MURPHY v. SMITH ET AL.
No. 16-1067
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
February 21, 2018
583 U. S. ____ (2018)
GORSUCH, J.
(Slip Opinion)
OCTOBER TERM, 2017
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
MURPHY v. SMITH ET AL.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT
No. 16-1067. Argued December 6, 2017—Decided February 21, 2018
Held: In cases governed by
844 F. 3d 653, affirmed.
GORSUCH, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and KENNEDY, THOMAS, and ALITO, JJ., joined. SOTOMAYOR, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which GINSBURG, BREYER, and KAGAN, JJ., joined.
Opinion of the Court
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 16–1067
CHARLES MURPHY, PETITIONER v. ROBERT SMITH, ET AL.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT
[February 21, 2018]
JUSTICE GORSUCH delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a case about how much prevailing prisoners must pay their lawyers. When a prisoner wins a civil rights suit and the district court awards fees to the prisoner‘s attorney, a federal statute says that “a portion of the [prisoner‘s] judgment (not to exceed 25 percent) shall be applied to satisfy the amount of attorney‘s fees awarded against the defendant. If the award of attorney‘s fees is not greater than 150 percent of the judgment, the excess shall be paid by the defendant.”
The facts of our case illustrate the problem we face. After a jury trial, the district court entered judgment for Charles Murphy in the amount of $307,733.82 against two of his prison guards, Officer Robert Smith and Lieutenant Gregory Fulk. The
As always, we start with the specific statutory language in dispute. That language (again) says “a portion of the judgment (not to exceed 25 percent) shall be applied to satisfy the amount of attorney‘s fees awarded.”
with others of our own.
Mr. Murphy‘s reply does more to hurt than help his cause. Consider, he says, college math credits that the college prospectus says shall be “applied to satisfy” a chemistry degree. No one, the argument goes, would understand that phrase to suggest a single math course will fully discharge all chemistry degree requirements. We quite agree, but that is beside the point. In Mr. Murphy‘s example, as in our statute, the word “satisfy” does not suggest some hidden empirical judgment about how often a math class will satisfy a chemistry degree. Instead it serves to tell the college registrar what purpose he must pursue when handed the student‘s transcript: the registrar must, without discretion, apply those credits toward the satisfaction or discharge of the student‘s credit obligations. No doubt a college student needing three credits to graduate who took a three-credit math course would be bewildered to learn the registrar thought he had discretion to count only two of those credits toward her degree. So too here. It doesn‘t matter how many fee awards will be fully satisfied from a judgment without breaking the 25% cap, or whether any particular fee award could be. The statute‘s point is to instruct the judge about the purpose he must pursue—to discharge the fee award using judgment funds to the extent possible, subject to the 25% cap.
Retreating now, Mr. Murphy contends that whatever the verb and the infinitival phrase mean, the subject of the sentence—“a portion of the judgment (not to exceed 25 percent)“—necessarily suggests wide judicial discretion. This language, he observes, anticipates a range of amounts (some “portion” up to 25%) that can be taken from his judgment. And the existence of the range, Mr. Murphy contends, necessarily means that the district court must enjoy discretion to pick any “portion” so long as it doesn‘t exceed the 25% cap.
But that does not logically follow. Under either side‘s reading of the statute the portion of fees taken from the plaintiff‘s judgment will vary over a range—whether because of the district court‘s discretionary choice (as Mr. Murphy contends), or because of the variance in the size of fee awards themselves, which sometimes will be less than 25% of the judgment (as Officer Smith and Lieutenant Fulk suggest). If the police have two suspects in a robbery committed with a red getaway car, the fact that one suspect drives a red sedan proves nothing if the other does too. The fact that the statute contemplates a range of possible “portion[s]” to be paid out of the judgment, thus, just doesn‘t help identify which of the two proposed interpretations we should adopt for both bear that feature.
Nor does the word “portion” necessarily denote unfettered discretion. If someone told you to follow a written recipe but double the portion of sugar, you would know precisely how much sugar to put in—twice whatever‘s on the page. And Congress has certainly used the word “portion” in just that way. Take
Even if the interpretive race in this case seems close at this point, close races still have winners. Besides, stepping back to take in the larger statutory scheme surround-ing the specific language before us reveals that this case isn‘t quite as close as it might first appear. In 1976, Congress enacted what is now
Comparing the terms of the old and new statutes helps to shed a good deal of light on the parties’ positions. Section 1988(b) confers discretion on district courts in unambiguous terms: “[T]he court, in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party . . . a reasonable attorney‘s fee as part of the costs” against the defendant. (Emphasis added.) Meanwhile,
The surrounding statutory structure of
Notably, too, the discretion Mr. Murphy would have us introduce into
Nor does Mr. Murphy‘s proposed cure solve his problem.
