Damian Stinnie v. Richard HolcombDamian Stinnie v. Richard Holcomb
AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF VIRGINIA, ET AL,
Amicus Supporting Appellant.
ARGUED: Tennille Jo Checkovich, SMITHFIELD FOODS, INC., Smithfield, Virginia, for Appellants. Trevor Stephen Cox, HUNTON ANDREWS KURTH, LLP, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Jonathan T. Blank, Benjamin P. Abel, Charlottesville, Virginia, John J. Woolard, MCGUIREWOODS LLP, Richmond, Virginia; Angela A. Ciolfi, Charlottesville, Virginia, Patrick Levy-Lavelle, LEGAL AID JUSTICE CENTER, Richmond, Virginia; Leslie Kendrick, Charlottesville, Virginia; Michael Stark, Smithfield, Virginia, for Appellants. Mark R. Herring, Attorney General, Donald D. Anderson, Deputy Attorney General, Julie M. Whitlock, Senior Assistant Attorney General & Transportation Section Chief, Janet W. Baugh, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Christian A. Parrish, Assistant Attorney General, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF VIRGINIA, Richmond, Virginia; Maya M. Eckstein, David M. Parker, HUNTON ANDREWS KURTH LLP, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee. Theodore A. Howard, WILEY REIN LLP, Washington, D.C., for Amici Curiae.
THACKER, Circuit Judge:
This fee dispute arises from a putative class-action challenge to a now-repealed Virginia statute that triggered the automatic suspension of the driver‘s licenses of Damian Stinnie, Demetrice Moore, Robert Taylor, Neil Russo (collectively, “Appellants“), and numerous other Virginia residents for nonpayment of court costs and fines. After
The district court denied Appellants’ petition for attorney‘s fees, citing our decision in Smyth ex rel. Smyth v. Rivero, 282 F.3d 268 (4th Cir. 2002), wherein we held that preliminary injunctions do not confer the requisite “prevailing party” status required for an award of fees pursuant to
We conclude Smyth remains the law of this circuit. And, pursuant to Smyth, Appellants are not prevailing parties. Accordingly, we affirm
I.
In 2016, Appellants initiated a civil action against Richard Holcomb (the “Commissioner“) in his official capacity as the Commissioner of the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, challenging the constitutionality of
(B) . . . [W]hen any person is convicted of any violation of the law of the Commonwealth or of the United States or of any valid local ordinance and fails or refuses to provide for immediate payment in full of any fine, costs, forfeitures, restitution, or penalty lawfully assessed against him, or fails to make deferred payments or installment payments as ordered by the court, the court shall forthwith suspend the person‘s privilege to drive a motor vehicle on the highways in the Commonwealth . . .
(C) Before transmitting to the Commissioner a record of the person‘s failure or refusal to pay all or part of any fine, costs, forfeiture, restitution, or penalty . . . the clerk of the court that convicted the person shall provide or cause to be sent to the person written notice of the suspension of his license or privilege to drive a motor vehicle in Virginia, effective 30 days from the date of conviction, if the fine, costs, forfeiture, restitution, or penalty is not paid prior to the effective date of the suspension as stated on the notice . . . .
Stinnie v. Holcomb, 734 F. App‘x 858, 860 (4th Cir. 2018) (quoting
In December 2018, the district court issued a detailed memorandum opinion granting Appellants a preliminary injunction. See generally Stinnie v. Holcomb, 355 F. Supp. 3d 514 (W.D. Va. 2018). As is relevant here, the district court applied the four-part test from Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7 (2008), and concluded that Appellants “demonstrate[d] a likelihood of success on their claim that § 46.2-395 violate[d]
Three months later, in March 2019, former Virginia Governor Ralph Northam proposed Budget Amendment No. 33, which suspended the enforcement of
During its 2020 regular session, the Virginia General Assembly eliminated
The district court denied the petition. Specifically, the district court
II.
