Lackey v. Stinnie, 604 U.S. ___ (2025)

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

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No. 23–621

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GERALD F. LACKEY, in his official capacity as THE COMMISSIONER OF THE VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF MOTOR VEHICLES, PETITIONER v. DAMIAN STINNIE, et al.

on writ of certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the fourth circuit

[February 25, 2025]

Justice Jackson, with whom Justice Sotomayor joins, dissenting.

Congress has authorized courts to award attorney’s fees to the “prevailing party” in certain civil rights cases. 42 U. S. C. §1988(b). Today, the Court holds that a plaintiff who secures a preliminary injunction does not “prevail” under this fee-shifting statute, even when the preliminary injunction provides meaningful relief and is never reversed on the merits. The Court maintains that this holding “follows naturally from” our precedents. Ante, at 9. But that will come as a surprise to the eleven Courts of Appeals that have previously considered this issue; all of them agree that at least some preliminary injunctions trigger fee eligibility under §1988(b).

Stated simply, the majority’s categorical preclusion of fee awards for any plaintiff who successfully obtains preliminary injunctive relief is unwarranted. It lacks any basis in the text of §1988(b) and is plainly inconsistent with that statutory provision’s clear objective, which is to encourage attorneys to file civil rights actions on behalf of the most vulnerable people in our society. The Court has now eliminated fee eligibility for all preliminary injunctions—even those that effectively resolve the case. But if Congress had meant for “prevailing party” status to hinge entirely on the “conclusive” nature of a judicial order, it could easily have said so. It is the role of Congress, not this Court, to weigh concerns about administrative ease against the benefits of guaranteeing individuals an opportunity to vindicate their civil rights.

There is no persuasive reason to believe that Congress meant to preclude fee awards for every plaintiff who secures preliminary injunctive relief but not a final judgment, no matter the context. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.

I

A

Nothing in §1988(b)’s text compels the conclusion that a plaintiff who obtains preliminary injunctive relief is never eligible for a fee award. Section 1988(b) states simply that, in actions to enforce certain civil rights statutes, including 42 U. S. C. §1983, “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.” §1988(b). The majority recognizes that “prevailing party” is a legal term of art and begins its analysis by asserting that this term means what legal dictionaries said it meant at the time that §1988(b) was enacted.

According to the majority’s preferred dictionary, a “prevailing party” is one “ ‘who successfully prosecutes the action or successfully defends against it.’ ” Ante, at 5 (quoting Black’s Law Dictionary 1352 (rev. 4th ed. 1968)). Thus, prevailing party status turns on “ ‘whether, at the end of the suit, or other proceeding, the party who has made a claim against the other, has successfully maintained it.’ ” Ante, at 6 (quoting Black’s Law Dictionary, at 1352). Reasoning from this definition, the majority holds that preliminary injunctions, which provide interim relief by their nature, can never confer prevailing party status because they do not “conclusively resolve the rights of parties on the merits.” Ante, at 7.

But the majority’s analysis inexplicably conflates the requirement for success when the suit ends (which is what the dictionary definition says) with a requirement that the suit end by virtue of a “conclusive” judicial ruling on the merits of the plaintiff ’s claims (which is nowhere in Black’s Law Dictionary or anywhere else). In other words, the majority’s reasoning elides the fact that a suit can end in various ways—including through acts of the defendant or others that moot the legal action. Black’s Law Dictionary and its contemporaries simply require a court determining eligibility for a fee award to take stock of where things stand at the end of the lawsuit. A prevailing party for §1988(b) purposes is one who has successfully maintained his claim (in the manner I describe below, see Part II–A, infra) “when the matter is finally set at rest.” Black’s Law Dictionary, at 1352.

In essence, then, the majority errs by assuming that the only kind of resolution to a suit that can precipitate a fee award is a “conclusive” final judgment on the merits. See, e.g., ante, at 6–7, 9, 12. That assumption is unfounded. The text of the fee statute does not require a final judgment in the party’s favor, “conclusive” or otherwise. Nor does any dictionary definition of “prevailing party” to which the majority cites. Rather, according to Black’s Law Dictionary, a “prevailing party” is simply a “part[y] to a suit who successfully prosecutes the action or successfully defends against it, prevailing on the main issue, even though not to the extent of his original contention.” Black’s Law Dictionary, at 1352. Ballentine’s Law Dictionary is substantially similar; it defines “prevailing party” as “[t]he party who is successful or partially successful in an action, so as to be entitled to costs.” Ballentine’s Law Dictionary 985 (3d ed. 1969).

