OIL, CHEMICAL AND ATOMIC WORKERS INTERNATIONAL UNION, AFL-CIO, and James K. Phillips, Jr., Vice President of Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union, AFL-CIO, Appellees, v. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, Appellant.
No. 01-5163.
United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.
Argued March 7, 2002. Decided May 10, 2002.
452-466
Daniel Guttman argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief were Brian P. McCafferty, Reuben A. Guttman and Traci L. Buschner.
Before: RANDOLPH and ROGERS, Circuit Judges, and WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge.
Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge RANDOLPH.
Dissenting opinion filed by Circuit Judge ROGERS.
RANDOLPH, Circuit Judge:
This is an appeal of an award of attorney‘s fees for actions brought under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA“),
I.
Congress created the United States Enrichment Corpоration (“USEC“) to operate uranium enrichment plants in the country. See
In August 1998, the government moved to dismiss the FOIA and Sunshine Act suits, arguing that the court‘s jurisdiction ended when USEC ceased to be a public entity. Rather than grant the motion, the district court substituted the Department of Energy as defendant on the grounds that the Privatization Act called for the government to fulfill obligations incurred by USEC, and that there was a “Record Agreement” to the same effect. Several status hearings took place after this order. On December 10, 1999, the parties (the union and the Energy Department) filed a Stipulation and Order of Dismissal stating that the government had provided “substantial amounts of material” and dismissing the claims with prejudicе, although reserving the union‘s right to seek attorney‘s fees. The district court endorsed the stipulation.
The parties were unable to resolve the attorney‘s fees issue amongst themselves, so the union filed an application for fees with the district court on April 17, 2000. On March 16, 2001, the court ruled that the union was entitled to receive fees, but not in the full amount it sought. (The court stated that the union could recover any Sunshine Act fees in its motion for
II.
In order to recover attorney‘s fees in a FOIA case, the plaintiff must have “substantially prevailed“: the “court may assess against the United States reasonable attorney fees and other litigation costs reasonably incurred in any case under this section in which the complainant has substantially prevailed.”
In Buckhannon, the Supreme Court rejected the “catalyst theory.” Plaintiffs there had alleged that certain “self-preservation” provisions of a state fire code violated the Fair Housing Amendments and Americans with Disabilities Acts as applied to an assisted-living facility. See 532 U.S. at 600, 121 S.Ct. at 1838. Before the district court ruled, the state legislature repealed the provisions. See id. at 601, 121 S.Ct. at 1838. Plaintiffs then moved for attorney‘s fees, arguing that under the fee-shifting statutes at issuе they were “prevailing parties” because their lawsuit had prompted the change in the law. See id. The Supreme Court held that absent some sort of judicial imprimatur, a plaintiff could not be considered a “prevailing party” and an award of attorney‘s fees was therefore impermissible.
The Energy Department argues that Buckhannon‘s rejection of the catalyst theory applies also to FOIA, a possibility we have already noticed. See Students Against Genocide v. Dep‘t of State, 257 F.3d 828, 841 n. 14 (D.C.Cir.2001). As the Court pointed out in Buckhannon, 532 U.S. at 602-03, 121 S.Ct. at 1838-40, there are dozens of fee-shifting statutes, some worded slightly differently from others. A wide range of statutes uses the “substantially prevails” formulation. See, e.g.,
We therefore adhere to the proposition, well-established in this court and in the Supreme Court, that eligibility for an award of attorney‘s fees in a FOIA case should be treated the same as eligibility determinations made under other fee-shifting statutes unless there is some good reason for doing otherwise. One such reason, the union argues, is the contrast between the language of the statutes in Buckhannon, which authorized fees for the “prevailing party,” see
The union also maintains that since FOIA cases are equitable in nature, the limitations imposed in Buckhannon are not appropriate. Judge Friendly made the argument forcefully in an influential opinion:
To take an extreme example, Congress clearly did not mean that where an FOIA suit had gone to trial and developments made it apparent that the judge was about to rule for the plaintiff, the Government could abort any award of attorney fees by an eleventh hour tender of the information requested.