To avoid reading
At the end of the day, what may have begun as a close race turns out to have a clear winner. Now with a view of the full field of textual, contextual, and precedential evidence, we think the interpretation the court of appeals adopted prevails. In cases governed by
The judgment is
Affirmed.
SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED
No. 16–1067
CHARLES MURPHY, PETITIONER v. ROBERT SMITH, ET AL.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT
[February 21, 2018]
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, with whom JUSTICE GINSBURG, JUSTICE BREYER, and JUSTICE KAGAN join, dissenting.
The Court concludes that the attorney‘s fee apportionment provision of the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PLRA),
I
In approaching this case, it helps to understand the background of the fee award at issue. On July 25, 2011, petitioner Charles Murphy, a prisoner at the Vandalia Correctional Center in Illinois, reported that his assigned
seat at mealtime had food and water on it, which resulted in Murphy being handcuffed and escorted to a segregation building. Once there, Murphy taunted respondent Correctional Officer Robert Smith, who responded by hitting Murphy in the eye and applying a choke hold, causing Murphy to lose consciousness. When Murphy woke up, Officer Smith and respondent Lieutenant Gregory Fulk were pushing him into a cell. His hands were still cuffed behind his back and he fell face-first into the cell and hit his head on a metal toilet. Officer Smith and Lieutenant Fulk then stripped Murphy of his clothes, removed his handcuffs, and left him in the cell without checking his condition. Thirty or forty minutes passed until a nurse arrived to attend to Murphy, who was sent to a hospital. Part of his eye socket had been crushed and required surgery. Despite the procedure, Murphy did not fully recover; almost five years later, his vision remained doubled and blurred.
Murphy sued respondents under
Respondents appealed, arguing that
so doing, it acknowledged that its interpretation of
II
A
The relevant provision in the PLRA provides:
“Whenever a monetary judgment is awarded in [a civil-rights action brought by a prisoner], a portion of the judgment (not to exceed 25 percent) shall be applied to satisfy the amount of attorney‘s fees awarded against the defendant. If the award of attorney‘s fees is not greater than 150 percent of the judgment, the excess shall be paid by the defendant.”
42 U. S. C. §1997e(d)(2) .
The crux of the majority‘s reasoning is its definition of the infinitive “to satisfy.” The majority contends that “when you purposefully seek or aim ‘to satisfy’ an obligation, especially a financial obligation, that usually means you intend to discharge the obligation in full.” Ante, at 3. To meet its duty to act with the purpose of fully discharging the fee award, the majority reasons, “a district court must apply as much of the judgment as necessary to satisfy the fee award, without of course exceeding the 25% cap.” Ibid.
But the phrase “to satisfy” as it is used in
does in the statute is to direct a district court to contribute some amount of the judgment toward payment of the fee award.
Beginning with the neighboring text, it may well be that, standing alone, “to satisfy” is often used to mean “to completely fulfill an obligation.” But the statutory provision here does not simply say “to satisfy“; it says “applied to satisfy.” As a matter of everyday usage, the phrase “applied to satisfy” often means “applied toward the satisfaction of,” rather than “applied in complete fulfillment of.” Thus, whereas an action undertaken “to satisfy” an obligation might, as the majority suggests, naturally be understood as an effort to discharge the obligation in full, ante, at 3, a contribution that is “applied to satisfy” an obligation need not be intended to discharge the obligation in full.
Take a few examples: A consumer makes a payment on her credit card, which her agreement with the card company provides shall be “applied to satisfy” her debt. A student enrolls in a particular type of math class, the credits from which her university registrar earlier announced shall be “applied to satisfy” the requirements of a physics degree. And a law firm associate contributes hours to a pro bono matter that her firm has provided may be “applied to satisfy” the firm‘s overall billable-hours requirement. In each case, pursuant to the relevant agreement, the payment, credits, and hours are applied toward the satisfaction of a larger obligation, but the inference is not that the consumer, student, or associate had to contribute
because the former had a better instructor; and the associate may have been judicious about the hours she dedicated to the pro bono matter because she knew her firm more highly valued paid over pro bono work. So, too, here. Section 1997e(d)(2), like the credit card agreement, university registrar announcement, and law firm policy, sets out the relevant rule—“a portion of the judgment (not to exceed 25 percent) shall be applied to satisfy” the fee award—and the district court, like the consumer, student, and law firm associate, decides how much of the judgment to apply.
