Buckhannon Board and Care Home, Inc. v. West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources

Chief Justice REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.

Numerous federal statutes allow courts to award attorney's fees and costs to the “prevailing party.” The question presented here is whether this term includes a party that has failed to secure a judgment on the merits or a court-ordered consent decree, but has nonetheless achieved the desired result because the lawsuit brought about a voluntary change in the defendant's conduct. We hold that it does not.

Buckhannon Board and Care Home, Inc., which operates care homes that provide assisted living to their residents, failed an inspection by the West Virginia Office of the State Fire Marshal because some of the residents were incapable of “self-preservation” as defined under state law. . . . On October 28, 1997, after receiving cease and desist orders requiring the closure of its residential care facilities within 30 days, Buckhannon Board and Care Home, Inc., on behalf of itself and other similarly situated homes and residents (hereinafter petitioners), brought suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia against the State of West Virginia, two of its agencies, and 18 individuals (hereinafter respondents), seeking declaratory and injunctive relief that the “self-preservation” requirement violated the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988 (FHAA), . . . and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), . . .

Respondents agreed to stay enforcement of the cease-and-desist orders pending resolution of the case and the parties began discovery. In 1998, the West Virginia Legislature enacted two bills eliminating the “self-preservation” requirement, . . . and respondents moved to dismiss the case as moot. The District Court granted the motion, finding that the 1998 legislation had eliminated the allegedly offensive provisions and that there was no indication that the West Virginia Legislature would repeal the amendments.

Petitioners requested attorney's fees as the “prevailing party” under the FHAA, . . . and ADA, . . . Petitioners argued that they were entitled to attorney's fees under the “catalyst theory,” which posits that a plaintiff is a “prevailing party” if it achieves the desired result because the lawsuit brought about a voluntary change in the defendant's conduct. Although most Courts of Appeals recognize the “catalyst theory,” the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit rejected it in S-1 and S-2 v. State Bd. of Ed. of N. C., . . . The District Court accordingly denied the motion and, for the same reason, the Court of Appeals affirmed in an unpublished, per curiam opinion. . . .

To resolve the disagreement amongst the Courts of Appeals, we granted certiorari, . . . and now affirm.

In the United States, parties are ordinarily required to bear their own attorney's fees-the prevailing party is not entitled to collect from the loser. . . . Under this “American Rule,” we follow “a general practice of not awarding fees to a prevailing party absent explicit statutory authority.” . . . Congress, however, has authorized the award of attorney's fees to the “prevailing party” in numerous statutes in addition to those at issue here, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, . . . the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1975, . . . and the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act of 1976, . . .

In designating those parties eligible for an award of litigation costs, Congress employed the term “prevailing party,” a legal term of art. Black's Law Dictionary . . . defines “prevailing party” as “[a] party in whose favor a judgment is rendered, regardless of the amount of damages awarded in certain cases, the court will award attorney's fees to the prevailing party. Also termed successful party.” This view that a “prevailing party” is one who has been awarded some relief by the court can be distilled from our prior cases.

In Hanrahan v. Hampton, . . . we reviewed the legislative history of § 1988 and found 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.” Our “[r]espect for ordinary language requires that a plaintiff receive at least some relief on the merits of his claim before he can be said to prevail.” . . . We have held that even an award of nominal damages suffices under this test. . . .

In addition to judgments on the merits, we have held that settlement agreements enforced through a consent decree may serve as the basis for an award of attorney's fees. . . . Although a consent decree does not always include an admission of liability by the defendant, . . . it nonetheless is a court-ordered “chang[e][in] the legal relationship between [the plaintiff] and the defendant.” . . . These decisions, taken together, establish that enforceable 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. . . .

