James POUILLON, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Sharon LITTLE and W.G. Blanchett, Defendants-Appellants.
No. 01-1619.
United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.
Argued: Dec. 6, 2002. Decided and Filed: April 16, 2003.
326 F.3d 713
III. CONCLUSION
In summary, we hold that the Bukowskis cannot show any constitutional violation by City of Akron officials or by the City itself. As a result, we REVERSE the district court‘s denial of qualified immunity to the officials Urbank and Summers in case No. 01-4248 and AFFIRM its grant of summary judgment to the City of Akron in case No. 01-4335. We REMAND the case to the district court so that it may dismiss the officials and the City from the lawsuit, allowing the Bukowskis to proceed only against defendant Hall.
Jason D. Kolkema, (argued and briefed) Johnson, Rosati, Labarge, Aseltyne & Field, Lansing, Michigan, for Appellants.
Michael J. Gildner (argued and briefed), Simen, Figura & Parker, Flint, Michigan, for Appellee.
GIBBONS, Judge, delivered the opinion of the court, in which SILER, Judge, joined. BOGGS, Judge (p. 719), delivered a separate concurring opinion.
OPINION
GIBBONS, Circuit Judge.
Plaintiff-appellee James Pouillon is an anti-abortion activist who was arrested by police officers Sharon Little and W.G. Blanchett while he was staging an abortion protest on the steps of the city hall building in Owosso, Michigan. Pouillon sued officers Little and Blanchett seeking compensatory and punitive damages. Pouillon rejected two pre-trial settlement offers pursuant to
This appeal presents two issues: (1) whether the jury award in favor of Pouillon for nominal damages supports an award of attorney‘s fees pursuant to
I.
For over ten years, James Pouillon staged abortion protests almost daily on the public sidewalk in front of the city hall building in Owosso, Michigan. On December 22, 1994, Pouillon moved his protest from his customary post on the sidewalk to a position on the steps of city hall. On that day, police officers Sharon Little and W.G. Blanchett arrested James Pouillon after he refused their orders to move back to the sidewalk.
Pouillon filed this action in Michigan state court against the City of Owosso and police officers Little and Blanchett, alleging false arrest and malicious prosecution.1
On December 2, 1997, defendants served Pouillon with a formal offer of judgment, pursuant to
A four-day jury trial commenced on April 14, 1998, and the jury returned a verdict in favor of defendants. Pouillon appealed, and this court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded the case to the district court for further proceedings. Pouillon v. City of Owosso, 206 F.3d 711 (6th Cir.2000). Specifically, this court affirmed the district court‘s dismissal of Pouillon‘s claim for punitive damages, but this court found that the district court had instructed the jury incorrectly on the law and had improperly submitted questions of law to the jury. Id.
After this court issued its opinion, Pouillon offered to accept defendants’ prior settlement offer of $10,001, but defendants declined to reinstate their prior offer, which had been deemed withdrawn pursuant to
II.