Vermont Low Income Advocacy Council, 546 F.2d at 513. But FOIA cases are not unique in this respect. There are many potential actions in which the “prevailing party” may sue for injunctive relief or for damages and an injunction. See, e.g., Wagshal v. Foster, 28 F.3d 1249, 1251 (D.C.Cir.1994) (plaintiff seeking damages and injunctive relief under
The union also sees a distinction between FOIA cases and Buckhannon stemming from FOIA‘s legislative history. The argument is that Congress intended FOIA‘s attorney‘s fee provision to be understood differently from comparable provisions in other statutes such as the Americans with Disabilities Act. The history leading to passage of FOIA is thoroughly surveyed in Judge Friendly‘s opinion in Vermont Low Income Advocacy Council. See 546 F.2d at 512-13. The original House bill made a plaintiff‘s eligibility for an award of fees turn on whether the court had issued an injunction against the government. See id. at 512. The final House bill conditioned eligibility on the government‘s not prevailing. See id. The Senate bill contained the “substantially prevailed” language, along with a list of factors for the court to consider in determining whether to make an award. See id. The accompanying Senate report talked about eligibility for attorney‘s fees in cases in which the plaintiffs had successfully proven that the government had wrongfully withheld information. See id. at 512. The final version, as it emerged from conference, deleted the Senate‘s list of factors. See id. at 513. With great respect to Judge Friendly, on whose opinion we relied in Cuneo, 553 F.2d at 1364 & nn.3-8, this record is inconclusive. None of the Committee reports mentions awarding fees in the absence of a judgment. And both the House and the Senate reports contain statements suggesting that the FOIA provision was modeled after fee-shifting provisions allowing fees for a “prevailing party,” which further supports treating FOIA no differently than the statutes interpreted in Buckhannon. See H.R.REP. NO. 93-876 (1974), reprinted in LEGISLATIVE HISTORY OF THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT, 1974 AMENDMENTS 126-27 & n.10 (1975); S.REP. NO. 93-854 (1974), reprinted in LEGISLATIVE HISTORY, supra, at 170, U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1974, 6267.
We therefore hold that in order for plaintiffs in FOIA actions to become eligible for an award of attorney‘s fees, they
III.
The union claims that even if Buckhannon applies, we should sustain the award because the parties received a “court-ordered settlement.” The Department of Energy became a defendant on March 18, 1999. The parties agreed to dismiss the case on December 10, 1999. In the interim, the district court had issued three orders. The first, entered on March 31, 1999, ordered the government to review the documents the union sought and to submit a “joint report with a proposed schedule” no later than July 10, 1999. The parties timely filed the joint report, stating that the Energy Department had reviewed thе 4,000 documents and that “to the greatest extent possible, the parties wish to resolve this case without further contested proceedings.” The court‘s second order directed the parties to submit another “status report” by August 20, 1999. The parties’ second report stipulated that, “[s]ubject to the approval of the Court,” the government had provided most of the materials the union had requested, that it would search for the remaining items and release any that did not merit withholding under FOIA‘s exemptions, and that the union was dismissing its case with prejudice except for the remaining items. The parties reiterated that they “wish[ed] to resolve this case to the greatest extent possible without further contested proceedings” and asked for leave of the court to continue negotiations until December 8, 1999. The court signed the document, which carried the heading “Stipulation and Order.” It is clear from the record that to this point the court had not rendered any judgment about the legality of the government‘s withholding any information and that the parties had been attempting to resolve the case through negotiation. See, e.g., 3/31/99 Tr. at 9:19-23 (“I‘ll certainly read the joint report as soon as it comes in, and ... I‘ll either sign off on what you‘ve given me or set up a conference call or an in-court status to resolve things finally.“).
On December 10, 1999, the court approved the parties’ final status report as a “Stipulation and Order” stating in its entirety:
Subject to the approval of the Court, it is hereby stipulated and agreed as follows by and between the undersigned:
1. In light of defendant‘s production of substantial amounts of mаterial responsive to plaintiff‘s claim for relief in this action, the action is hereby dismissed with prejudice and, except as provided in 1 2, without fees or costs.