We review de novo a district court‘s “prevailing party” determination. Grabarczyk v. Stein, 32 F.4th 301, 306 (4th Cir. 2022). “[I]t is well-settled that a panel of this court is bound by prior precedent from other panels in this circuit absent contrary law from an en banc or Supreme Court decision.” United States v. Seigler, 990 F.3d 331, 336 n.6 (4th Cir. 2021) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also McMellon v. United States, 387 F.3d 329, 332 (4th Cir. 2004) (en banc) (“A number of cases from this court have stated the basic principle that one panel cannot overrule a decision issued by another panel.“).
Because our decision in Smyth is not untenable with any Supreme Court decisions, it is binding upon this panel and requires us to affirm the decision of the district court. United States v. Banks, 29 F.4th 168, 175 (4th Cir. 2022).
III.
Pursuant to
In Smyth, we explicitly held “the preliminary injunction entered by the district court does not satisfy the prevailing party standard of § 1988(b).” Smyth ex rel. Smyth v. Rivero, 282 F.3d 268, 277 (4th Cir. 2002). We reasoned that the preliminary injunction framework is “an unhelpful guide to the legal determination of whether a party has prevailed,” considering the “preliminary, incomplete nature of the merits examination” and the fact that “in granting a preliminary injunction a court is guided not only by its assessment of the likely success of the plaintiff‘s claims, but also by other considerations, notably a balancing of
As is relevant here, Winter altered our test for preliminary injunctions. “Before the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Winter, this Court used a ‘balance-of-hardship test’ that allowed it to disregard some of the preliminary injunction factors if
But our decision in Smyth primarily turned on the nature of preliminary injunctions -- which remains unchanged -- not the standard for obtaining a preliminary injunction. For example, we emphasized “[a] district court‘s determination that such a showing [of likelihood of success on the merits] has been made is best understood as a prediction of a probable, but necessarily uncertain, outcome” and “[t]he fact that a preliminary injunction is granted in a given circumstance, then, by no means represents a determination that the claim in question will or ought to succeed ultimately.” Smyth, 282 F.3d at 276. Winter did not change these realities. Also relevant to our conclusion in Smyth that preliminary injunctions do
Appellants’ argument based on Lefemine fares no better. In Lefemine, the Supreme Court held that we erred in determining that a plaintiff who secured a permanent injunction, but no monetary damages, was not a “prevailing party” for the purposes of
Appellants contend Lefemine “clarified” that “monetary relief is not required; injunctive relief standing alone can be sufficient” to support an award of attorney‘s fees pursuant to
The changed merits standard following Winter and the Supreme Court‘s decision in Lefemine explicitly holding that the issuance of a permanent injunction alone is sufficient to support an award of attorney‘s fees do not make Smyth untenable. Indeed, “[w]e do not lightly presume that the law of the circuit has been overturned, especially where, as here, the Supreme Court opinion and our precedent can be read harmoniously.” Taylor v. Grubbs, 930 F.3d 611, 619 (4th Cir. 2019) (internal quotation marks omitted). “Adhering to our longstanding rule that
In sum, at this juncture, we are bound by Smyth because it is directly on point and is neither distinguishable from nor untenable with any Supreme Court
IV.
For the foregoing reasons, the district court‘s denial of Appellants’ petition for attorney‘s fees and litigation expenses is
AFFIRMED.
PAMELA HARRIS, Circuit Judge, concurring:
I join in full the majority‘s opinion, which cogently explains why our decision in Smyth ex rel. Smyth v. Rivero, 282 F.3d 268 (4th Cir. 2002), remains binding upon this panel and requires us to affirm the decision of the district court. I write
First, although subsequent Supreme Court cases have not superseded Smyth, one of them – Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7 (2008) – has gone a long way toward addressing its concerns. At the time Smyth was decided, courts in this circuit could grant preliminary injunctions on equitable grounds without a showing of likely success on the merits. See Blackwelder Furniture Co. of Statesville, Inc. v. Selig Mfg. Co., 550 F.2d 189, 195–96 (4th Cir. 1977); Smyth, 282 F.3d at 276–77 (describing Blackwelder‘s sliding-scale approach). And the court in Smyth quite sensibly worried about according “prevailing party” status to a plaintiff who had obtained a preliminary injunction based primarily on a balancing of likely harms, without a rigorous assessment of the merits of the plaintiff‘s claim. See 282 F.3d at 276–77.