We think, however, the “catalyst theory” falls on the other side of the line from these examples. It allows an award where there is no judicially sanctioned change in the legal relationship of the parties. Even under a limited form of the “catalyst theory,” a plaintiff could recover attorney's fees if it established that the “complaint had sufficient merit to withstand a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction or failure to state a claim on which relief may be granted.” . . . This is not the type of legal merit that our prior decisions, based upon plain language and congressional intent, have found necessary. Indeed, we held in Hewitt that an interlocutory ruling that reverses a dismissal for failure to state a claim “is not the stuff of which legal victories are made.” . . . 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. Our precedents thus counsel against holding that the term “prevailing party” authorizes an award of attorney's fees without a corresponding alteration in the legal relationship of the parties.

The dissenters chide us for upsetting “long-prevailing Circuit precedent.” . . . But, as Justice SCALIA points out in his concurrence, several Courts of Appeals have relied upon dicta in our prior cases in approving the “catalyst theory.” . . . Now that the issue is squarely presented, it behooves us to reconcile the plain language of the statutes with our prior holdings. We have only awarded attorney's fees where the plaintiff has received a judgment on the merits, . . . or obtained a court-ordered consent decree, . . . we have not awarded attorney's fees where the plaintiff has secured the reversal of a directed verdict, . . . or acquired a judicial pronouncement that the defendant has violated the Constitution unaccompanied by “ judicial relief,” Hewitt, . . . Never have we awarded attorney's fees for a nonjudicial “alteration of actual circumstances.” . . . While urging an expansion of our precedents on this front, the dissenters would simultaneously abrogate the “merit” requirement of our prior cases and award attorney's fees where the plaintiff's claim “was at least colorable” and “not ... groundless.” . . . We cannot agree that the term “prevailing party” authorizes federal courts to award attorney's fees to a plaintiff who, by simply filing a nonfrivolous but nonetheless potentially meritless lawsuit (it will never be determined), has reached the “sought-after destination” without obtaining any judicial relief. . . .

Petitioners nonetheless argue that the legislative history of the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act supports a broad reading of “prevailing party” which includes the “catalyst theory.” We doubt that legislative history could overcome what we think is the rather clear meaning of “prevailing party”-the term actually used in the statute. Since we resorted to such history in Garland, . . . Maher, . . . and Hanrahan, . . . however, we do likewise here.

The House Report to § 1988 states that “[t]he phrase ‘prevailing party’ is not intended to be limited to the victor only after entry of a final judgment following a full trial on the merits,” . . . while the Senate Report explains that “parties may be considered to have prevailed when they vindicate rights through a consent judgment or without formally obtaining relief,” . . . Petitioners argue that these Reports and their reference to a 1970 decision from the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, . . . indicate Congress' intent to adopt the “catalyst theory.” We think the legislative history cited by petitioners is at best ambiguous as to the availability of the “catalyst theory” for awarding attorney's fees. Particularly in view of the “American Rule” that attorney's fees will not be awarded absent “explicit statutory authority,” such legislative history is clearly insufficient to alter the accepted meaning of the statutory term. . . .

Petitioners finally assert that the “catalyst theory” is necessary to prevent defendants from unilaterally mooting an action before judgment in an effort to avoid an award of attorney's fees. They also claim that the rejection of the “catalyst theory” will deter plaintiffs with meritorious but expensive cases from bringing suit. We are skeptical of these assertions, which are entirely speculative and unsupported by any empirical evidence . . .

Petitioners discount the disincentive that the “catalyst theory” may have upon a defendant's decision to voluntarily change its conduct, conduct that may not be illegal. “The defendants' potential liability for fees in this kind of litigation can be as significant as, and sometimes even more significant than, their potential liability on the merits,” Evans v. Jeff D., . . . and the possibility of being assessed attorney's fees may well deter a defendant from altering its conduct.

And petitioners' fear of mischievous defendants only materializes in claims for equitable relief, for so long as the plaintiff has a cause of action for damages, a defendant's change in conduct will not moot the case. Even then, it is not clear how often courts will find a case mooted: “It is well settled that a defendant's voluntary cessation of a challenged practice does not deprive a federal court of its power to determine the legality of the practice” unless it is “absolutely clear that the allegedly wrongful behavior could not reasonably be expected to recur.” Friends of Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC), Inc., . . . If a case is not found to be moot, and the plaintiff later procures an enforceable judgment, the court may of course award attorney's fees. Given this possibility, a defendant has a strong incentive to enter a settlement agreement, where it can negotiate attorney's fees and costs. Cf. Marek v. Chesny, . . .

