Petitioners, state and local teachers' associations and several
of their members and employees, brought suit in the District Court
under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that respondent school district's
policy of prohibiting communications by or with teachers during the
schoolday concerning employee organizations violated their First
and Fourteenth Amendment rights in various particular respects. The
District Court granted the school district summary judgment on most
of petitioners' claims. The Court of Appeals affirmed in part and
reversed in part, granting petitioners summary judgment on their
claims that the school district's actions in prohibiting
teacher-to-teacher discussion of employee organizations during the
schoolday and teacher use of internal mail and billboard facilities
to discuss such organizations were unconstitutional. After this
Court summarily affirmed the Court of Appeals' judgment,
petitioners filed the instant application for an award of
attorney's fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1988. The District Court held
that petitioners were not "prevailing parties" within the meaning
of § 1988, and thus were ineligible for any fee award, since, under
Fifth Circuit precedent, the test for prevailing party status was
whether the plaintiff prevailed on the central issue in the
litigation by acquiring the primary relief sought. The Court of
Appeals affirmed, ruling that, although petitioners had achieved
success on "significant secondary issues," they had not prevailed
on the central issue in the lawsuit -- the constitutionality of the
school district's policy of limiting employee organizations' access
to teachers and school facilities during school hours.
Held:
1. The lower courts' "central issue" test for determining
"prevailing party" status under § 1988 is rejected in favor of a
standard requiring only that parties "
succeed on any
significant issue in the litigation which achieves some of the
benefit [they] sought in bringing the suit.'" Nadeau v.
Helgemoe, 581 F.2d 275, 278-279, quoted in Hensley v.
Eckerhart, 461 U. S. 424,
461 U. S. 433.
Pp. 489 U. S.
788-793.
(a) The "central issue" test is directly contrary to the thrust
of
Hensley, supra, which, although it did not adopt one
particular standard
Page 489 U. S. 783
for determining prevailing party status, nevertheless indicated
that the
degree of the plaintiff's success in relation to
the lawsuit's overall goals is a factor critical to the
determination of the size of a reasonable fee, not to eligibility
for a fee award at all. The "central issue" test is also
incongruous in light of the clear congressional intent, as
expressed in § 1988's legislative history, that interim fee awards
be available to partially prevailing civil rights plaintiffs.
Congress cannot have meant "prevailing party" status to depend
entirely on the timing of a fee request: a prevailing party must be
one who has succeeded on any significant claim affording it some of
the relief sought, either
pendente lite or at the
conclusion of the litigation. Furthermore, the search for the
"central" and "tangential" issues in the lawsuit, or for the
"primary" as opposed to the "secondary" relief sought, forces
district courts to focus on the subjective intent of the parties,
which is almost impossible to determine; is irrelevant to § 1988's
prime purposes and essentially unhelpful in defining the term
"prevailing party"; and is sure to provoke prolonged litigation of
fee disputes. Pp.
489 U. S.
788-791.
(b) A plaintiff has crossed the threshold to a fee award of some
kind if he or she satisfies the
Nadeau "significant issue"
-- "some benefit" standard. Under that standard, at a minimum, the
plaintiff must be able to point to a resolution of the dispute
which materially alters the parties' legal relationship in a manner
which Congress sought to promote in the fee statute.
Hewitt v.
Helms, 482 U. S. 755,
482 U. S. 760.
Where the plaintiff's success on a legal claim can be characterized
as purely technical or
de minimis, a district court would
be justified in concluding that it is so insignificant as to be
insufficient to support prevailing party status. However, where the
parties' relationship has been materially changed, the degree of
the plaintiff's overall success goes to the reasonableness of the
award under Hensley,
supra, not to the availability of the
fee award
vel non. Pp.
489 U. S.
791-793.
2. Petitioners are "prevailing parties" within the meaning of §
1988. They have prevailed on a significant issue in the litigation,
in that their success has materially altered the school district's
policy limiting the rights of teachers to communicate with each
other concerning employee organizations and union activities.
Moreover, they have obtained some of the relief they sought, a
judgment vindicating the rights of public employees in the
workplace. They have thus served the "private attorney general"
role which Congress meant to promote in enacting § 1988. P.
489 U. S.
793.
837 F.2d 190, reversed and remanded.
O'CONNOR, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
Page 489 U. S. 784
JUSTICE O'CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court.
