Preston v. Thompson

• Decision Date: 29 March 1983
• Docket Number: 78 C 3006.,No. 78 C 3512,78 C 3512
• Citation: 565 F. Supp. 294
• Parties: Henry PRESTON, et al., Plaintiffs, v. James THOMPSON, et al., Defendants. PRISONERS OF PONTIAC, et al., Plaintiffs, v. James THOMPSON, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois

565 F. Supp. 294

Henry PRESTON, et al., Plaintiffs, v. James THOMPSON, et al., Defendants.

PRISONERS OF PONTIAC, et al., Plaintiffs, v. James THOMPSON, et al., Defendants.

Nos. 78 C 3512, 78 C 3006.

United States District Court, N.D. Illinois, E.D.

March 29, 1983.

G. Flint Taylor, Jr., Chicago, Ill., Jan Susler, Carbondale, Ill., David Thomas, Shelley Bannister, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiffs.

Patricia J. Bornor, Legal Counsel, Illinois Dept. of Corrections, Chicago, Ill., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

PRENTICE H. MARSHALL, District Judge.

These actions arose from "deadlocks" imposed by Illinois corrections officials at the Pontiac and Stateville prisons immediately following a violent disturbance by Pontiac inmates in July 1978. In Prisoners of Pontiac Correctional Center v. Thompson, No. 78 C 3006 (N.D.Ill. filed July 27, 1978), plaintiffs challenged the loss of attorney — inmate contact caused by the deadlocks. In late July 1978, former district judge John Powers Crowley granted plaintiffs' request for a temporary restraining order requiring defendants to permit Pontiac inmates to meet with their lawyers. After several more weeks of the deadlocks, Preston v. Thompson, No. 78 C 3512 (N.D.Ill. filed August 31, 1978) was filed, and the second phase of the litigation began. In Preston, plaintiffs challenged the continued maintenance of the deadlocks. After holding protracted evidentiary hearings, Judge Crowley granted extensive preliminary injunctive relief. The scope of this relief is described in Preston v. Thompson, 589 F.2d 300 (7th Cir.1978), in which the court of appeals affirmed the preliminary injunctive order.

Through 1979, 1980, and early 1981, Judge Crowley monitored defendants' compliance with the preliminary injunction. The injunction was made final on June 30, 1981, Judge Crowley's last day on the bench. Preston v. Thompson, No. 78 C 3512 (N.D.Ill. June 30, 1981). The final order awarded plaintiffs' attorneys $101,000 in attorney's fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 (1976 & Supp. IV 1980). This award was affirmed by the court of appeals in an unpublished order. Preston v. Thompson, 681 F.2d 821 (7th Cir.1982).

On June 17, 1982, plaintiffs moved this court for a "turnover order" requiring defendants to pay the $101,000 in attorney's fees, $3,322.73 in costs awarded by Judge Crowley, and post judgment interest that had accrued since June 30, 1981.¹ In response to that motion, defendants agreed that they would stipulate to the principal amount of the judgment if plaintiffs would agree to pursue payment in the Illinois Court of Claims rather than in this court. Plaintiffs agreed, and a stipulated complaint was filed in the Illinois Court of Claims on June 23, 1982. That court acted promptly. On June 25, 1982, it entered judgment in the amount of $104,322.73. Pursuant to the procedure normally followed in Illinois when the Court of Claims approves an award against the state,² the award was included in a special appropriations bill, and the General Assembly approved it on July 2, 1982. Governor Thompson signed the bill on September 12, 1982, and plaintiffs' attorneys received a check in the mail on September 30. Thus, approximately four months passed from the date the court of appeals affirmed Judge Crowley's order to the date on which plaintiffs' attorneys were paid.

What remains to be decided is the question of interest on the attorney's fees award. As noted above, plaintiffs' June 17, 1982 motion for a "turnover order" included post-judgment interest on Judge Crowley's award. Defendants refused to stipulate to this interest in the Court of Claims. At the hearing on plaintiffs' motion for a turnover order, held on June 24, 1982, the following exchange occurred:³

MR. TAYLOR plaintiffs' attorney: ... we are in conflict, and the other side would not agree to stipulate to it in the Court of Claims or to concede, that six percent interest per annum as provided by the statute is due and payable.

THE COURT: Which statute?

MR. TAYLOR: Illinois Revised, I believe it's 74(3), and also under 28 U.S.C. 1961, both of which we interpret as mandatory interest provisions and, of course, Bonner v. Coughlin as well.

MS. BORNOR defendants' attorney: Should that interest issue, though, be raised before a court, either before the Seventh Circuit, as there is no remand yet, or before a District Court, we would request the opportunity to brief that issue as there are Illinois Supreme Court cases construing Illinois law to say that interest indeed would not apply or may not apply to a governmental entity. So we would simply request a briefing on that.

MR. TAYLOR: So we got the supremacy clause right back at us again.