Significantly for present purposes, both dictionaries further emphasize that “[t]o be [a prevailing party] does not depend upon the degree of success at different stages of the suit, but whether, at the end of the suit . . . the party who has made a claim against the other, has successfully maintained it.” Black’s Law Dictionary, at 1352; accord, Ballentine’s Law Dictionary, at 985. Yet, today, the majority demands that, in order to prevail, the party must have achieved a certain degree of success at a certain point in the case: a conclusive final judgment in his favor at the end of litigation.

B

This Court has not previously linked prevailing party status to securing a conclusive final judgment. Quite to the contrary, we have held that a prevailing party for fee- shifting purposes is one who has “succeeded on any significant claim affording it some of the relief sought, either pendente lite”—i.e., pending the suit—“or at the conclusion of the litigation.” Texas State Teachers Assn. v. Garland Independent School Dist., 489 U.S. 782, 791 (1989). That is, a plaintiff prevails when he accomplishes his lawsuit’s “objectiv[e],” which is to achieve “a material alteration in the legal relationship between the parties.” CRST Van Expedited, Inc. v. EEOC, 578 U.S. 419, 431 (2016). This is because, for a plaintiff, “[a]t the end of the rainbow lies not a judgment, but some action (or cessation of action) by the defendant that the judgment produces—the payment of damages, or some specific performance, or the termination of some conduct.” Hewitt v. Helms, 482 U.S. 755, 761 (1987).

A plaintiff who secures a preliminary injunction awarding actual relief on the merits of his claim that is never reversed by a final decision of the court has “successfully maintained” his claim “at the end.” Black’s Law Dictionary, at 1352. Such a plaintiff has achieved what he has “come to court” for—the desired “alteration in the legal relationship between the parties.” CRST, 578 U. S., at 431.[1]

Take this case, for example. At the point it ended—when the District Court dismissed the litigation as moot—respondents had secured a preliminary injunction against the Commissioner of the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles. That order enabled respondents to drive their cars on Virginia’s highways for sixteen months, over the Commissioner’s objection. And, because the District Court’s interim award had facilitated respondents’ access to the road as licensed drivers, they had prevailed on the merits of their claim in every meaningful sense. Put another way, “at the end of the litigation,” respondents did not “leav[e] the courthouse emptyhanded.” Sole v. Wyner, 551 U.S. 74, 78 (2007). Instead, they departed having accomplished exactly what they had sought to achieve. The fact that respondents achieved their goal via a preliminary court ruling, as opposed to a final judgment, is irrelevant, for “[n]othing in the language of §1988 conditions the District Court’s power to award fees on full litigation of the issues or on a judicial determination that the plaintiff ’s rights have been violated.” Maher v. Gagne, 448 U.S. 122, 129 (1980) (emphasis added).

Juxtapose that reality with the text of other statutes that make “prevailing party” status expressly dependent on the entry of a final order. For example, the Emergency School Aid Act of 1972—enacted just four years before §1988(b)— states that, “[u]pon the entry of a final order,” a court hearing a school desegregation case may “allow the prevailing party, other than the United States, a reasonable attorney’s fee as part of the costs.” 20 U. S. C. §1617 (repealed) (emphasis added). Several statutes enacted after §1988(b) are similarly explicit about when a fee award must be fastened to a final judgment. See, e.g., 28 U. S. C. §2412(d)(2)(H) (defining “prevailing party” in eminent domain proceedings to “mea[n] a party who obtains a final judgment” of a certain amount); 15 U. S. C. §6104(d) (authorizing courts hearing actions under the Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act to award “reasonable fees . . . to the prevailing party” upon “issuing any final order”). The fact that §1988(b) lacks any such language confirms that a conclusive ruling from the court in the form of a final judgment is not a prerequisite for a fee award under that statute.