We must decide today the proper standard for determining whether
a party has "prevailed" in an action brought under certain civil
rights statutes such that the party is eligible for an award of
attorney's fees under the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act
of 1976, 90 Stat. 2641, 42 U.S.C. § 1988. This is an issue which
has divided the Courts of Appeals both before and after our
decision in
Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.
S. 424 (1983). The Courts of Appeals for the Fifth and
Eleventh Circuits require that a party succeed on the "central
issue" in the litigation and achieve the "primary relief sought" to
be eligible for an award of attorney's fees under § 1988.
See,
e.g., Simien v. San Antonio, 809 F.2d 255, 258 (CA5 1987);
Martin v. Heckler, 773 F.2d 1145, 1149 (CA11 1985) (en
banc). Most of the other Federal Courts of Appeals have applied a
less demanding standard, requiring only that a party succeed on a
significant issue and receive some of the relief sought in the
lawsuit to qualify for a fee award.
See, e.g., Gingras v.
Lloyd, 740 F.2d 210, 212 (CA2 1984);
Lampher v.
Zagel, 755 F.2d 99, 102 (CA7 1985);
Fast v. School Dist.
of Ladue, 728 F.2d 1030, 1032-1033 (CA8 1984) (en banc);
Lummi Indian Tribe v. Oltman, 720 F.2d 1124, 1125 (CA9
1983);
Nephew v. Aurora, 766 F.2d 1464, 1466 (CA10 1985).
In this case, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit applied
the "central issue" test, and concluded that petitioners here were
not prevailing parties under § 1988. Because of the conflicting
views in the Courts of Appeals, and because of the importance of
the definition of the term "prevailing party" to the application of
§ 1988 and other federal fee-shifting statutes, we granted
certiorari. 488 U.S. 815 (1988).
Page 489 U. S. 785
I
On March 31, 1981, petitioners, the Texas State Teachers
Association, its local affiliate the Garland Education Association,
and several individual members and employees of both organizations
brought suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against respondent Garland
Independent School District and various school district officials.
Petitioners' complaint alleged that the school district's policy of
prohibiting communications by or with teachers during the schoolday
concerning employee organizations violated petitioners' First and
Fourteenth Amendment rights. In particular, petitioners focused
their attack on the school district's Administrative Regulation
412, which prohibits employee organizations access to school
facilities during school hours and proscribes the use of school
mail and internal communications systems by employee organizations.
The school district's regulations do permit employee organizations
to meet with, or recruit, teachers on school premises before or
after the schoolday "upon request and approval by the local school
principal." Brief for Respondents 4-5.
On cross-motions for summary judgment, the District Court
rejected petitioners' claims in almost all respects. The court
found that, under
Perry Education Assn. v. Perry Local
Educators' Assn., 460 U. S. 37
(1983), the prohibitions on union access to teachers themselves and
to internal communication media during school hours were
constitutional. App. to Pet. for Cert. 55a-57a. The District Court
also rejected petitioners' claim that the school district's
policies were unconstitutional in that they prohibited teachers'
discussion or promotion of employee organizations among themselves
during school hours.
Id. at 46a, n. 13. As to teacher
discussion of employee organizations, the court found that, even if
some school officials interpreted the regulations to prohibit such
speech, there had been no attempt to enforce such an
interpretation. As to teacher-to-teacher speech promoting employee
organizations, the court found that the record indicated that the
school district did prohibit such speech, but
Page 489 U. S. 786
concluded that this prohibition was constitutional.
Ibid. The District Court did find for petitioners on one
issue: it held that the requirement of school principal approval of
teacher meetings with union representatives after school hours was
unconstitutionally vague, in that no guidelines limited the
discretion of the principal's decision to grant or deny access to
the campus.
Id. at 58a. The District Court found that this
issue was of "minor significance," since there was no evidence in
the record to indicate that school officials had ever denied
employee organizations the use of school premises during nonschool
hours.
Id. at 58a, 60a, n. 26.
On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed
in part, reversed in part, and remanded.
Texas State Teachers
Assn. v. Garland Independent School Dist., 777 F.2d 1046
(1985). The Court of Appeals agreed with the District Court that
petitioners' claim that the First Amendment required the school
district to allow union representatives access to school facilities
during school hours was foreclosed by our decision in
Perry. The Court of Appeals affirmed the entry of summary
judgment for the school district on this claim.