We have also stated that “[a] request for attorney's fees should not result in a second major litigation,” Hensley v. Eckerhart, . . . and have accordingly avoided an interpretation of the fee-shifting statutes that would have “spawn[ed] a second litigation of significant dimension,” Garland, . . . Among other things, a “catalyst theory” hearing would require analysis of the defendant's subjective motivations in changing its conduct, an analysis that “will likely depend on a highly factbound inquiry and may turn on reasonable inferences from the nature and timing of the defendant's change in conduct.” . . . Although we do not doubt the ability of district courts to perform the nuanced “three thresholds” test required by the “catalyst theory”-whether the claim was colorable rather than groundless; whether the lawsuit was a substantial rather than an insubstantial cause of the defendant's change in conduct; whether the defendant's change in conduct was motivated by the plaintiff's threat of victory rather than threat of expense . . .

Given the clear meaning of “prevailing party” in the fee-shifting statutes, we need not determine which way these various policy arguments cut. In Alyeska, . . . we said that Congress had not “extended any roving authority to the Judiciary to allow counsel fees as costs or otherwise whenever the courts might deem them warranted.” To disregard the clear legislative language and the holdings of our prior cases on the basis of such policy arguments would be a similar assumption of a “roving authority.” For the reasons stated above, we hold that the “catalyst theory” is not a permissible basis for the award of attorney's fees under the FHAA, . . . and ADA, . . .

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is

Affirmed.

The concurring opinion of Justice SCALIA, with whom Justice THOMAS joins, is omitted.

Justice GINSBURG, with whom Justice STEVENS, Justice SOUTER, and Justice BREYER join, dissenting.

The Court today holds that a plaintiff whose suit prompts the precise relief she seeks does not “prevail,” and hence cannot obtain an award of attorney's fees, unless she also secures a court entry memorializing her victory. The entry need not be a judgment on the merits. Nor need there be any finding of wrongdoing. A court-approved settlement will do.

The Court's insistence that there be a document filed in court-a litigated judgment or court-endorsed settlement-upsets long-prevailing Circuit precedent applicable to scores of federal fee-shifting statutes. The decision allows a defendant to escape a statutory obligation to pay a plaintiff's counsel fees, even though the suit's merit led the defendant to abandon the fray, to switch rather than fight on, to accord plaintiff sooner rather than later the principal redress sought in the complaint. Concomitantly, the Court's constricted definition of “prevailing party,” and consequent rejection of the “catalyst theory,” impede access to court for the less well heeled, and shrink the incentive Congress created for the enforcement of federal law by private attorneys general.

In my view, the “catalyst rule,” as applied by the clear majority of Federal Circuits, is a key component of the fee-shifting statutes Congress adopted to advance enforcement of civil rights. Nothing in history, precedent, or plain English warrants the anemic construction of the term “prevailing party” the Court today imposes.

I

Petitioner Buckhannon Board and Care Home, Inc. (Buckhannon), operates residential care homes for elderly persons who need assisted living, but not nursing services. Among Buckhannon's residents in October 1996 was 102-year-old Dorsey Pierce. Pierce had resided at Buckhannon for some four years. Her daughter lived nearby, and the care provided at Buckhannon met Pierce's needs. Until 1998, West Virginia had a “self-preservation” rule prohibiting homes like Buckhannon from accommodating persons unable to exit the premises without assistance in the event of a fire. Pierce and two other Buckhannon residents could not get to a fire exit without aid. Informed of these residents' limitations, West Virginia officials proceeded against Buckhannon for noncompliance with the self-preservation rule. On October 18, 1996, three orders issued, each commanding Buckhannon to “cease operating ... and to effect relocation of [its] existing population within thirty (30) days.” . . .

