Roberson v. Giuliani

• Decision Date: 30 September 2003
• Docket Number: No. 02-7306.,02-7306.
• Citation: 346 F.3d 75
• Parties: Micheline ROBERSON, Gladys Dobelle, Martin Smith and Ned Buskirk, on their own behalf and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Rudolph GIULIANI, as Mayor of the City of New York and Jason Turner, as Commissioner of the New York City Department of Social Services, Defendants-Appellees, Brian J. WING, as Commissioner of the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance and Antonia Novello, as Commissioner of the New York State Department of Health, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

346 F.3d 75

Micheline ROBERSON, Gladys Dobelle, Martin Smith and Ned Buskirk, on their own behalf and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Rudolph GIULIANI, as Mayor of the City of New York and Jason Turner, as Commissioner of the New York City Department of Social Services, Defendants-Appellees, Brian J. WING, as Commissioner of the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance and Antonia Novello, as Commissioner of the New York State Department of Health, Defendants.

No. 02-7306.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Argued: November 1, 2002.

Decided: September 30, 2003.

RANDAL S. JEFFREY, New York Legal Assistance Group, New York, NY, (Yisroel Schulman, on the brief), for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

CAROLINE M. BROWN, Corporation Counsel of the City of New York, New York, N.Y. (Michael A. Cardozo, Kristin M. Helmers and Helen P. Brown, on the brief), for Defendants-Appellees.

(Ellen M. Yacknin, Greater Upstate Law Project, Inc., Rochester, NY, for Amicus Curiae Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, Center for Battered Women's Legal Services at Sanctuary for Families, Greater Upstate Law Project, Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation, Partnership for the Homeless, Public Interest Law Office of Rochester, Urban Justice Center, Welfare

Law Center, in support of Plaintiffs-Appellants.)

Before: FEINBERG, CARDAMONE, and SACK, Circuit Judges.

FEINBERG, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiffs-appellants appeal from a February 2002 order of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Cote, J.) denying their motion for attorney's fees in this action brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The sole issue on appeal is whether plaintiffs may be considered a "prevailing party" under the applicable fee-shifting statute where they resolved their dispute with defendants through a private settlement agreement over which the district court retained enforcement jurisdiction. For reasons stated below, we hold that on the record before us the court's retention of jurisdiction carried sufficient judicial approval of the settlement agreement to support an award of attorney's fees. We therefore vacate the district court's order and remand for further proceedings.

I. Background

In October 1999, plaintiffs filed this § 1983 class action against (1) the Mayor of the City of New York and the Commissioner of the New York City Department of Social Services (collectively, "City defendants"), and (2) the Commissioner of the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance and the Commissioner of the New York State Department of Health (collectively, "State defendants"). In seven separate claims, plaintiffs challenged defendants' policies regarding the disposition of applications for food stamps, Medicaid and public assistance benefits based on recommendations of the Eligibility Verification Review ("EVR") Offices of the New York City Human Resources Administration ("HRA"). In June 2000, City defendants were granted summary judgment on plaintiffs' first claim, which alleged that the City's system for investigating joint applications for food stamps and public assistance violated federal law.

Subsequently, plaintiffs and City defendants entered into a settlement agreement (the "Agreement") that resolved plaintiffs' remaining six claims. In the Agreement, City defendants denied any liability arising out of plaintiffs' allegations but agreed to various changes in the way future benefits claims would be handled. The district court described City defendants' obligations under the Agreement as follows:

Those undertakings were numerous and included that they would adopt a Medicaid determination management protocol which would require them to use an HRA computer program to track when Medicaid determinations are required to be made, give applicants for immediate cash grants additional written advice about certain EVR procedures, schedule EVR office interviews the day following receipt of certain applications, develop a log to track rescheduled EVR interviews, modify notices sent to schedule EVR home and office visits, computerize information reflecting a denial of benefits for a failure to provide truthful information, revise the notices sent to applicants when their requests for aid are denied, issue policy directives regarding a number of procedures and carry out those policies, tabulate bi-monthly the number of applications denied for failure to provide truthful information, adopt a method to insure that an applicant's food stamps will not be discontinued without the appropriate notice, modify their system for auditing compliance with the regulations concerning immediate cash grants and food stamps, make available to plaintiffs' counsel on a monthly basis a multitude of documents concerning the EVR process, and appoint a contact to investigate promptly and report back to plaintiffs' counsel in response to issues that plaintiffs' counsel may raise about compliance with the terms of the Agreement. Most of these commitments were made for a period of twenty-four months following the discontinuance of the action.

