Lackey v. StinnieLackey v. Stinnie
OCTOBER TERM, 2024
1
Syllabus
NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
LACKEY, COMMISSIONER OF THE VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF MOTOR VEHICLES v. STINNIE ET AL.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 23-621. Argued October 8, 2024—Decided February 25, 2025
Drivers whose licenses were suspended under a Virginia statute for failure to pay court fines sued the Commissioner of the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles under
Section 1988(b) allows an award of attorney‘s fees to “prevailing parties” under
Held: The plaintiff drivers here—who gained only preliminary injunctive relief before this action became moot—do not qualify as “prevailing part[ies]” eligible for attorney‘s fees under
(a) Under the “American Rule,” a prevailing litigant is ordinarily not
To determine whether the drivers here qualify as “prevailing part[ies]” under
Preliminary injunctions do not make a party “prevailing” because they do not conclusively decide the case on the merits. Such injunctions only determine if a plaintiff is likely to succeed, along with factors such as irreparable harm, the balance of equities, and the public interest. See Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 555 U. S. 7, 20. The purpose of a preliminary injunction is to preserve the status quo until a trial can occur, see University of Tex. v. Camenisch, 451 U. S. 390, 395, and external events that render a dispute moot do not convert that temporary order into a conclusive adjudication. Pp. 4–7.
(b) The Court‘s precedents interpreting
(c) The rule established serves the interests of judicial economy. A straightforward, bright-line rule is easy to administer, rеducing the risk of significant litigation over attorney‘s fees. Concerns that government defendants who have lost at the preliminary injunction stage will strategically moot litigation are speculative, and such a risk could arise in only a small number of contexts. The judicial role here is limited. Congress may amend the statutory language to empower courts to award attorney‘s fees to plaintiffs who have enjoyed some success but have not prevailed in a judgment on the merits. Pp. 10–11.
(d) The drivers’ remaining arguments are unpersuasive. The argument that
77 F. 4th 200, reversed and remanded.
ROBERTS, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which THOMAS, ALITO, KAGAN, GORSUCH, KAVANAUGH, and BARRETT, JJ., joined. JACKSON, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SOTOMAYOR, J., joined.
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, pio@supremecourt.gov, of any typographical or other formal errors.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 23-621
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]
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondents are Virginia drivers whose licenses were suspended due to their failure to pay court fines or costs. The drivers sued the Commissioner of the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles under
I
Until recently, a Virginia statute directed the state courts to suspend the license of any driver who failed to pay “any fine, costs, forfeitures, restitution, or penalty lawfully assessed against him” for violation of a federal, state, or local law. The suspension remained in force until the amount
In December 2018, the District Court granted a preliminary injunction, prohibiting the Commissioner from enforcing the statute against the drivers or future class members. See Stinnie v. Holcomb, 355 F. Supp. 3d 514, 520 (WD Va. 2018). The court explained that the drivers had made “a clear showing that [they were] likely to succeed” on their procedural due process claim, though it noted that they need not “establish a certainty of success.” Id., at 527 (quoting Di Biase v. SPX Corp., 872 F. 3d 224, 230 (CA4 2017)). The court also determined that the remaining preliminary injunction factors—the risk of irreparable harm, the balance of equities, and the public interest—weighed in the drivers’ favor. Stinnie, 355 F. Supp. 3d, at 532; see Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 555 U. S. 7, 20 (2008). The Commissioner did not appeal the grant of the preliminary injunction.