C

The majority disregards these important context clues and focuses instead on a provision of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) that authorizes fee awards for a “complainant” who “has substantially prevailed” by “obtain[ing] relief through either—(I) a judicial order, or an enforceable written agreement or consent decree; or (II) a voluntary or unilateral change in position by the agency.” 5 U. S. C. §552(a)(4)(E). The term “prevailing party” appears nowhere in this FOIA provision. But, no matter: The majority nevertheless suggests that this is how Congress authorizes fee shifting for “plaintiffs who have enjoyed some success but have not prevailed in a judgment on the merits.” Ante, at 10.

The problem is that Congress had a much more targeted objective when it enacted §552(a)(4)(E). It sought merely to repudiate this Court’s decision in Buckhannon Board & Care Home, Inc. v. West Virginia Dept. of Health and Human Resources, 532 U.S. 598, 606 (2001), which had held that a plaintiff must obtain some “judicial relief ” to be eligible for a fee award in FOIA cases.[2] Since the point of §552(a)(4)(E) was to “abrogat[e] the rule of Buckhannon in the FOIA context and reviv[e] the possibility of FOIA fee awards in the absence of a court decree,” Brayton v. Office of U. S. Trade Rep., 641 F.3d 521, 525 (CADC 2011), that statutory provision sheds no light whatsoever on whether the term “prevailing party” requires a plaintiff to secure a conclusive ruling on the merits to qualify as a prevailing party for purposes of §1988(b).

In short, while the majority insists that obtaining a preliminary injunction can never suffice for a fee award under §1988(b) “[b]ecause preliminary injunctions do not conclusively resolve the rights of parties on the merits,” ante, at 7, the text of §1988(b), contemporary dictionary definitions, and our precedents require far less. All of the Courts of Appeals to consider the question—eleven in total—understood this and thus correctly held that, for fee-shifting purposes, it is possible for a party to prevail based on a preliminary ruling.[3] The majority’s reading of “prevailing party” in §1988(b) makes obtaining a court’s conclusive final judgment the hallmark of that status in a manner that is both novel and in many ways anathema to the legal term of art that Congress actually chose.

II

A

So what does it take to qualify as a “prevailing party” for purposes of this fee-shifting statute? In Farrar v. Hobby, 506 U.S. 103 (1992), we explained that a plaintiff “ ‘prevails’ ” if he receives (1) “actual relief on the merits of his claim” in a manner that (2) “materially alters the legal relationship between the parties by modifying the defendant’s behavior in a way that directly benefits the plaintiff.” Id., at 111–112; see also Lefemine v. Wideman, 568 U.S. 1, 4 (2012) (per curiam). This test is well established, and it leads inexorably to the conclusion that, in some circumstances, an unreversed preliminary injunction can confer prevailing party status.

Start with the requirement of a “ ‘material alteration of the legal relationship of the parties,’ ” which we have repeatedly called the “ ‘touchstone’ ” of the prevailing party inquiry. Sole, 551 U. S., at 82 (quoting Garland, 489 U. S., at 792–793). A plaintiff need not obtain all of the relief he has requested in the lawsuit to satisfy this requirement. Instead, under our precedents, a plaintiff who has achieved even “ ‘some of the benefit’ ” he sought has secured the change in the parties’ legal relationship necessary to “cros[s] the threshold to a fee award of some kind.” Id., at 791–792 (quoting Nadeau v. Helgemoe, 581 F.2d 275, 278–279 (CA1 1978); emphasis added).

A permanent injunction—just like a declaratory judgment or a damages award—“will usually satisfy that test,” Lefemine, 568 U. S., at 4, because permanent injunctive relief generally “affects the behavior of the defendant toward the plaintiff,” Rhodes v. Stewart, 488 U.S. 1, 4 (1988) (per curiam). At least some preliminary injunctions also qualify. The preliminary injunction in this case, for example, provided respondents with actual relief by reinstating their suspended licenses, allowing them to drive without fear of sanction for failing to repay their fines and fees. For the roughly sixteen months that the preliminary injunction was in place, “that ruling worked the requisite material alteration in the parties’ relationship” by permitting respondents to engage in conduct that would have been prohibited otherwise. Lefemine, 568 U. S., at 5.