Ten days later, Buckhannon and Pierce, together with an organization of residential homes and another Buckhannon resident (hereinafter plaintiffs), commenced litigation in Federal District Court to overturn the cease-and-desist orders and the self-preservation rule on which they rested. They sued the State, state agencies, and 18 officials (hereinafter defendants) alleging that the rule discriminated against persons with disabilities in violation of the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988 (FHAA), . . . and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), . . . Plaintiffs sought an immediate order stopping defendants from closing Buckhannon's facilities, injunctive relief permanently barring enforcement of the self-preservation requirement, damages, and attorney's fees.

On November 1, 1996, at a hearing on plaintiffs' request for a temporary restraining order, defendants agreed to the entry of an interim order allowing Buckhannon to remain open without changing the individual plaintiffs' housing and care. Discovery followed. On January 2, 1998, facing the state defendants' sovereign immunity pleas, plaintiffs stipulated to dismissal of their demands for damages. In February 1998, in response to defendants' motion to dispose of the remainder of the case summarily, the District Court determined that plaintiffs had presented triable claims under the FHAA and ADA.

Less than a month after the District Court found that plaintiffs were entitled to a trial, the West Virginia Legislature repealed the self-preservation rule. Plaintiffs still allege, and seek to prove, that their suit triggered the statutory repeal. After the rule's demise, defendants moved to dismiss the case as moot, and plaintiffs sought attorney's fees as “prevailing parties” under the FHAA, . . .

Finding no likelihood that West Virginia would reenact the self-preservation rule, the District Court agreed that the State's action had rendered the case moot. Turning to plaintiffs' application for attorney's fees, the District Court followed Fourth Circuit precedent requiring the denial of fees unless termination of the action was accompanied by a judgment, consent decree, or settlement. Plaintiffs did not appeal the mootness determination, and the Fourth Circuit affirmed the denial of attorney's fees. In sum, plaintiffs were denied fees not because they failed to achieve the relief they sought. On the contrary, they gained the very change they sought through their lawsuit when West Virginia repealed the self-preservation rule that would have stopped Buckhannon from caring for people like Dorsey Pierce.

Prior to 1994, every Federal Court of Appeals (except the Federal Circuit, which had not addressed the issue) concluded that plaintiffs in situations like Buckhannon's and Pierce's could obtain a fee award if their suit acted as a “catalyst” for the change they sought, even if they did not obtain a judgment or consent decree. The Courts of Appeals found it “clear that a party may be considered to have prevailed even when the legal action stops short of final ... judgment due to ... intervening mootness.” Grano v. Barry, . . . Interpreting the term “prevailing party” in “a practical sense,” Stewart v. Hannon, . . . federal courts across the country held that a party “prevails” for fee-shifting purposes when “its ends are accomplished as a result of the litigation,” Associated Builders & Contractors v. Orleans Parish School Bd., . . .

In 1994, the Fourth Circuit en banc, dividing 6-to-5, broke ranks with its sister courts. The court declared that, in light of Farrar v. Hobby, . . . a plaintiff could not become a “prevailing party” without “an enforceable judgment, consent decree, or settlement.” . . . As the Court today acknowledges, . . . and as we have previously observed, the language on which the Fourth Circuit relied was dictum: Farrar “involved no catalytic effect”; the issue plainly “was not presented for this Court's decision in Farrar.” Friends of Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC), Inc., . . .

After the Fourth Circuit's en banc ruling, nine Courts of Appeals reaffirmed their own consistently held interpretation of the term “prevail.” On this predominant view, “[s]ecuring an enforceable decree or agreement may evidence prevailing party status, but the judgment or agreement simply embodies and enforces what is sought in bringing the lawsuit .... Victory can be achieved well short of a final judgment (or its equivalent) ....” Marbley v. Bane, . . .