2. The dismissal of this action shall be without prejudice to the right of plaintiff to obtain in [this case], an award of attorney‘s fees and litigation costs covering work performed in this action.
This order did not constitute a decision on the merits; the court had no contested issues before it. The “Stipulation and Order” approved the parties’ terms of dismissal, but this was merely a formality. An “action may be dismissed ... without order of the court ... by filing a stipulation of dismissal signed by” all of the parties. See
The December 10 Stipulation and Order of Dismissal did not meaningfully alter the legal relationship of the parties. Its only effect was to dismiss the union‘s lawsuit with a court order when no court order was needed. That cannot represent “judicial relief” for the union. Aside from the union‘s attorney fee request, there was nothing left for the district court to oversee. This contrasts with the consent decree in Maher v. Gagne, 448 U.S. 122, 126, 100 S.Ct. 2570, 2573, 65 L.Ed.2d 653 (1980), which increased AFDC allowances and gave recipients the right to prove that their individual expenses exceeded the standard levels. The decree in Maher constituted “judicial relief” that “materially altered” the rights of the parties: for example, it estopped the government from refusing to disburse benefits in excess of the standard level to an individual who demonstrated the requisite personal expense level. Had the December 10 stipulation between the union and the Energy Department outlined documents the government still needed to disclose to the union, matters might be different. But the parties stipulated that the union had received enough information to forego continuation of its lawsuit.
Our dissenting colleague thinks that the district court‘s endorsement of the August 23, 1999, stiрulation qualifies as a “settlement agreement enforced through a consent decree.” Buckhannon, 532 U.S. at 604, 121 S.Ct. at 1840. The union‘s brief never made this argument. It argued instead that the court‘s denial of the Energy Department‘s motion to dismiss changed the legal relationship of the parties. Neither the union‘s argument, nor the dissent‘s attempt to salvage the union‘s case, are correct. Surviving a motion to dismiss does not alter the legal relationship between parties. See Hanrahan v. Hampton, 446 U.S. 754, 758, 100 S.Ct. 1987, 1989-90, 64 L.Ed.2d 670 (1980). The dissent‘s focus on the August 23, 1999, stipulation ignores the interim nature of that order, which is properly viewed as a procedural ruling that cannot serve as the basis for a determination that the union prevailed. See id. at 759, 100 S.Ct. at 1990. The only part of the order which arguably changed the legal status of the parties was the requirement thаt the Energy Department complete its record review in 60 days. Before August 23, the court had not ordered the Energy Department to turn over any documents; after August 23, the Energy Department still had no obligation to do so. Both before and after August 23 the district court did not disallow any of the Energy Department‘s justifications for exempting documents, or portions of documents, from disclosure. This is not judicial relief on the
Under the rule of Buckhannon, the union therefore was not entitled to attorney‘s fees because it did not “substantially prevail.”
Reversed.
ROGERS, Circuit Judge, dissenting:
Today the court decides whether the Supreme Court‘s decision in Buckhannon Board and Care Home, Inc. v. West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, 532 U.S. 598, 121 S.Ct. 1835, 149 L.Ed.2d 855 (2001), applies to suits for attorney‘s fees under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA“). See Opinion at 453. Even assuming that the answer to this question is in the affirmative, there are two separate problems with the court‘s opinion. The first involves the suggestion that the Supreme Court‘s decision in Buckhannon bars attorney‘s fees in the absence of a final judgment on the merits or a consent decree embodying a settlement. To reach this interpretation of Buckhannon, the court, contrary to the other circuits, glosses over the holding and underlying rationale of Buckhannon. The second problem arises from the court‘s failure to acknowledge the plain terms of the district court‘s order to the government to turn over documents that Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union (“OCAW“) sought under FOIA and that the government had previously withheld.
I.