It is indisputable that the preliminary injunction the District Court issued provided a “direc[t] benefit” to respondents. Farrar, 506 U. S., at 111. That relief was also awarded “ ‘on the merits.’ ” Lefemine, 568 U. S., at 4 (quoting Farrar, 506 U. S., at 111–112). We have long taken a “practical” approach to the merits inquiry in this context. Hanrahan v. Hampton, 446 U.S. 754, 758 (1980) (per curiam). Under that approach, relief is granted “on the merits” when it provides “a resolution of the dispute which changes the legal relationship between [the plaintiff] and the defendant.” Garland, 489 U. S., at 792 (internal quotation marks omitted).

Notably, for prevailing party status, we have not required that a court actually determine whether a legal claim is meritorious. The majority acknowledges our holding that the entry of a consent decree following “the parties’ own resolution of the merits” counts. Ante, at 12; see Farrar, 506 U. S., at 111 (recognizing that a consent decree satisfies the requirement that the plaintiff “obtain at least some relief on the merits of his claim”). Indeed, in Maher, we upheld a fee award based on a consent decree that “did not purport to adjudicate” the plaintiff ’s claims at all. 448 U. S., at 126, n. 8, 129. We have also suggested that default judgments, which do not involve any assessment of the merits of the plaintiff ’s claims, “almost invariably give rise to fee awards.” Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 579 U.S. 197, 208, n. 3 (2016).

A court’s entry of a preliminary injunction—which does require a judge to make a preliminary assessment of the merits—provides a basis for prevailing party status that is at least as strong as a consent decree or a default judgment. Plaintiffs seeking the “extraordinary remedy” of a preliminary injunction must make a “clear showing” that they are “likely to succeed on the merits.” Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 20, 22 (2008). And the court’s decision to order preliminary injunctive relief often involves “searching” proceedings, Sole, 551 U. S., at 84, even though the “evidence . . . is less complete than in a trial on the merits,” University of Tex. v. Camenisch, 451 U.S. 390, 395 (1981).

In this case, the District Court thoroughly assessed the merits of respondents’ claims and granted their request for preliminary injunctive relief after extensive briefing and an evidentiary hearing during which multiple witnesses testified. It blinks reality to suggest that the District Court’s order requiring the Commissioner to give respondents their licenses back now—based on the court’s conclusion that respondents were likely to succeed if this matter proceeded to trial—was “not the stuff of which legal victories are made.” Hewitt, 482 U. S., at 760.

It is no answer to simply declare by ipse dixit that preliminary injunctions are materially different from consent decrees because “a consent decree is like a final judgment in the relevant ways”—i.e., “[i]t conclusively resolves the claim, bears a judicial imprimatur, and may grant enduring relief that materially alters the legal relationship between the parties.” Ante, at 12–13. The very question before us is the relevance of this kind of finality to the prevailing party determination. And, luckily, that question has already been answered: Neither the text of §1988(b) nor any of this Court’s past cases make fee eligibility dependent on the entry of a conclusive final judgment, as I explained above.

In any event, if a plaintiff need only obtain an order that is “like a final judgment” to prevail, ibid., it is not at all clear why at least some preliminary injunctions would not count. Consider, for example, a dispute in which the district court reviews the evidence and the parties’ arguments and enters the type of preliminary injunction that changes the legal relationship of the parties. The case proceeds but then becomes moot such that the litigation ends; the preliminary injunction is not—and can never be—reversed by a subsequent order of the court. In this scenario, all the purportedly “relevant” characteristics of a consent decree exist, because the parties’ legal relationship was materially altered by judicial imprimatur, and that preliminary relief is conclusive insofar as the case has ended and the ruling cannot be undone by a later determination. In this circumstance, the preliminary injunction “functions much like the grant of an irreversible partial summary judgment on the merits,” Northern Cheyenne Tribe v. Jackson, 433 F.3d 1083, 1086 (CA8 2006), which all appear to agree would suffice to confer fee eligibility under §1988(b).