The array of federal-court decisions applying the catalyst rule suggested three conditions necessary to a party's qualification as “prevailing” short of a favorable final judgment or consent decree. A plaintiff first had to show that the defendant provided “some of the benefit sought” by the lawsuit. . . . Under most Circuits' precedents, a plaintiff had to demonstrate as well that the suit stated a genuine claim, i.e., one that was at least “colorable,” not “frivolous, unreasonable, or groundless.” . . . Plaintiff finally had to establish that her suit was a “substantial” or “significant” cause of defendant's action providing relief. . . . In some Circuits, to make this causation showing, plaintiff had to satisfy the trial court that the suit achieved results “by threat of victory,” not “by dint of nuisance and threat of expense.” . . . One who crossed these three thresholds would be recognized as a “prevailing party” to whom the district court, “in its discretion,” . . . could award attorney's fees.

Developed over decades and in legions of federal-court decisions, the catalyst rule and these implementing standards deserve this Court's respect and approbation.

II

A

The Court today detects a “clear meaning” of the term prevailing party, . . . that has heretofore eluded the large majority of courts construing those words. “Prevailing party,” today's opinion announces, means “one who has been awarded some relief by the court,” . . . The Court derives this “clear meaning” principally from Black's Law Dictionary, which defines a “prevailing party,” in critical part, as one “in whose favor a judgment is rendered,” . . .

One can entirely agree with Black's Law Dictionary that a party “in whose favor a judgment is rendered” prevails, and at the same time resist, as most Courts of Appeals have, any implication that only such a party may prevail. In prior cases, we have not treated Black's Law Dictionary as preclusively definitive; instead, we have accorded statutory terms, including legal “term [s] of art,” . . . a contextual reading. . . . Notably, this Court did not refer to Black's Law Dictionary in Maher v. Gagne, . . . which held that a consent decree could qualify a plaintiff as “prevailing.” The Court explained:

“The fact that [plaintiff] prevailed through a settlement rather than through litigation does not weaken her claim to fees. Nothing in the language of [42 U.S.C.] § 1988 conditions the District Court's power to award fees on full litigation of the issues or on a judicial determination that the plaintiff's rights have been violated.” . . .

The spare “prevailing party” language of the fee-shifting provision applicable in Maher, and the similar wording of the fee-shifting provisions now before the Court, contrast with prescriptions that so tightly bind fees to judgments as to exclude the application of a catalyst concept. The Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995, for example, directs that fee awards to prisoners under § 1988 be “proportionately related to the court ordered relief for the violation.” . . . That statute, by its express terms, forecloses an award to a prisoner on a catalyst theory. But the FHAA and ADA fee-shifting prescriptions, modeled on 42 U.S.C. § 1988 unmodified, . . . do not similarly staple fee awards to “court ordered relief.” Their very terms do not foreclose a catalyst theory.

B

It is altogether true, as the concurring opinion points out, . . . that litigation costs other than attorney's fees traditionally have been allowed to the “prevailing party,” and that a judgment winner ordinarily fits that description. It is not true, however, that precedent on costs calls for the judgment requirement the Court ironly adopts today for attorney's fees. Indeed, the first decision cited in the concurring opinion, Mansfield, C. & L.M.R. Co. v. Swan, . . . tugs against the restrictive rule today's decision installs.

In Mansfield, plaintiffs commenced a contract action in state court. Over plaintiffs' objections, defendants successfully removed the suit to federal court. Plaintiffs prevailed on the merits there, and defendants obtained review here. . . . This Court determined, on its own motion, that federal subject-matter jurisdiction was absent from the start. Based on that determination, the Court reversed the lower court's judgment for plaintiffs. Worse than entering and leaving this Courthouse equally “emptyhanded,” . . . the plaintiffs in Mansfield were stripped of the judgment they had won, including the “judicial finding ... of the merits” in their favor, . . . The Mansfield plaintiffs did, however, achieve this small consolation: The Court awarded them costs here as well as below. Recognizing that defendants had “prevail[ed]” in a “formal and nominal sense,” the Mansfield Court nonetheless concluded that “[i]n a true and proper sense” defendants were “the losing and not the prevailing party.” . . .