The holding and rationale of the Supreme Court in Buckhannon is hardly as broad as some of the court‘s language today suggests. The Supreme Court stated its holding as follows: “[W]e hold that the ‘catalyst theory’ is not a permissible basis for the award of attorney‘s fees under the [Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988],
Finding a common thread in its precedent, the Court in effect established a line: a party prevails only upon obtaining a “judicially sanctioned change in the legal relationship of the parties.” Id. at 605, 121 S.Ct. at 1840. On one side of the line, the Court observed that its precedent reveals that “enforceаble judgments on the merits and court-ordered consent decrees create the ‘material alteration of the legal relationship of the parties’ necessary to permit an award of attorney‘s fees.” Id. at 604, 121 S.Ct. at 1840 (quoting Tex. State Teachers Ass‘n, 489 U.S. at 792-93, 109 S.Ct. at 1493-94). The Court then held that the “catalyst theory’ falls on the other side of the line from these examples” because “[i]t allows an award where there is no judicially sanctioned change in the legal relationship of the parties.” Id. at 605, 121 S.Ct. at 1840. The Court explained that “[a] defendant‘s voluntary change in conduct, although perhaps accomplishing what the plaintiff sought to achieve by the lawsuit, lacks the necessary judicial imprimatur on the change.” Id.
The Supreme Court‘s holding and rationale in Buckhannon do not limit attorney‘s fees awards to cases in which there is either a final judgment on the merits or a consent decree. Rather than define these two forms of relief as the only instances in which there could be a “prevailing party” for purposes of recovering attorney‘s fees, the Court used these forms of relief as discrete examples, illustrated by its precedent, in which the need for “judicial imprimatur on the change” in the parties’ legal relationship is present. Id. As the factual setting before the Supreme Court makes clear, the Court did not have the occasion to provide an exhaustive list of the various forms of judicial relief that the plaintiff must obtain in order to be a “prevailing party” for purposes of an award of attorney‘s fees. In Buckhannon, the petitioner‘s suit for declaratory and injunctive relief coincided with the State legislature‘s subsequent repeal of the allegedly offending statute, and the district court thereafter dismissed the lawsuit as moot. Id. at 601, 121 S.Ct. at 1838. There was no judicial involvement in the resolution of the litigation. Petitioners, however, sought attorney‘s fees as prevailing parties under the FHAA and the ADA on the theory that the lawsuit had served as a catalyst of the repeal. Id. Not having any occasion to consider the precise contours of the necessary judicial imprimatur on the change in the legal relationship of the parties, the Supreme Court did not need to, and in fact did not, seize the opportunity to explain more than that the “catalyst theory” as applied on the facts before the Court — where there was no judicial involvement in the resolution — was not enough.
It seems apparent from these passages that Congress intended to permit the interim award of counsel fees only when a party has prevailed on the merits of at least some of his claims. For only in that event has there been a determination of the “substantial rights of the parties,” which Congress determined was a necessary foundation for departing from the usual rule in this country that each party is to bear the expense of his own attorney.
Id. at 757-58, 100 S.Ct. at 1989. Nothing in Buckhannon suggests that the Court has overruled this precedent; rather, the Court only clarified that the catalyst theory fell on the other side of the line of this precedent.
The circuits that have addressed Buckhannon have not read it to be as broad a bar to attorney‘s fees as the court suggests today: Several circuits have confronted a
Other circuits, taking a less narrow reading of Buckhannon than the Ninth Circuit, have nonetheless recognized that Buckhannon has a limited holding in two respects. First, the circuits have looked at the particular attorney‘s fees statute at issue to determine whether Buckhannon‘s interpretation of “prevailing party” applies. For example, the Tenth Circuit in Center for Biological Diversity v. Norton, 262 F.3d 1077 (10th Cir.2001), declined to apply Buckhannon to the attorney‘s fees provision of the Endangered Species Act,
Second, the circuits have looked beyond whether the relief obtained was either a judgment on the merits or a consent decree and instead have looked for action compelled by the court, focusing on the underlying concern of the Supreme Court in Buckhannon that there be some “judicial imprimatur on the change” in the parties’ legal status. As the Seventh Circuit explained in Crabill in rejecting a claim of entitlement to attorney‘s fees in the absence of any judicially ordered relief, “[t]he significance of the Buckhannon decision ... [is] its insistence that a plaintiff must obtain formal judicial relief, and not merely ‘success,’ in order to be deemed a prevailing or successful party under any attorneys’ fee provision comparable to the civil rights attorneys’ fee statute.” Crabill, 259 F.3d at 666. Thus, the Second Circuit in J.C. v. Regional School District 10, Board of Education, 278 F.3d 119 (2d Cir.2002), in addressing fee awards under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act,
The district court did not compel [the defendant] to adopt the regulations. Under the Buckhannon rule, that ends the matter. Because the district court entered no explicit order compelling, or even leading to, [the defendant‘s] adoption of the regulations, we cannot say that the district court‘s refusal to award attorneys’ fees cоnstituted an abuse of discretion.