B

Our decisions in Buckhannon, 532 U.S. 598, and Sole, 551 U.S. 74, are not to the contrary. The majority cites these two decisions to support its view that obtaining a preliminary injunction is never sufficient to qualify the recipient for a fee award under §1988(b). Ante, at 8–9. But those cases hold no such thing. Instead, they simply clarify that, for a plaintiff to prevail, the requisite “change in the legal relationship of the parties” must be both “judicially sanctioned,” Buckhannon, 532 U. S., at 605, and “enduring,” Sole, 551 U. S., at 86. Neither case mandates the majority’s categorical rule.

In Buckhannon, this Court rejected the so-called “catalyst theory,” under which a plaintiff could collect a fee award as a “prevailing party” without securing any judicial relief so long as the lawsuit produced “a voluntary change in the defendant’s conduct.” 532 U. S., at 601. We held that such a voluntary change, “although perhaps accomplishing what the plaintiff sought to achieve by the lawsuit, lacks the necessary judicial imprimatur on the change” to trigger fee eligibility. Id., at 605. In Sole, we considered whether a plaintiff who obtains a preliminary injunction but is subsequently denied a permanent one prevails for fee purposes under §1988(b). 551 U. S., at 77. We explained that when a plaintiff ’s “initial victory” at the preliminary injunction stage is “superseded” by a non-favorable final “ruling on the merits,” he does not qualify as a “prevailing party,” because the relief he received was not “enduring.” Id., at 84–86.

A preliminary injunction that mandates a judicially sanctioned legal change in the parties’ relationship and is never reversed by a final ruling on the merits satisfies both Buckhannon and Sole. A court that issues interim injunctive relief unquestionably gives its “judicial imprimatur” to the change afforded, as Buckhannon requires. 532 U. S., at 605. For its part, Sole stands merely for the proposition that a party can be divested of “prevailing party” status if his “success rested on a premise the District Court ultimately rejected.” 551 U. S., at 84–86. But Sole is inapposite when a subsequent final decision does not thwart the judge-sanctioned basis for the preliminary injunction. Indeed, Sole expressly said so, by specifically reserving the question “whether, in the absence of a final decision on the merits of a claim for permanent injunctive relief, success in gaining a preliminary injunction may sometimes warrant an award of counsel fees,” id., at 86—the precise issue that is before the Court today.

The majority thus overreads our precedents to support its blanket rule that preliminary injunctions can never support fee awards. Ante, at 7–9. With respect to Sole in particular, it is true that we characterized the preliminary injunction at issue there as “fleeting” and “tentative.” 551 U. S., at 83–84; see also ante, at 9 (contrasting interim relief with relief that “last[s]”). But the Sole Court did not tie the requirement for “enduring” relief to the inherent permanence of the relevant judicial order. Instead, we made crystal clear that “[o]f controlling importance to our decision” was the fact that “the eventual ruling on the merits for defendants, after both sides considered the case fit for final adjudication, superseded the preliminary ruling.” 551 U. S., at 84–85 (emphasis added); see also id., at 78 (observing that a plaintiff does not prevail if “at the end of the litigation, her initial success is undone and she leaves the courthouse emptyhanded”).

At the end of the day, Sole should be taken to mean only what it expressly holds: Preliminary injunctive relief that is subsequently superseded by a final judgment reversing the ruling does not endure for fee-shifting purposes. Here, the preliminary injunction provided actual relief to respondents for more than sixteen months, and there was no Sole-like supplanting of that preliminary relief by a subsequent court order.

III

A

In addition to misinterpreting the text of §1988(b) and misconstruing our precedents, the majority ignores Congress’s clear intent to expand access to justice. It is puzzling, to say the least, that the majority seems to go out of its way to adopt a rule that categorically prohibits fee shifting while interpreting a statute that expressly authorizes fee awards.

There is no dispute that Congress enacted §1988(b) “for a specific purpose”: to respond to this Court’s decision in Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. Wilderness Society, 421 U.S. 240 (1975), which had rejected the “former equitable practice of awarding attorney’s fees to the prevailing party in certain civil rights cases.” Farrar, 506 U. S., at 118 (O’Connor, J., concurring). The Alyeska Court held that, absent statutory authorization, courts should not depart from the “ ‘American Rule,’ ” under which litigants ordinarily bear their own attorney’s fees. 421 U. S., at 247. Congress swiftly enacted §1988(b) in Alyeska’s wake to codify a civil rights exception to the American Rule. The majority does not, and cannot, dispute that Congress’s intent was “to ensure ‘effective access to the judicial process’ for persons with civil rights grievances.” Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 429 (1983) (quoting H. R. Rep. No. 94–1558, p. 1 (1976)).