After that hearing, plaintiffs apparently persisted in their attempt to obtain defendants' agreement to stipulate to the interest in the Court of Claims. See Plaintiffs' Renewed Motion for a Turnover Order on the Issue of Interest, Ex. A (July 12, 1982 letter from plaintiffs' counsel to defendants' counsel). They state that defendants refused to pay.

While defendants admit that they have not paid the interest claimed by plaintiffs, defendants object to plaintiffs' characterization of their nonpayment as a "refusal." Defendants note that both Judge Crowley's order awarding fees and the court of appeals' order affirming the district court were silent on the issue of interest, and that no authority in this circuit exists on the question whether plaintiffs' attorneys are entitled to interest on an award of fees against the state. They assert that they "have not refused to comply with a court order but rather have challenged, under the circumstances of this case, plaintiffs' entitlement to an award of interest." Defendants' Memorandum in Opposition to Plaintiffs' Renewed Motion for a Turnover Order on the Issue of Interest at 2. Defendants characterize the issue here as whether plaintiffs are entitled to interest on the attorney's fees award, not whether plaintiffs are entitled to enforcement of an existing order to pay the interest. We must address plaintiffs' entitlement to interest before we can reach the question of collection.

Defendants argue first that because neither the district court's judgment nor the court of appeals' order mentioned interest, interest was not meant to be awarded. The federal statute governing interest on judgments is, however, phrased in mandatory terms: "Interest shall be allowed on any money judgment in a civil case recovered in a district court." 28 U.S.C. § 1961(a) (1976). It has long been the law that post judgment interest is mandatory; indeed, a judgment holder is entitled to interest even if interest is not mentioned in the judgment. Moore-McCormack Lines, Inc. v. Amirault, 202 F.2d 893, 895 (1st Cir.1953); Blair v. Durham, 139 F.2d 260, 261 (6th Cir.1943); White v. Bloomberg, 360 F.Supp. 58, 63 (D.Md.1973), aff'd, 501 F.2d 1379 (4th Cir.1974). Defendants cannot prevail, therefore, unless an award of attorney's fees under § 1988 is somehow different from other monetary awards.

Every reported case to address the issue has held that interest is available on an award of attorney's fees under § 1988.⁴ See Spain v. Mountanos, 690 F.2d 742, 747-48 (9th Cir.1982); Morrow v. Finch, 642 F.2d 823, 826 (5th Cir.1981); Gates v. Collier, 616 F.2d 1268, 1272-79 (5th Cir.1980); Robideau v. O'Brien, 525 F.Supp. 878, 880 (E.D.Mich.1981); Wells v. Hutchinson, 499 F.Supp. 174, 212 n. 54 (E.D.Tex.1980); Johnson v. Summer, 488 F.Supp. 83, 85-88 (N.D.Miss.1980); McPherson v. School District, 465 F.Supp. 749, 765 (S.D.Ill.1978). See also Glover v. Johnson, 531 F.Supp. 1036, 1045-57 (E.D.Mich.1982) (interest available but not mandatory). It is our view that allowing interest on attorney's fees awards is necessary to fulfill § 1988's purpose of effective enforcement of the nation's civil rights laws. One of the acknowledged aims of Congress in passing § 1988 was to encourage private actions to enforce civil rights statutes in cases such as this one where the appropriate relief is injunctive rather than monetary. The Senate Report quoted with approval the following language from Newman v. Piggie Park, 390 U.S. 400, 402, 88 S.Ct. 964, 966, 19 L.Ed.2d 1263 (1968):

When a plaintiff brings an action under Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000a-3(a) (1976) he cannot recover damages. If he obtains an injunction, he does so not for himself alone but also as a "private attorney general," vindicating a policy that Congress considered of the highest priority. If successful plaintiffs were routinely forced to bear their own attorneys' fees, few aggrieved parties would be in a position to advance the public interest by invoking the injunctive powers of the federal courts. Congress therefore enacted the provision for counsel fees 42 U.S.C. § 2000a-3(b) (1976) to encourage individuals injured by racial discrimination to seek judicial relief under Title II.

S.Rep. No. 94-1011, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. (1976), reprinted in 1976 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News 5908, 5910. Similar views were expressed during the floor debates on the legislation by Congressman Seiberling, the original sponsor of the bill:

If the law does not authorize the awarding of attorney's fees in meritorious civil rights cases, many potential plaintiffs will be deterred from bringing deserving cases to remedy violations of the Constitution, especially those cases in which the appropriate relief is primarily equitable or injunctive rather than monetary.

122 Cong.Rec. H 12165 (daily ed. Oct. 1, 1976).

As noted by the Fifth Circuit in Gates v. Collier, 616 F.2d 1268 (5th Cir. 1980), "it must be understood that the awarding of interest is in no sense a windfall. Because a dollar today is worth more than a dollar in the future, `the only way a party can be made whole is to award him interest from the time he should have received the money.'" Id. at 1276 (quoting Louisiana & Arkansas Ry. Co. v. Export Drum Co., 359 F.2d 311,...