Id. at 30.
The few district court opinions to have addressed Buckhannon likewise take the position that as long as a party has obtained some judicial relief more akin to a consent decree rather than a private set-
The court today properly begins by addressing whether Buckhannon‘s reasoning applies to attorney‘s fees suits under FOIA, but gives short shrift to Buckhannon‘s reasoning and glosses over whether the relief obtained by OCAW was compelled by the district court. Although the court uses language that would suggest that Buckhannon is a bar to attorney‘s fees regardless of the nature of thе judicial action short of a final judgment or a consent decree, see Opinion at 457, Buckhannon and the decisions interpreting it make clear that there is no principled basis for this suggestion. What is key under Buckhannon is whether the particular relief obtained results in a material change in the legal relationship of the parties that bears the necessary judicial imprimatur. The court‘s failure to come to grips with Buckhannon‘s holding and rationale is only possible because of the second problem in the court‘s opinion.
II.
Buckhannon indicates that to be a “prevailing party” one must obtain a change in the legal relationship of the parties that bears the necessary judicial imprimatur and cited as examples a judgment on the merits or a court-ordered consent decree. Buckhannon, 532 U.S. at 605, 121 S.Ct. at 1840-41; see also id. at 622, 121 S.Ct. at 1849-50 (Scalia, J., concurring). Because the question put to this court under Buckhannon is whether OCAW obtained a change in the legal relationship with the government that bears the necessary judicial imprimatur, the court‘s failure to address the district court‘s orders in the record with any particularity is inexplicable. OCAW, which is the appellee, pointed out during oral argument in response to the government‘s argument that the district court did not grant OCAW any of its requested relief, that the final resolution “did not emerge out of thin air” but resulted because on August 23, 1999 “the [district] court ordered ... the defendant ... [to] cause a search to be made ... and release to plaintiffs all records thus retrieved” and thus “the court was intimately involved in approving the settlement.” An examination of the record makes clear that OCAW in fact obtained judicially sanctioned legal relief akin to a consent decree and hence sufficient to meet the Buckhannon test.
The existence of the August 23 Order directing the government to release documents that OCAW had sought and the government had previously withheld is a judicially sanctioned victory on the merits; the release of withheld documents is the whole point of a FOIA lawsuit. See
For these reasons, I conclude that in light of the district court‘s August 23, 1999 Stipulation and Order directing the government to release documents previously withheld after being requested pursuant to FOIA, OCAW has satisfied the Buckhannon test beсause there has been a judicially sanctioned “material alteration of the legal relationship of the parties’ necessary to permit an award of attorney‘s fees.” Buckhannon, 532 U.S. at 604, 121 S.Ct. at 1840 (quoting Tex. State Teachers Ass‘n, 489 U.S. at 792-93, 109 S.Ct. at 1493-94). A remand is nonetheless required, for although the district court ruled that the government withheld “numerous categories of documents ... without any legal basis for doing so,” the record is unclear whether the district court would have reached the same decision considering only the documents OCAW obtained pursuant to the August 23 Order. On remand, the district court would determine OCAW‘s entitlement to attorney‘s fees, see Chesapeake Bay Found., Inc. v. U.S. Dep‘t of Agric., 11 F.3d 211, 216 (D.C.Cir.1993), and if necessary, proportion the amount of attorney‘s fees previously awarded that are attributable to OCAW‘s efforts to obtain the documents that the government produced pursuant to the August 23 Order. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.