Lead Opinion
Romano Salvatori, a former employee of Westinghouse Electric Corporation (“Westinghouse”), filed this action pursu
While this appeal was pending, we addressed and decided precisely the question at issue in this case — that is, whether a plaintiff who obtains a favorable jury verdict on the merits of an ADEA claim, but receives no damages, is entitled to attorney’s fees. In Nance v. Maxwell Fed. Credit Union, 186 F.3d 1338, (11th Cir.1999), we determined that a plaintiff who had succeeded on the merits of an ADEA claim nonetheless had failed to prove injury based on that discriminatory conduct. Based on this finding, we vacated the district court’s award of back pay and front pay. See id. at 1342. Furthermore, we reasoned that, because the plaintiff had not received an enforceable judgment and, as a result, had not “prevailed,” as that term has been used in other civil rights contexts, she also was not entitled to attorney’s fees. See id. at 1342.
We conclude that our decision in Nance directly controls our disposition of the instant case. Like the plaintiff in Nance, Salvatori has achieved success on the merits of his claim but has not obtained a judgment, either in the form of damages or equitable relief, that the court may enforce against Westinghouse. Consistent with our decision in Nance, therefore, we determine that Salvatori is not entitled to attorney’s fees. We therefore REVERSE the district court’s order denying Westinghouse’s motion to alter or amend the judgment, and REMAND this case for further proceedings in light of this opinion.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
Concurrence Opinion
concurring:
I write separately to note that our decision to construe the ADEA as requiring what is tantamount to a “prevailing party” status for purposes of a litigant’s entitlement to attorney’s fees is not self-evident from the plain language of the statute. In fact, notwithstanding the frequent and consistent use of the term “prevailing party” by our court and other circuit courts to refer to a successful litigant within the context of the ADEA, the statute contains no such language. The ADEA, which incorporates selected provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), including those pertaining to attorney’s fees, see 29 U.S.C. § 626(b), mandates that “[t]he court in such [an] action [filed pursuant to this section] shall, in addition to any judgment awarded to the plaintiff or plaintiffs, allow a reasonable attorney’s fee to be paid
Unlike the ADEA, however, both Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5k, and 42 U.S.C. § 1988(b), the primary vehicles for the majority of civil rights litigation, provide that “the court, in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party ... a reasonable attorney’s fee (including expert fees) as part of the costs, and the Commission and the United States shall be liable for costs the same as a private person.
Although it is critical to note that the procedural framework of Title VII and section 1988 is not identical to that set forth in the ADEA, it is reasonable to extrapolate salient aspects of the Supreme Court’s discussion of what constitutes a “prevailing party” under Title VII and section 1988 for purposes of our analysis of what constitutes “any judgment” under the ADEA. In Hewitt, again, the Court expressly observed that
[t]he real value of the judicial pronouncement — what makes it a proper judicial resolution of a “case or controversy” rather than an advisory opinion— is in the settling of some dispute which affects the behavior of the defendant towards the plaintiff.
Hewitt, 482 U.S. at 761, 107 S.Ct. at 2676. It is fair to say that the Court’s reasoning in Hewitt, while not conclusively controlling or dispositive of an analogous ADEA case, necessarily informs our decision relative to the question of whether a litigant who has succeeded only on the merits of her claim — but has received no “judicial resolution,” id., is entitled to attorney’s fees.
Thus, while I do not believe that we may, in essence, import the term “prevailing party” into the ADEA, I agree that, in light of the Supreme Court’s directive in Hewitt as applied by our court in the context of both Title VII and section 1988, an ADEA plaintiff is only entitled to attorney’s fees if, in addition to succeeding on the merits of any part of her claim, the judicial resolution of the action settles some dispute that affects the behavior of the defendant toward the plaintiff. Because no such judicial resolution transpired as a result of the jury verdict in this case, I agree that Salvatori is not entitled to attorney’s fees.
. Section 1988 does not duplicate Title VII’s provision regarding either expert fees or the potential liability of the United States or the Commission as tantamount to that of private parties.
Concurrence Opinion
separately concurring:
I agree that this court’s recently announced decision in Nance v. Maxwell Federal Credit Union (11th Cir. (Ala.)), controls the disposition of the case now before us. It is now the rule, at least in this circuit, that unless there is an “enforceable judgment” — irrespective of whether a defendant has been found liable for unlawful discrimination — attorney’s fees are not available under the ADEA. I therefore concur in the result reached by our panel.