Id. at
1050-1053. The Court of Appeals, however, disagreed with the
District Court's analysis of petitioners' claims relating to
teacher-to-teacher discussion of employee organizations during the
schoolday. It found that the prohibition of teacher speech
promoting union activity during school hours was unconstitutional.
Id. at 1054. It also found that there was a distinct
possibility that the school district would discipline teachers who
engaged in
any discussion of employee organizations during
the schoolday, and that such a policy had a chilling effect on
teachers' First Amendment rights. Finally, the Court of Appeals
held that the prohibition on teacher use of internal mail and
billboard facilities to discuss employee organizations was
unconstitutional. The school district allowed teachers to use these
facilities for personal messages of all kinds, and the school
district had not shown that the discussion of union activity in
these
Page 489 U. S. 787
media would be disruptive of its educative mission.
Id.
at 1055. As to these claims, the Court of Appeals granted
petitioners' motion for summary judgment. Respondents filed an
appeal in this Court, and we summarily affirmed the judgment of the
Court of Appeals.
See Garland Independent School Dist. v. Texas
State Teachers Assn., 479 U.S. 801 (1986).
Petitioners then filed the instant application for an award of
attorney's fees pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988. The District Court
found that, under Fifth Circuit precedent, petitioners here were
not "prevailing parties" within the meaning of § 1988, and thus
were ineligible for any fee award. App. to Pet. for Cert. 16a-20a.
The court recognized that petitioners had achieved "partial
success," but indicated that,
"[i]n this circuit, the test for prevailing party status is
whether the plaintiff prevailed on
the central issue by
acquiring the primary relief sought."
Id. at 17a, quoting
Simien v. San Antonio, 809
F.2d at 258. Looking to "the background of the lawsuit" and the
claims presented in petitioners' complaint, the District Court
concluded that the central issue in this litigation was the
constitutionality of the school district's policy of limiting
employee organizations' access to teachers and school facilities
during school hours. App. to Pet. for Cert. 19a. Because
petitioners did not prevail on this issue, they had not carried the
"central issue" in the lawsuit, nor achieved "the primary relief
sought," and were therefore precluded from recovering attorney's
fees.
A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
affirmed the District Court's judgment denying petitioners
prevailing party status under § 1988. 837 F.2d 190 (1988). The
majority noted that the Fifth Circuit's "definition of
prevailing party' is narrower than some of the other Federal
appellate courts." Id. at 192. Applying that definition
here, the majority found that, while petitioners "did succeed on
significant secondary issues," the "main thrust" of their lawsuit
was nonetheless the desire to gain access to
Page 489 U. S. 788
school campuses during school hours for outside representatives
of employee organizations.
Id. at 192-193. Thus, under the
"central issue" test, the District Court had correctly concluded
that petitioners were not prevailing parties eligible for a fee
award under § 1988. Judge Goldberg dissented. He argued that the
"central issue" test for determining prevailing party status was
inconsistent with the congressional purpose in enacting § 1988, and
contrary to the decisions of this Court.
Id. at 193-197.
We now reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
II
As amended, 42 U.S.C. § 1988, provides in pertinent part:
"In any action or proceeding to enforce a provision of sections
1981, 1982, 1983, 1985, and 1986 of this title, title IX of Public
Law 92-318, or title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 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."
In
Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.
S. 424 (1983), we dealt with the application of the
attorney's fee provision of § 1988 to a situation much like the one
before us today. Respondents in
Hensley were patients
involuntarily confined in a state mental hospital who brought a
broad based challenge to the constitutionality of a number of the
institution's rules and practices. In five of the six general areas
where respondents challenged the institution's practices, the
District Court found that conditions fell below those required by
the Constitution, and granted respondents relief. Respondents then
requested a fee award pursuant to § 1988, and the District Court
"determined that respondents were prevailing parties under 42
U.S.C. § 1988 even though they had not succeeded on every claim."
Id. at
461 U. S. 428.
With one exception, the District Court awarded the respondents in
Hensley the entire "lodestar" figure, that is, the hours
expended in litigation
Page 489 U. S. 789
multiplied by a reasonable hourly rate. The Court of Appeals
affirmed the fee award.