Today, however, under Winter‘s more stringent standard, a plaintiff can obtain a preliminary injunction only by first establishing a likelihood of success on the merits. See Real Truth About Obama, Inc. v. FEC, 575 F.3d 342, 346–47 (4th Cir. 2009) (“The Winter requirement that the plaintiff clearly demonstrate that it will likely succeed on the merits is far stricter than the Blackwelder requirement.“), vacated on other grounds, 559 U.S. 1089 (2010). That does not mean, as the majority opinion explains, that Winter has rendered our decision in Smyth untenable. See Maj. Op. Part III. Indeed, Smyth was carefully written to survive just this change in the law of preliminary injunctions. See 282 F.3d at 277 n.8. But it does mean that we could reconsider our rule in Smyth without opening the door to the risk that so concerned the court in that case: that a plaintiff could be deemed a prevailing party, and thus entitled to fees, by virtue of a preliminary injunction that had little or nothing to do with the merits of her claim. Id. at 277.
Second, the rule set out in Smyth is a complete outlier. As the Commissioner forthrightly concedes, ours is the only circuit in the country in which a preliminary injunction never may serve as the basis for prevailing party fees under
In most circuits, the preliminary injunction will suffice so long as it rests on a finding of probable success on the merits and orders a change in the legal relationship between the parties. See, e.g., Planned Parenthood, 931 F.3d at 542; Higher Taste, 717 F.3d at 716; Kan. Jud. Watch, 653 F.3d at 1237–38; Select Milk Producers, 400 F.3d at 948; Haley, 106 F.3d at 483. In one circuit, it seems, the merits-based preliminary injunction also must have been the cause of the case‘s subsequent mootness, as the impetus for a defendant‘s decision to cease the challenged conduct or otherwise moot the case. See Dearmore, 519 F.3d at 524; see also People Against Police Violence, 520 F.3d at 233 (affirming fee award where defendant revised challenged ordinance in response to
* The First Circuit has not directly addressed this issue, see Sinapi v. R.I. Bd. of Bar Exam‘rs, 910 F.3d 544, 552 (1st Cir. 2018), but district courts within it have followed the consensus rule, see, e.g., Tri-City Cmty. Action Program, Inc. v. City of Malden, 680 F. Supp. 2d 306, 314 (D. Mass. 2010).
On the facts of this case, the plaintiffs would almost certainly qualify as prevailing parties were it not for our categorical rule to the contrary. To begin, there is no question that their preliminary injunction was solidly merits-based. After a comprehensive assessment of the strength of the plaintiffs’ case, informed by an
It is true, as we explained in Smyth, that this merits analysis was necessarily provisional. See 282 F.3d at 276; Maj. Op. Part III. But for the time it was in effect, the preliminary injunction materially altered the parties’ legal relationship, prohibiting the Commissioner from enforcing the challenged provision against the plaintiffs. See, e.g., Higher Taste, 717 F.3d at 716 & n.1 (distinguishing injunctions that merely maintain the status quo). And the reason this preliminary injunction never advanced past the provisional stage is that the Commissioner mooted the case, heading off a final judgment. The plaintiffs were eager to go forward to summary judgment. But over their objection, the Commissioner secured several stays, which he used to successfully lobby the legislature to repeal section 46.2-395 – with the express aim, in part, of avoiding the payment of attorney‘s fees. See, e.g., J.A. 968–69 (letter from Commissioner to state senator asking legislature to address the matters at issue in the Stinnie litigation to avoid “costly legal fees“). So even in a circuit requiring a causal link between a preliminary inunction and the mooting of a case, the plaintiffs here would be prevailing parties eligible for attorney‘s fees.
Our circuit rule,
It is of course possible, as the Commissioner assures us, that Smyth is right and every other circuit is wrong. But that is the kind of question that seems worth considering as an en