Washington, DC — The Institute for Free Speech has filed an amicus brief in Lackey v. Stinnie urging the Supreme Court to affirm that civil rights plaintiffs who obtain precedent-setting preliminary relief are “prevailing parties” entitled to attorney fees under federal law, even if their cases later become moot. The Institute argues that denying fees in such cases contradicts Congress’s intent to encourage civil rights litigation through fee-shifting statutes.
The Institute is joined in its brief by several other prominent public-interest organizations, including the Cato Institute, Southeastern Legal Foundation, New Civil Liberties Alliance, Liberty Justice Center, Second Amendment Foundation, and the National Rifle Association of America.
The federal Civil Rights Act provides that, in lawsuits aimed at protecting civil rights, “prevailing” parties are entitled to recover their attorney fees and costs. But government officials who suffer early court defeats often rush to change their unconstitutional laws, and they then claim that the plaintiffs are not entitled to recover fees because they didn’t win a final judgment. The Institute argues in favor of reading “prevail” to mean winning “preliminary relief that generates a court opinion that materially develops, clarifies, or alters the law.”
The Institute contends that “[l]egal precedents change the relationships of parties in the future” and are “[o]ften . . . more enduring and of far greater value than the resolution of specific disputes.” It emphasizes that denying fees in such cases “contradicts the original reasoning” for the fee-shifting law and undermines Congress’s intent to encourage civil rights litigation “to improve the law for all Americans through private lawsuits.”
The Institute for Free Speech argues in sum that adopting “ever-more narrow, strained, and unnatural readings of ‘prevailing’ is not just bad statutory interpretation. It deprives this Court of cases that enable it to do some of its most important work.”
To read the amicus brief in Lackey v. Stinnie, click here.
About the Institute for Free Speech
The Institute for Free Speech promotes and defends the political speech rights to freely speak, assemble, publish, and petition the government guaranteed by the First Amendment.