In
Hensley this Court sought to clarify "the proper
standard for setting a fee award where the plaintiff has achieved
only limited success."
Id. at
461 U. S. 431.
At the outset, we noted that no fee award is permissible until the
plaintiff has crossed the "statutory threshold" of prevailing party
status. In this regard, the Court indicated that
"[a] typical formulation is that "plaintiffs may be considered
prevailing parties' for attorney's fees purposes if they
succeed on any significant issue in litigation which achieves some
of the benefit the parties sought in bringing the suit.""
Id. at
461 U. S. 433,
quoting
Nadeau v. Helgemoe, 581 F.2d 275, 278-279 (CA1
1978). The Court then went on to establish certain principles to
guide the discretion of the lower courts in setting fee awards in
cases where plaintiffs have not achieved complete success. Where
the plaintiff's claims are based on different facts and legal
theories, and the plaintiff has prevailed on only some of those
claims, we indicated that
"[t]he congressional intent to limit [fee] awards to prevailing
parties requires that these unrelated claims be treated as if they
had been raised in separate lawsuits, and therefore no fee may be
awarded for services on the unsuccessful claim."
Hensley, supra, at
461 U. S. 435.
In the more typical situation, where the plaintiff's claims arise
out of a common core of facts and involve related legal theories,
the inquiry is more complex. In such a case, we indicated that "the
most critical factor is the degree of success obtained." 461 U.S.
at
461 U. S. 436.
We noted that, in complex civil rights litigation, "the plaintiff
often may succeed in identifying some unlawful practices or
conditions," but that "the range of possible success is vast," and
the achievement of prevailing party status alone "may say little
about whether the expenditure of counsel's time was reasonable in
relation to the success achieved."
Ibid. We indicated that
the district courts should exercise their equitable discretion in
such cases to arrive at a reasonable fee award, either by
attempting
Page 489 U. S. 790
to identify specific hours that should be eliminated or by
simply reducing the award to account for the limited success of the
plaintiff.
Id. at
461 U. S. 437.
See also Blanchard v. Bergeron,
489 U. S. 87,
489 U. S. 96
(1989).
We think it clear that the "central issue" test applied by the
lower courts here is directly contrary to the thrust of our
decision in
Hensley. Although respondents are correct in
pointing out that
Hensley did not adopt one particular
standard for determining prevailing party status,
Hensley
does indicate that the degree of the plaintiff's success in
relation to the other goals of the lawsuit is a factor critical to
the determination of the size of a reasonable fee, not to
eligibility for a fee award at all.
Our decision in
Hensley is consistent with
congressional intent in this regard. Congress clearly contemplated
that interim fee awards would be available "where a party has
prevailed on an important matter in the course of litigation, even
when he ultimately does not prevail on all issues." S.Rep. No.
94-1011, p. 5 (1976);
see also H.R.Rep. No. 94-1558, p. 8
(1976). In discussing the availability of fees
pendente
lite under § 1988, we have indicated that such awards are
proper where a party "has established his entitlement to some
relief on the merits of his claims, either in the trial court or on
appeal."
Hanrahan v. Hampton, 446 U.
S. 754,
446 U. S. 757
(1980). The incongruence of the "central issue" test in light of
the clear congressional intent that interim fee awards be available
to partially prevailing civil rights plaintiffs is readily
apparent. In this case, our summary affirmance of the Court of
Appeals' judgment for respondents on the union access issues and
for petitioners on the teacher-to-teacher communication issues
effectively ended the litigation. Because the Court of Appeals
found that petitioners had not succeeded on what it viewed as the
central issue in the suit, no fees were awarded. Yet, if
petitioners' victory on the teacher-to-teacher communication issue
had been only an interim one, with other issues remanded for
further proceedings
Page 489 U. S. 791
in the District Court, petitioners would have been entitled to
some fee award for their successful claims under § 1988. Congress
cannot have meant "prevailing party" status to depend entirely on
the timing of a request for fees: a prevailing party must be one
who has succeeded on any significant claim affording it some of the
relief sought, either
pendente lite or at the conclusion
of the litigation.