Consistent with that “clear congressional intent,” this Court has previously recognized that fee awards should be available to “partially prevailing civil rights plaintiffs.” Garland, 489 U. S., at 790. This principle is, in fact, readily apparent from the statute’s enactment history. See Buckhannon, 532 U. S., at 607. The history demonstrates that the question of awarding fees for success based on interim orders was not overlooked by the legislature; to the contrary, Congress specifically “contemplated the award of fees pendente lite,” at least where a party “has established his entitlement to some relief on the merits of his claims.” Hanrahan, 446 U. S., at 757 (citing S. Rep. No. 94–1011, p. 5 (1976); H. R. Rep. No. 94–1558, at 7–8).

The majority says that Congress merely wanted §1988(b) to authorize fee awards when “conclusive, enduring judicial relief is meted out on an incremental basis.” Ante, at 12. But that is not what the historical record establishes, and Buckhannon flatly rejects this contention. There, we specifically observed that, per §1988(b)’s legislative history, “ ‘ “prevailing party” is not intended to be limited to the victor only after entry of a final judgment following a full trial on the merits.’ ” 532 U. S., at 607 (quoting H. R. Rep. No. 94–1558, at 7); see also Hanrahan, 446 U. S., at 756–757. The legislative history is likewise unequivocal that a prevailing party for §1988(b) purposes should “also include a litigant who succeeds even if the case is concluded prior to a full evidentiary hearing before a judge or jury.” H. R. Rep. No. 94–1558, at 7.

B

Nor could a Congress that wished to authorize fee awards for civil rights victories have intended the absurdities that will result from the majority’s categorical preclusion of preliminary injunctive relief from §1988(b). To state the obvious, the majority’s bright-line rule lacks the nuance that is needed to account for the various circumstances in which a preliminary injunction may be “preliminary” in name only.

One example is the plaintiff who requests a preliminary injunction to achieve an interim result, given the timeframe at issue. “When protestors seek an injunction to exercise their First Amendment rights at a specific time and place—say to demonstrate at a Saturday parade—a preliminary injunction will give them all the court-ordered relief they need and the end of the parade will moot the case.” McQueary v. Conway, 614 F.3d 591, 599 (CA6 2010). Thus, the Courts of Appeals regularly hold that plaintiffs who successfully obtain a preliminary injunction that permits them to engage in the otherwise prohibited conduct “prevail” for fee-shifting purposes. See, e.g., Young v. Chicago, 202 F.3d 1000, 1000–1001 (CA7 2000) (per curiam) (awarding fees to plaintiffs who obtained a preliminary injunction to protest a political convention even though the “suit became moot before a definitive determination of its merits” could be made).

In its rush to carve preliminary injunctions out of §1988(b), the majority also overlooks situations in which courts have, in fact, conclusively resolved the merits of a plaintiff ’s claims at the preliminary injunction stage. A trial court might definitively determine that a law is “ ‘ “facially unconstitutional” ’ ” in the course of granting preliminary relief, for example. Singer Mgmt. Consultants, Inc. v. Milgram, 650 F.3d 223, 229–230, and n. 4 (CA3 2011) (en banc) (quoting People Against Police Violence v. Pittsburgh, 520 F.3d 226, 229 (CA3 2008)). But the majority nonetheless adopts a sweeping rule under which preliminary injunctions can never be the basis for fee eligibility.

And to what end? The majority seeks to justify its broad holding on the grounds that it discourages fee disputes and thereby “serves the interests of judicial economy.” Ante, at 10. But concerns about judicial administration cannot supplant Congress’s clear intent to promote access to justice via fee shifting in civil rights cases.