As a practical matter, moreover, a district court will almost never be able to discharge fully a fee award from 25 percent of a prisoner-plaintiff‘s judgment. In the vast majority of prisoner-civil-rights cases, the attorney‘s fee award exceeds the monetary judgment awarded to the prevailing prisoner-plaintiff. In fiscal year 2012, for instance, the median damages award in a prisoner-civil-rights action litigated to victory (i.e., not settled or decided against the prisoner) was a mere $4,185. See Schlanger, Trends in Prisoner Litigation, as the PLRA Enters Adulthood, 5 U. C. Irvine L. Rev. 153, 168 (2015) (Table 7) (Trends in Prisoner Litigation). Therefore, in 2012, the maximum amount (25 percent) of the median judgment that could be applied toward an attorney‘s fee award was $1,046.25. The PLRA caps the hourly rate that may be awarded to a prisoner-plaintiff‘s attorney at 150 percent of the rate for court-appointed counsel under
to discharging fully the attorney‘s fee award.1
Such low judgments are not a new phenomenon in prisoner-civil-rights suits; they were the norm even before Congress enacted the PLRA. In fiscal year 1993, for example, the median damages award for prisoner-plaintiffs in cases won at trial was $1,000. See Trends in Prisoner Litigation 167; Schlanger, Inmate Litigation, 116 Harv. L. Rev. 1555, 1602–1603, and Table II.C (2003).2
Given the very small judgment awards in successfully litigated prisoner-civil-rights cases, it is hard to believe, as the majority contends, that Congress used “applied to satisfy” to command an effort by district courts to “discharge ... in full,” ante, at 3, when in most cases, full discharge will never be possible.3 Rather,
needed to discharge fully the fee award. Under that interpretation, applying any amount of Murphy‘s judgment toward payment of his attorney‘s fee award complies with
B
The majority suggests that if Congress had wanted to permit judges to pursue something other than full discharge of the fee award from the judgment, it could have replaced “to satisfy” with “to reduce” or “against.” Ante, at 3. But the majority ignores that Congress also easily could have written
In fact, Congress considered and rejected language prior to enacting the current attorney‘s fee apportionment provision that would have done just what the majority claims. An earlier version of
“Whenever a monetary judgment is awarded in an action described in paragraph (1), a portion of the judgment (not to exceed 25 percent) shall be applied to satisfy the amount of attorney‘s fees awarded against the defendant. If the award of attorney‘s fees is greater than 25 percent of the judgment, the excess shall be paid by the defendant.” Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995, S. 1279, 104th Cong., 1st Sess., §3(d), p. 16 (1995) (emphasis added).
The italicized clause plainly expressed what the major-
ity contends the current provision means, i.e., that a defendant‘s liability for the attorney‘s fee award begins only if any portion of the award remains unpaid after the prevailing prisoner-plaintiff has contributed 25 percent of the judgment. But Congress removed this clause before finalizing the bill, thus electing to keep the 25-percent ceiling for the prisoner-plaintiff‘s contribution to the fee award and rejecting a 25-percent floor for the defendant‘s contribution. See H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 104–378, p. 71 (1995).
The majority alternatively disclaims the ability to discern what motivated the deletion and pronounces that “[i]t shows that, at some stage of the bill‘s consideration, its proponents likely shared [the majority‘s] understanding” of how the first sentence works. Ante, at 8–9, n. 2. In the majority‘s view, it is more likely that Congress drafted two redundant sentences than two conflicting ones. Ibid. That supposition, however, is purely speculative. Here is what is known for certain: Congress had before it language that would
C
The rest of the statutory text confirms that district courts have discretion to choose the amount of the judgment that must be applied toward the attorney‘s fee
award. Specifically, that grant of discretion is evident from Congress’ use of two discretion-conferring terms, “portion” and “not to exceed.”
The first word, “portion,” is defined as “[a] share or allotted part (as of an estate).” Black‘s Law Dictionary 1182 (7th ed. 1999). “Portion” thus inherently conveys an indeterminate amount. Take, for instance, the following sentence: “My dinner guest has requested a portion of apple pie for dessert.” How much is a “portion” of pie? For a marathon runner, a “portion” might mean a hearty serving, perhaps an eighth of a whole pie; for someone on a diet, however, a “portion” might mean a tiny sliver. The dinner host can figure it out based on the circumstances. Similarly, in this context, referencing a “portion” of the judgment tells us that some amount of the judgment up to 25 percent of the whole is to be applied to the attorney‘s fee award, but not exactly what amount. That decision is left to the sound discretion of the district court, depending again on the circumstances.