Nor does the central issue test have much to recommend it from
the viewpoint of judicial administration of § 1988 and other
fee-shifting provisions. By focusing on the subjective importance
of an issue to the litigants, it asks a question which is almost
impossible to answer. Is the "primary relief sought" in a disparate
treatment action under Title VII reinstatement, backpay, or
injunctive relief? This question, the answer to which appears to
depend largely on the mental state of the parties, is wholly
irrelevant to the purposes behind the fee-shifting provisions, and
promises to mire district courts entertaining fee applications in
an inquiry which two commentators have described as "excruciating."
See M. Schwartz & J. Kirklin, Section 1983 Litigation:
Claims, Defenses, and Fees § 15.11, p. 348 (1986). Creating such an
unstable threshold to fee eligibility is sure to provoke prolonged
litigation, thus deterring settlement of fee disputes and ensuring
that the fee application will spawn a second litigation of
significant dimension. In sum, the search for the "central" and
"tangential" issues in the lawsuit, or for the "primary," as
opposed to the "secondary," relief sought, much like the search for
the golden fleece, distracts the district court from the primary
purposes behind § 1988, and is essentially unhelpful in defining
the term "prevailing party."
We think the language of
Nadeau v. Helgemoe quoted in
our opinion in
Hensley adequately captures the inquiry
which should be made in determining whether a civil rights
plaintiff is a prevailing party within the meaning of § 1988. If
the plaintiff has succeeded on "any significant issue in litigation
which achieve[d] some of the benefit the parties
Page 489 U. S. 792
sought in bringing suit," the plaintiff has crossed the
threshold to a fee award of some kind.
Nadeau, 581 F.2d at
278-279. The floor in this regard is provided by our decision in
Hewitt v. Helms, 482 U. S. 755
(1987). As we noted there,
"[r]espect for ordinary language requires that a plaintiff
receive at least some relief on the merits of his claim before he
can be said to prevail."
Id. at
482 U. S. 760.
Thus, at a minimum, to be considered a prevailing party within the
meaning of § 1988, the plaintiff must be able to point to a
resolution of the dispute which changes the legal relationship
between itself and the defendant.
Id. at
482 U. S.
760-761;
Rhodes v. Stewart, 488 U. S.
1,
488 U. S. 3-4
(1988). Beyond this absolute limitation, a technical victory may be
so insignificant, and may be so near the situations addressed in
Hewitt and
Rhodes, as to be insufficient to
support prevailing party status. For example, in the context of
this litigation, the District Court found that the requirement that
non-school-hour meetings be conducted only with prior approval from
the local school principal was unconstitutionally vague. App. to
Pet. for Cert. 58a. The District Court characterized this issue as
"of minor significance," and noted that there was "no evidence that
the plaintiffs were ever refused permission to use school premises
during nonschool hours."
Id. at 60a, n. 26. If this had
been petitioners' only success in the litigation, we think it clear
that this alone would not have rendered them "prevailing parties"
within the meaning of § 1988. Where the plaintiff's success on a
legal claim can be characterized as purely technical or
de
minimis, a district court would be justified in concluding
that even the "generous formulation" we adopt today has not been
satisfied.
See Nadeau, 581 F.2d at 279, n. 3;
New York
City Unemployed and Welfare Council v. Brezenoff, 742 F.2d
718, 724, n. 4 (CA2 1984);
Chicano Police Officer's Assn. v.
Stover, 624 F.2d 127, 131 (CA10 1980) ("Nuisance settlements,
of course, should not give rise to a
prevailing' plaintiff").
The touchstone of the prevailing party inquiry must be the material
alteration of the legal relationship
Page 489 U. S.
793
of the parties in a manner which Congress sought to promote
in the fee statute. Where such a change has occurred, the degree of
the plaintiff's overall success goes to the reasonableness of the
award under Hensley, not to the availability of a fee
award vel non.
III
Application of the principles enunciated above to the case at
hand is not difficult. Petitioners here obtained a judgment
vindicating the First Amendment rights of public employees in the
workplace. Their success has materially altered the school
district's policy limiting the rights of teachers to communicate
with each other concerning employee organizations and union
activities. Petitioners have thus served the "private attorney
general" role which Congress meant to promote in enacting § 1988.
They prevailed on a significant issue in the litigation, and have
obtained some of the relief they sought, and are thus "prevailing
parties" within the meaning of § 1988. We therefore reverse the
judgment of the Court of Appeals, and remand this case for a
determination of a reasonable attorney's fee consistent with the
principles established by our decision in
Hensley v.
Eckerhart.
It is so ordered.