In consideration for the above promises, plaintiffs agreed to dismiss all outstanding claims against City defendants and release them from all liability arising out of the allegations in the complaint. The Agreement also provided that it "shall not become effective if the Order of Discontinuance in the above-captioned action does not include a provision retaining jurisdiction over enforcement." In addition, the Agreement provided, "The issue of plaintiffs' entitlement to an award of attorneys' fees and costs and disbursements is reserved for later determination upon application to the Court...."

In June 2001, plaintiffs submitted to the district court an order dismissing their claims against City defendants and requested the court to sign it.¹ A copy of the Agreement was provided to the court as part of the request. A week later, the plaintiffs and City defendants executed a Stipulation and Order of Discontinuance (the "dismissal Order"), which acknowledged that the parties had entered into a settlement agreement and dismissed plaintiffs' claims with prejudice as to City defendants.² The dismissal Order also provided, "This Court shall retain jurisdiction over the settlement agreement for enforcement purposes." The Agreement, however, was not otherwise incorporated into the dismissal Order.

In September 2001, plaintiffs moved for $140,060.25 in attorney's fees and costs pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988, which 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." City defendants opposed the motion on the grounds that (1) plaintiffs were not prevailing parties in the underlying action and (2) even if considered prevailing parties, plaintiffs' itemized account of fees included many non-compensable items. After thoroughly examining the Supreme Court's recent decision in Buckhannon Bd. & Care Home, Inc. v. W. Va. Dep't of Health & Human Res., 532 U.S. 598, 121 S.Ct. 1835, 149 L.Ed.2d 855 (2001), the district court denied plaintiffs' motion on the ground that plaintiffs were not prevailing parties under the standard announced by the Supreme Court in that case. This appeal followed.

II. Discussion

As noted above, 42 U.S.C. § 1988 grants the district court explicit authority to award attorney's fees to a "prevailing party" in an action brought under § 1983. Where, as here, an appellant contends that the district court committed an error of law in ruling on an award of attorney's fees, we review that ruling de novo. Baker v. Health Mgmt. Sys., Inc., 264 F.3d 144, 149 (2d Cir.2001). We have jurisdiction over this appeal under the "collateral order" doctrine articulated in Cohen v. Beneficial Indus. Loan Corp., 337 U.S 541, 69 S.Ct. 1221, 93 L.Ed. 1528 (1949). See McGill v. Sec'y of Health & Hum. Servs., 712 F.2d 28, 29-30 (2d Cir.1983) (award of attorney's fees falls within the "collateral order" doctrine).

Generally, the Supreme Court has given a "generous formulation" to the term prevailing party, stating that plaintiffs may be entitled to attorney's fees "if they succeed on any significant issue in litigation which achieves some of the benefit the parties sought in bringing suit." Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 433, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983) (internal quotation marks omitted). However, the Court recently took a somewhat more restrictive approach in its 2001 Buckhannon decision.³

A. The Buckhannon Opinion

In October 1997, the plaintiffs in Buckhannon brought suit against the State of West Virginia and twenty other defendants seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. The lawsuit claimed that a provision of the West Virginia code requiring all residents of residential board and care homes to be capable of "self-preservation" violated federal law.⁴ After the parties began discovery, the West Virginia Legislature eliminated the self-preservation provision and the district court dismissed the case as moot. Thereafter, plaintiffs sought attorney's fees as a prevailing party on the ground that their lawsuit was the "catalyst" in forcing the defendants to change the law. Although most circuit courts at the time recognized this "catalyst theory" as one way plaintiffs could become prevailing parties, the district court rejected plaintiffs' argument and the Fourth Circuit affirmed.

In Buckhannon the Supreme Court considered whether a plaintiff could be a prevailing party under what was termed the "catalyst theory." As described by the Court, the catalyst theory posits that "a plaintiff is a `prevailing party' if it achieves the desired result because the lawsuit brought about a voluntary change in the defendant's conduct." 532...