While Mansfield casts doubt on the present majority's “formal and nominal” approach, that decision does not consider whether costs would be in order for the plaintiff who obtains substantial relief, but no final judgment. Nor does “ a single case ” on which the concurring opinion today relies, . . . There are, however, enlightening analogies. In multiple instances, state high courts have regarded plaintiffs as prevailing, for costs taxation purposes, when defendants' voluntary conduct, mooting the suit, provided the relief that plaintiffs sought. The concurring opinion labors unconvincingly to distinguish these state-law cases. A similar federal practice has been observed in cases governed by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(d), the default rule allowing costs “to the prevailing party unless the court otherwise directs.” . . .

In short, there is substantial support, both old and new, federal and state, for a costs award, “in [the court's] discretion,” . . . to the plaintiff whose suit prompts the defendant to provide the relief plaintiff seeks.

C

Recognizing that no practice set in stone, statute, rule, or precedent, . . . dictates the proper construction of modern civil rights fee-shifting prescriptions, I would “assume ... that Congress intends the words in its enactments to carry ‘their ordinary, contemporary, common meaning.’ ” . . . In everyday use, “prevail” means “gain victory by virtue of strength or superiority: win mastery: triumph.” . . . There are undoubtedly situations in which an individual's goal is to obtain approval of a judge, and in those situations, one cannot “prevail” short of a judge's formal declaration. In a piano competition or a figure skating contest, for example, the person who prevails is the person declared winner by the judges. However, where the ultimate goal is not an arbiter's approval, but a favorable alteration of actual circumstances, a formal declaration is not essential. Western democracies, for instance, “prevailed” in the Cold War even though the Soviet Union never formally surrendered. Among television viewers, John F. Kennedy “prevailed” in the first debate with Richard M. Nixon during the 1960 Presidential contest, even though moderator Howard K. Smith never declared a winner. . . .

A lawsuit's ultimate purpose is to achieve actual relief from an opponent. Favorable judgment may be instrumental in gaining that relief. Generally, however, “the judicial decree is not the end but the means. At the end of the rainbow lies not a judgment, but some action (or cessation of action) by the defendant ....” Hewitt v. Helms, . . . On this common understanding, if a party reaches the “sought-after destination,” then the party “prevails” regardless of the “route taken.” . . .

Under a fair reading of the FHAA and ADA provisions in point, I would hold that a party “prevails” in “a true and proper sense,” Mansfield, . . . when she achieves, by instituting litigation, the practical relief sought in her complaint. The Court misreads Congress, as I see it, by insisting that, invariably, relief must be displayed in a judgment, and correspondingly that a defendant's voluntary action never suffices. In this case, Buckhannon's purpose in suing West Virginia officials was not narrowly to obtain a judge's approbation. The plaintiffs' objective was to stop enforcement of a rule requiring Buckhannon to evict residents like centenarian Dorsey Pierce as the price of remaining in business. If Buckhannon achieved that objective on account of the strength of its case, . . . if it succeeded in keeping its doors open while housing and caring for Ms. Pierce and others similarly situated-then Buckhannon is properly judged a party who prevailed.

III

As the Courts of Appeals have long recognized, the catalyst rule suitably advances Congress' endeavor to place private actions, in civil rights and other legislatively defined areas, securely within the federal law enforcement arsenal.

The catalyst rule stemmed from modern legislation extending civil rights protections and enforcement measures. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 included provisions for fee awards to “prevailing parties” in Title II (public accommodations), . . ., and Title VII (employment), . . . but not in Title VI (federal programs). The provisions' central purpose was “to promote vigorous enforcement” of the laws by private plaintiffs; although using the two-way term “prevailing party,” Congress did not make fees available to plaintiffs and defendants on equal terms. . . .

Once the 1964 Act came into force, courts commenced to award fees regularly under the statutory authorizations, and sometimes without such authorization. . . . In Alyeska, this Court reaffirmed the “American Rule” that a court generally may not award attorney's fees without a legislative instruction to do so. . . . To provide the authorization Alyeska required for fee awards under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, as well as under Reconstruction Era civil rights legislation, . . . and certain other enactments, Congress passed the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act of 1976, . . .