In April 2019, about four months before a bench trial was scheduled to begin, the Commissioner moved to dismiss as
In April 2020, the Virginia General Assembly repealed
The Fourth Circuit did so, rehearing the case en banc and overturning its decision in Smyth. Stinnie v. Holcomb, 77 F. 4th 200 (2023). It observed that Smyth had become the “outlier” among the courts of appeals. 77 F. 4th, at 209. It
The en banc court articulated a new standard: “When a preliminary injunction provides the plaintiff concrete, irreversible relief on the merits of her claim and becomes moot before final judgment because no further court-ordered assistance proves necessary, the subsequent mootness of the case does not preclude an award of attorney‘s fees.” Ibid. Applying that standard, the en banc court vacated and remanded the case to allow the District Court to determine a reasonable fee. Id., at 218. Judge Quattlebaum dissented, arguing that a preliminary injunction does not constitute a judicial decision on the merits and that a fee award on the basis of such an injunction therefore conflicts with both the text of
We granted certiorari to determine whether the term “prevailing party” in
II
Since 1796, this Court has maintained that “the Judiciary itself would not create a general rule, independent of any statute, allowing awards of attorneys’ fees in federal courts.” Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. Wilderness Society,
In 1976, Congress adopted the Civil Rights Attorney‘s Fees Awards Act. 90 Stat. 2641. The law provides that, in actions brought under certain civil rights statutes—including
A
When interpreting a statute, we begin with the text. As we have previously recognized, the phrase “prevailing party” in
At the time
Preliminary injunctions, however, do not conclusively resolve legal disputes. In awarding preliminary injunctions, courts determine if a plaintiff is likely to succeed on the merits—along with the risk of irreparable harm, the balance of equities, and the public interest. Winter, 555 U. S., at 20. “The purpose of a preliminary injunction is merely to preserve the relative positions of the parties until a trial on the merits can be held,” University of Tex. v. Camenisch, 451 U. S. 390, 395 (1981), and “to balance the equities as the litigation moves forward,” Trump v. International Refugee Assistance Project, 582 U. S. 571, 580 (2017) (per curiam). “Crafting a preliminary injunction is an exercise of discretion and judgment, often dependent as much on the equities of a given case as the substance of the legal issues it presents.” Id., at 579. Such relief is also “customarily granted on the basis of procedures that are less formal and evidence that is less complete than in a trial on the merits.” Camenisch, 451 U. S., at 395. As a result, we have previously cautioned against “improperly equat[ing] ‘likelihood of success’ with ‘success‘” and treating preliminary injunctions as “tantamount to decisions on the underlying merits.” Id., at 394.
The transient nature of preliminary injunctions is most apparent when a court reaches a different conclusion upon full consideration of the merits. For example, in one of our more recent cases interpreting
Because preliminary injunctions do not conclusively resolve the rights of parties on the merits, they do not confer prevailing party status. A plaintiff who secures a preliminary injunction has achieved only temporary success at an intermediary “stage[] of the suit.” Black‘s Law Dictionary 1352. It cannot yet be said that he will “ultimately prevail[] when the matter is finally set at rest” or that he will have “successfully maintained” his claim “at the end.” Ibid. And external events that render a dispute moot do not convert a temporary order designed to preserve the status of the parties into a conclusive adjudication оf their rights.
The Fourth Circuit en banc was persuaded that ”Winter‘s stringent merits requirement” avoided the “risk” that “a plaintiff may prevail, and thus be entitled to fees, based on a preliminary injunction that had virtually nothing to do with the merits of her claim.” 77 F. 4th, at 209. But it is not enough that Winter guarantees a preliminary injunction award has at least something to do with the merits. The plaintiff must succeed on the merits.
