction was effective for only 52 days. The fact that a panel of this court has already found the case moot on appeal, they argue, proves that the District had already supplied any relief to which the plaintiffs might be entitled. The District first relies on Rhodes v. Stewart, 488 U.S. 1, 109 S.Ct. 202, 102 L.Ed.2d 1 (1988). In Rhodes, two plaintiffs were complaining individually about their treatment in prison and seeking injunctive relief. Before the court entered judgment, one plaintiff had died and the other had been released from prison. Id. at 2, 109 S.Ct. 202. The court denied any award of fees. Id. at 4, 109 S.Ct. 202. The District argues that Rhodes establishes that a plaintiff is not a prevailing party where the litigation becomes moot. But Rhodes is not controlling in the present case. The judgment entered in...