As explained in the Reports supporting § 1988, civil rights statutes vindicate public policies “of the highest priority,” . . . yet “depend heavily upon private enforcement,” . . . Persons who bring meritorious civil rights claims, in this light, serve as “private attorneys general.” . . . Such suitors, Congress recognized, often “cannot afford legal counsel.” . . . They therefore experience “severe hardshi[p]” under the “American Rule.” . . . Congress enacted § 1988 to ensure that nonaffluent plaintiffs would have “effective access” to the Nation's courts to enforce civil rights laws. . . . That objective accounts for the fee-shifting provisions before the Court in this case, prescriptions of the FHAA and the ADA modeled on § 1988. . . .

Under the catalyst rule that held sway until today, plaintiffs who obtained the relief they sought through suit on genuine claims ordinarily qualified as “prevailing parties,” so that courts had discretion to award them their costs and fees. Persons with limited resources were not impelled to “wage total law” in order to assure that their counsel fees would be paid. They could accept relief, in money or of another kind, voluntarily proffered by a defendant who sought to avoid a recorded decree. And they could rely on a judge then to determine, in her equitable discretion, whether counsel fees were warranted and, if so, in what amount.

Congress appears to have envisioned that very prospect. The Senate Report on the 1976 Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act states: “[F]or purposes of the award of counsel fees, parties may be considered to have prevailed when they vindicate rights through a consent judgment or without formally obtaining relief.” . . . In support, the Report cites cases in which parties recovered fees in the absence of any court-conferred relief. The House Report corroborates: “[A]fter a complaint is filed, a defendant might voluntarily cease the unlawful practice. A court should still award fees even though it might conclude, as a matter of equity, that no formal relief, such as an injunction, is needed.” . . . These Reports, Courts of Appeals have observed, are hardly ambiguous. . . . Congress, I am convinced, understood that “ ‘[v]ictory’ in a civil rights suit is typically a practical, rather than a strictly legal matter.” . . .

IV

The Court identifies several “policy arguments” that might warrant rejection of the catalyst rule. . . . A defendant might refrain from altering its conduct, fearing liability for fees as the price of voluntary action. . . . Moreover, rejection of the catalyst rule has limited impact: Desisting from the challenged conduct will not render a case moot where damages are sought, and even when the plaintiff seeks only equitable relief, a defendant's voluntary cessation of a challenged practice does not render the case moot “unless it is ‘absolutely clear that the allegedly wrongful behavior could not reasonably be expected to recur.’ ” . . . Because a mootness dismissal is not easily achieved, the defendant may be impelled to settle, negotiating fees less generous than a court might award. . . . Finally, a catalyst rule would “require analysis of the defendant's subjective motivations,” and thus protract the litigation. . . .

The Court declines to look beneath the surface of these arguments, placing its reliance, instead, on a meaning of “prevailing party” that other jurists would scarcely recognize as plain. See ibid. Had the Court inspected the “policy arguments” listed in its opinion, I doubt it would have found them impressive.

In opposition to the argument that defendants will resist change in order to stave off an award of fees, one could urge that the catalyst rule may lead defendants promptly to comply with the law's requirements: the longer the litigation, the larger the fees. Indeed, one who knows noncompliance will be expensive might be encouraged to conform his conduct to the legal requirements before litigation is threatened. . . . No doubt, a mootness dismissal is unlikely when recurrence of the controversy is under the defendant's control. But, as earlier observed, . . . why should this Court's fee-shifting rulings drive a plaintiff prepared to accept adequate relief, though out-of-court and unrecorded, to litigate on and on? And if the catalyst rule leads defendants to negotiate not only settlement terms but also allied counsel fees, is that not a consummation to applaud, not deplore?