The majority dismisses as insignificant Congress’ use of this discretion-conferring term, arguing that under either side‘s reading of the statute, the “portion” of fees taken from the prisoner-plaintiff‘s judgment will vary. See ante, at 5. True enough,5 but that fact does not justify the majority‘s brushoff. Congress’ deliberate choice to use the indeterminate, discretion-conferring term “portion” in
To illustrate the significance of Congress’ use of the word “portion,” imagine that
vided only that “a portion of the judgment shall be applied to satisfy the amount of attorney‘s fees awarded against the defendant.” As applied to the typical scenario, i.e., where the attorney‘s fee award exceeds the prisoner-plaintiff‘s money judgment, the most natural reading of the statute absent the limiting parenthetical is that the amount of the judgment applied to the fee award must be more than zero and less than 100 percent. That is because, as explained above, “portion” means something less than the whole but does not have a fixed value.6 If the majority were
Congress’ use of the word “portion,” therefore, does not merely instruct that there are a range of possible portions that can be paid out of the judgment. “Portion” makes evident that the district court is afforded the discretion to
choose the amount of the judgment to be paid toward the fee award. The addition of the “not to exceed 25 percent” parenthetical only enhances this conclusion. The phrase “not to exceed,” which is itself discretion conferring, sets an upper, but not a lower, limit and thus cabins, but does not eliminate, the exercise of discretion that “portion” confers.
D
The distinction between cabining and eliminating discretion is also key to understanding the relationship between
Section 1988(b), the Civil Rights Attorney‘s Fees Awards Act of 1976, authorizes a district court to award “a reasonable attorney‘s fee” to a prevailing party in an action to enforce one or more of several federal civil rights laws. Section 1997e(d) in turn imposes limits on the attorney‘s fees available under
These provisions, of course, do not eliminate a district court‘s discretion when it comes to the award of attorney‘s fees to a prevailing prisoner-plaintiff; they merely compress the range of permissible options. A district court still has the discretion to decide whether to award attorney‘s fees, just as it ordinarily would under
Just as these surrounding statutory provisions in
The majority suggests that affording discretion to district courts when it comes to the apportionment of attorney‘s fee awards is in tension with our adoption of the lodestar method as the presumptive means of calculating a reasonable fee award under
considers whether to make adjustments to that amount, see id., at 898–901; Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U. S. 424, 435 (1983). The majority asserts that adopting Murphy‘s reading of
First, the question before us is whether
If the majority is concerned that district courts are exercising the apportionment discretion afforded to them by
ing attorney‘s fee awards that can consistently be applied across cases.7 Just as courts ultimately were capable, through trial-and-error, of discerning an appropriate formula for assessing the reasonableness of a given fee award, see Delaware Valley, 478 U. S., at 562–565, so, too, are they capable of determining a sound approach to the apportionment decision envisioned by
Second, even absent an equivalent method to the lodestar inquiry,
Finally, it is not obvious that the need for a more regimented approach with respect to calculating the amount of an attorney‘s fee award under
should bear responsibility for payment of those services (within the bounds set by Congress). In light of these distinctions, the Court should hesitate to extrapolate wholesale from the considerations that drove the adoption of the lodestar rule to constrain the apportionment discretion afforded by
III
On my reading of the plain text of
Notes
But what exactly does this amendment process prove, even taken on its own terms? It shows that, at some stage of the bill‘s consideration, its proponents likely shared our understanding that the (still unchanged) first sentence doesn‘t give district courts the discretion to allocate fees to the defendant as they please. For if such discretion were intended, it would have been incoherent for the drafters to say, in the second sentence, that defendants must pay only “[i]f the award of attorney‘s fees is greater than 25 percent of the judgment,” instead of whenever the district court chooses. Beyond that, the amendment process tells us nothing. Did legislators voting on the measure agree with our interpretation of the first sentence and drop the confirmatory language from the second as flabby duplication? Or did they drop it because, as Mr. Murphy supposes, they thought it erroneous or even just bad policy? Did anyone voting on the measure even think about this question? There is no way to know, and we will not try to guess. The average such award in 1993, excluding one extreme outlier of $6.5 million, was $18,800. See Trends in Prisoner Litigation 167; Schlanger, 116 Harv. L. Rev., at 1603.