A. The District Court‘s Award of Attorney‘s Fees to Pouillon
The Civil Rights Attorney‘s Fees Award Act of 1976,
Despite the Supreme Court‘s warnings about awarding attorney‘s fees to a civil rights plaintiff who has won only nominal damages, the district court awarded Pouillon attorney‘s fees in a brief oral ruling. In support of its decision to award Pouillon attorney‘s fees, the district court praised the efforts of Pouillon‘s attorneys on the record and stated, “I‘m sure if you ask Mr. Pouillon, he feels that he was vindicated in his First Amendment Rights by the action that they took here.” We review a district court‘s award of attorney‘s fees pursuant to
Joseph Farrar, the plaintiff in Farrar v. Hobby, also had his constitutional rights vindicated when the jury found that defendant Hobby had deprived Farrar of a civil right and the Fifth Circuit ruled that Farrar was entitled to nominal damages against Hobby. Farrar, 506 U.S. at 107, 113 S.Ct. 566. The Supreme Court, however, held that the district court had abused its discretion by granting Farrar attorney‘s fees based on his “technical” victory. Id. at 114, 113 S.Ct. 566. With regard to Farrar‘s lawsuit, the Supreme Court stated, “This litigation accomplished little beyond giving petitioners ‘the moral satisfaction of knowing that a federal court concluded that [their] rights had been violated’ in some unspecified way.” Id. at 114, 113 S.Ct. 566 (quoting Hewitt v. Helms, 482 U.S. 755, 762, 107 S.Ct. 2672, 96 L.Ed.2d 654 (1987)). Therefore, in Farrar, the Supreme Court held that technical vindication of one‘s constitutional rights alone is not enough to justify an award of attorney‘s fees pursuant to
According to his complaint, Pouillon initiated this lawsuit seeking compensatory and punitive damages against the City of Owosso and police officers Little and Blanchett. In the end, he recovered neither compensatory nor punitive damages against any defendant, and he recovered only $2.00 in nominal damages from officers Little and Blanchett. Pouillon‘s technical victory does not demonstrate a degree of success sufficient to justify an award of attorney‘s fees pursuant to
Pouillon argues that this court should affirm the district court‘s grant of attorney‘s fees because Pouillon was successful in accomplishing his alleged primary goal in this litigation: obtaining a finding of liability against defendants. Pouillon argues that recovering a substantial money judgment was never a primary goal of this litigation. In other words, Pouillon argues that he was primarily seeking only a technical victory in this case. In support of this contention, Pouillon cites his counsel‘s closing argument to the second jury in which Pouillon‘s counsel suggested that the jury award nominal damages if the jury found that Pouillon had not suffered any actual injury. Pouillon also points out
Putting aside the issue of whether Congress through
If Pouillon‘s primary interest had been obtaining a judgment against defendants regardless of amount, he would have accepted either of defendants’ two pretrial offers of judgment. If Pouillon had been primarily interested in obtaining a jury finding of liability, he would not have offered to accept $10,001 in settlement from defendants once his case against the city and his claim for punitive damages had been dismissed. By the end of the second trial, Pouillon had lost his claim against the city and his claim for punitive damages, his offer to settle for $10,001 had been rejected, and he had put on very little evidence of actual injury. The mere fact that Pouillon‘s counsel suggested the possibility of a nominal damages award under these circumstances does not indicate that Pouillon‘s $2.00 judgment achieved his primary goal in this litigation. Significantly, Pouillon‘s counsel suggested that the second jury award Pouillon $10,000. Pouillon received 1/5,000 of this amount.
B. The District Court‘s Denial of Post-Offer Costs to Defendants
The district court in this case nevertheless declined to give effect to defendants’ two Rule 68 offers, neither of which was accepted by Pouillon within ten days. The district court‘s explanation for its decision was to note that both of these offers were made before the first trial and were not renewed after this court remanded the case for a second trial.
Nothing in the language of
Because the $2.00 judgment finally obtained by Pouillon is not more favorable than defendants’ initial Rule 68 offer of $2,500,
III.
For all the foregoing reasons, we reverse the district court‘s order granting Pouillon‘s motion for attorney‘s fees, reverse the district court‘s order denying defendants’ motion for post-offer costs, and remand for the purpose of determining the amount of the post-offer costs to which defendants are entitled.
BOGGS, Circuit Judge, concurring.
I concur in Judge Gibbons‘s thorough opinion in this case. I write separately to emphasize two points. The first is the importance of
With respect to the other portion of the court‘s opinion, it is important to note the reason for Pouillon‘s failure to obtain attorney‘s fees in this case, even though he did receive a fairly significant benefit in that the court‘s judgment upheld his right to protest on the steps of City Hall, at least in the specific manner that he did on December 22, 1994. Our holding that the extent of his victory was nugatory is wholly explained by the fact that he only sought money damages. As the court carefully notes at pages 6-7, he “did not file a complaint for a declaratory judgment or for injunctive relief.” Such a complaint might have even more emphatically vindicated his right to be free from arbitrary and unjustified arrest for his protests, which might then have led to a different outcome as to attorney‘s fees. Since he did not do this, I concur in the court‘s opinion.