B
This conclusion is consistent with our precedents interpreting
Two of our more recent decisions highlight the requirements that the change in legal relationship be judicially sanctioned and enduring. In Buckhannon Board & Care Home, Inc. v. West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, we rejected the “catalyst theory“—the theory that a plaintiff may receive attorney‘s fees under
In Sole v. Wyner, we decided that “a plaintiff who gain[ed] a preliminary injunction after an abbreviated hearing, but [was] denied a permanent injunction after a dispositive adjudication on the merits,” did not qualify as a “prevailing party” within the meaning of
We recognize that neither opinion resolves this case, but our holding today follows naturally from these precedents. In Sole, we established that the change in the legal relationship between the parties must be “enduring.” Id., at 86. In Buckhannon, we established that the change must be “judicially sanctioned.” 532 U. S., at 605. Today, we establish that the enduring nature of that change must itself be judicially sanctioned. A plaintiff who wins a transient victory on a preliminary injunction does not become a “prevailing party” simply because external events convert the transient victory into a lasting one. Rather, a plaintiff “prevails” under the statute when a court conclusively resolves a claim by granting enduring judicial relief on the merits that materially alters the legal relationship between the parties.*
The rule we establish today also serves the interests of judicial economy. A straightforward, bright-line rule is easy to administer, reducing the risk of “a second major litigation” over attorney‘s fees. Cf. Hensley, 461 U. S., at 437. The drivers, however, suggest that our rule promotes simplicity at the cost of creating perverse incentives. They fear that government defendants who have lost at the preliminary injunction stage will strategically moot litigation rather than risk a fee award were they to ultimately lose on the merits. See Brief for Respondents 42–47. We found similar concerns to be “entirely speculative” when we rejected the catalyst theory in Buckhannon, 532 U. S., at 608. We reiterate that such risk could arise in only a small number of contexts. After all, if a plaintiff “has a cause of action for damages, a defendant‘s change in conduct will not moot the case.” Id., at 609. And even if the plaintiff seeks only injunctive relief, voluntary cessation of the challenged conduct does not moot an action “unless it is ‘absolutely cleаr that the allegedly wrongful behavior could not reasonably be expected to recur.‘” Ibid. (quoting Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC), Inc., 528 U. S. 167, 189 (2000)); see also FBI v. Fikre, 601 U. S. 234, 241 (2024) (characterizing this burden as “formidable” (quoting Friends of the Earth, 528 U. S., at 190)). A survey asking public interest organizations to self-report on the impact of Buckhannon does not change our minds. See post, at 17–18 (JACKSON, J., dissenting).
It is Congress‘s job to craft policy and ours to interpret the words that codify it. “Atextual judicial supplementation is particularly inappropriate when ... Congress has shown that it knows how to adopt the omitted language or provision.” Rotkiske v. Klemm, 589 U. S. 8, 14 (2019). Congress has shown that it knows how to empower courts to award attorney‘s fees to plaintiffs who have enjoyed some success but have not prevailed in a judgment on the merits. In the
D
The drivers urge the opposite conclusion, but we find their arguments unpersuasive.
First, the drivers, joined by the dissent, argue that the dictionary definitions support them. But they assume that the favorable resolution of a dispute is tantamount to success on a claim in a legal action. A “prevailing party,” however, is defined in the latter sense—one who “successfully prosecutes the action,” who has “made a claim” against another and “has successfully maintained it.” Black‘s Law Dictionary 1352.
Second, the drivers and dissent contend that
Next, the drivers argue that the availability of fees while
The availability of fees following the entry of a court-ordered consent decree is fully consistent with the rule we announce today. A consent decree reflects the parties’ own resolution of the merits, but it is approved and given force of law by the court. See Firefighters v. Cleveland, 478 U. S. 501, 523 (1986). Violation of a consent decree is enforceable by a citation for contempt. Ibid. So a consent decree is like
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Section 1988(b) permits courts to award attorney‘s fees to a “prevailing party.” A party “prevails” when a court conclusively resolves his claim by granting enduring relief on the merits that alters the legal relationship between the parties. Critically, both the change in relationship and its permanence must result from a judicial order. A preliminary injunction, which temporarily preserves the parties’ litigating positions based in part on a prediction of the likelihood of success on the merits, does not render a plaintiff a “prevailing party.” Nor do external events that moot the action and prevent the court from conclusively adjudicating the claim. Because the drivers in the present case gained only preliminary injunctive relief before this action became moot, they do not qualify as “prevailing part[ies]” eligible for attorney‘s fees under
The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 23-621
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.
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
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
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 procеeding, 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.”
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
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
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
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 thаt respondents achieved their goal via a preliminary court ruling, as opposed to a final judgment, is irrelevant, for “[n]othing in the language of
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
C
The majority disregards these important context clues and focuses instead on a provision of the
The problem is that Congress had a much more targeted objective when it enacted
In short, while the majority insists that obtaining a preliminary injunction can never suffice for a fee award under
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 conсlusion 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
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 preliminаry 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
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
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
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 dеfendant‘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
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
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 tо 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
There is no dispute that Congress enacted
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
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
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
In its rush to carve preliminary injunctions out of
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 majоrity‘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
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 оn 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
There is thus every reason to believe that the net result of today‘s decision will bе 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
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