What is more, it is actually the majority’s categorical rule that will promote wasteful litigation and incentivize litigants to manipulate fee liability. Under the majority’s rule, a plaintiff who has incurred substantial attorney’s fees in order to secure a preliminary injunction that provides all the relief he needs will face a choice: He may either concede that the litigation has run its course and pay his own fees, or he may seek to litigate the case to final judgment in order to secure a fee award. No one would blame a plaintiff with a strong case for choosing the latter option. But such additional litigation is an inefficient waste of judicial resources if the plaintiff has already achieved his objective at an earlier part of the case.

Worse still, the majority’s rule appears to preference conservation of judicial resources over the maintenance of meritorious civil rights lawsuits, to the extent that excluding preliminary injunctive relief from §1988(b) facilitates the strategic mooting of cases by defendants to avoid paying attorney’s fees. This case illustrates precisely that problem. After a robust evidentiary hearing, the District Court issued a comprehensive opinion that preliminarily enjoined the Commissioner from enforcing the challenged law against respondents. Seeing the writing on the wall, the Commissioner sought and obtained a stay of the case—over respondents’ objections—based on his representation that the legislature was likely to repeal the challenged law. The Commissioner then successfully lobbied the legislature to repeal the legislation, emphasizing that doing so would, in his words, “result in [respondents’] pending litigation being dismissed, relieving the Department from continuing to incur costly legal fees.” App. 409.

As the Fourth Circuit observed, precluding fee shifting in this scenario is manifestly inequitable, because it leaves respondents “holding the bag” for considerable litigation fees despite—and largely because of—their having succeeded in obtaining preliminary relief. Stinnie v. Holcomb, 77 F. 4th 200, 210 (2023) (en banc). Ironically, it was the strength of respondents’ challenge as verified by the court’s preliminary order that prompted both the change in law and the Commissioner’s robust effort to stiff the plaintiffs with respect to attorney’s fees. Moreover, it is hardly a revelation that lawyers who would otherwise be willing to litigate meritorious civil rights cases (i.e., matters in which interim relief is critical due to ongoing civil rights violations) will likely be discouraged from taking on such representations if fee awards can be so easily thwarted.

The majority dismisses concerns about strategic mooting as both “ ‘entirely speculative’ ” and likely to “arise in only a small number of contexts.” Ante, at 10 (quoting Buckhannon, 532 U. S., at 608). But, as I have shown, the facts of this very case belie the majority’s nonchalance, particularly in light of the Buckhannon experience. Research suggests that the Court’s rejection of the catalyst theory in that case had the predictable practical effect of discouraging public interest organizations and private attorneys from taking on civil rights actions. C. Albiston & L. Nielsen, The Procedural Attack on Civil Rights: The Empirical Reality of Buckhannon for the Private Attorney General, 54 UCLA L. Rev. 1087, 1092 (2007); cf. n. 2, supra. Similarly, a multitude of legal advocacy groups have filed amicus briefs in this case to explain that losing the ability to recoup fees for securing interim relief will jeopardize their missions. See, e.g., Brief for Alliance Defending Freedom et al. as Amici Curiae 7–10; Brief for American Civil Liberties Union et al. as Amici Curiae 28–30; Brief for Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law et al. as Amici Curiae 17–18.

There is thus every reason to believe that the net result of today’s decision will be less civil rights enforcement in the long run. Without irony, the majority reads a statute that was “enacted to [e]nsure that private citizens have a meaningful opportunity to vindicate their [civil] rights,” Pennsylvania v. Delaware Valley Citizens’ Council for Clean Air, 478 U.S. 546, 559 (1986), as if Congress meant to make private civil rights enforcement harder to achieve.

*  *  *

The majority holds that obtaining a preliminary injunction never entitles a plaintiff to fees under §1988(b). In doing so, it overrules the decisions of every Court of Appeals to consider the issue, relies on an atextual “conclusive judgment” requirement, and ignores both our precedents and Congress’s intent.

It is quite true that Congress has demonstrated its ability to fix our mistakes in this realm. Ante, at 11. But, in my view, rather than relying on Congress to check our work, we should give full effect to the plain text and remedial purpose of §1988(b) in the first instance. This Court should have held that, when a court hearing a civil rights lawsuit issues a preliminary injunction that materially alters the relationship between the parties and is never reversed, the requesting party “prevails” for fee-shifting purposes and is thus eligible for a fee award under §1988(b).