As to the burden on the court, is it not the norm for the judge to whom the case has been assigned to resolve fee disputes (deciding whether an award is in order, and if it is, the amount due), thereby clearing the case from the calendar? If factfinding becomes necessary under the catalyst rule, is it not the sort that “the district courts, in their factfinding expertise, deal with on a regular basis”? Baumgartner v. Harrisburg Housing Auth., . . . Might not one conclude overall, as Courts of Appeals have suggested, that the catalyst rule “saves judicial resources,” Paris v. Department of Housing and Urban Development, . . . by encouraging “plaintiffs to discontinue litigation after receiving through the defendant's acquiescence the remedy initially sought”? Morris v. West Palm Beach, . . .

The concurring opinion adds another argument against the catalyst rule: That opinion sees the rule as accommodating the “extortionist” who obtains relief because of “greater strength in financial resources, or superiority in media manipulation, rather than superiority in legal merit.” . . . This concern overlooks both the character of the rule and the judicial superintendence Congress ordered for all fee allowances. The catalyst rule was auxiliary to fee-shifting statutes whose primary purpose is “to promote the vigorous enforcement” of the civil rights laws. . . To that end, courts deemed the conduct-altering catalyst that counted to be the substance of the case, not merely the plaintiff's atypically superior financial resources, media ties, or political clout. . . . And Congress assigned responsibility for awarding fees not to automatons unable to recognize extortionists, but to judges expected and instructed to exercise “discretion.” . . . So viewed, the catalyst rule provided no berth for nuisance suits, . . . or “thinly disguised forms of extortion,” Tyler v. Corner Constr. Corp., . . .

V

As to our attorney's fee precedents, the Court correctly observes, “[w]e have never had occasion to decide whether the term ‘prevailing party’ allows an award of fees under the ‘catalyst theory,’ ” and “there is language in our cases supporting both petitioners and respondents.” . . . It bears emphasis, however, that in determining whether fee shifting is in order, the Court in the past has placed greatest weight not on any “judicial imprimatur,” . . . but on the practical impact of the lawsuit. In Maher v. Gagne, . . . in which the Court held fees could be awarded on the basis of a consent decree, the opinion nowhere relied on the presence of a formal judgment. . . . Some years later, in Hewitt v. Helms, . . . the Court suggested that fees might be awarded the plaintiff who “obtain[ed] relief without [the] benefit of a formal judgment.” . . . The Court explained: “If the defendant, under the pressure of the lawsuit, pays over a money claim before the judicial judgment is pronounced,” or “if the defendant, under pressure of [a suit for declaratory judgment], alters his conduct (or threatened conduct) towards the plaintiff,” i.e., conduct “that was the basis for the suit, the plaintiff will have prevailed.” . . . I agree, and would apply that analysis to this case.

The Court posits a “ ‘merit’ requirement of our prior cases.” . . . Maher, however, affirmed an award of attorney's fees based on a consent decree that “did not purport to adjudicate [plaintiff's] statutory or constitutional claims.” . . . The decree in Maher “explicitly stated that ‘nothing [therein was] intended to constitute an admission of fault by either party.’ ” . . . The catalyst rule, in short, conflicts with none of “our prior holdings,” . . .

The Court states that the term “prevailing party” in fee-shifting statutes has an “accepted meaning.” . . . If that is so, the “accepted meaning” is not the one the Court today announces. It is, instead, the meaning accepted by every Court of Appeals to address the catalyst issue before our 1987 decision in Hewitt, . . . and disavowed since then only by the Fourth Circuit, . . . A plaintiff prevails, federal judges have overwhelmingly agreed, when a litigated judgment, consent decree, out-of-court settlement, or the defendant's voluntary, postcomplaint payment or change in conduct in fact affords redress for the plaintiff's substantial grievances.

When this Court rejects the considered judgment prevailing in the Circuits, respect for our colleagues demands a cogent explanation. Today's decision does not provide one. The Court's narrow construction of the words “prevailing party” is unsupported by precedent and unaided by history or logic. Congress prescribed fee-shifting provisions like those included in the FHAA and ADA to encourage private enforcement of laws designed to advance civil rights. Fidelity to that purpose calls for court-awarded fees when a private party's lawsuit, whether or not its settlement is registered in court, vindicates rights Congress sought to secure. I would so hold and therefore dissent from the judgment and opinion of the Court.