Docket 23-621
Lackey
DecidedFeb 25, 2025
7-2decision
Source: CourtListener.
Court rules civil rights plaintiffs cannot collect attorney's fees after winning only a preliminary injunction
What it does
The Court held that winning a preliminary injunction — a temporary order that preserves the situation while a case proceeds — does not make a plaintiff a "prevailing party" entitled to attorney's fees under the civil rights fee-shifting statute, §1988(b). To qualify as a "prevailing party," a court must conclusively resolve the case by granting lasting relief on the merits that permanently changes the legal relationship between the parties, and that permanence must itself come from a court order. External events that moot a case — such as a legislature repealing a challenged law — do not transform a temporary court order into the kind of final, enduring judicial relief required to trigger fee eligibility.
Who benefits
Government agencies and officials who are defendants in civil rights lawsuits, who will no longer face attorney's fee liability when a case becomes moot after a preliminary injunction without reaching a final judgment on the merits.
Who is affected
People who file civil rights lawsuits seeking injunctive relief — particularly those whose cases become moot before trial because a law is repealed or a policy is changed — who will no longer be able to recover attorney's fees even if they obtained a preliminary injunction and achieved their practical goal.
Practical impact
Civil rights plaintiffs whose cases become moot before reaching a final judgment — for example, because a challenged law is repealed or a policy is changed after a preliminary injunction is issued — will not be able to recover attorney's fees under §1988(b), even if they obtained meaningful relief and achieved their practical goal. Attorneys and legal organizations that take on civil rights cases on a contingency or public-interest basis may face greater financial risk when representing clients who seek injunctive relief, since fee recovery will now depend on reaching a final judgment. Government defendants who lose at the preliminary injunction stage can avoid fee liability by changing the challenged law or policy before trial, mooting the case.
Majority — Roberts
Joined by: Thomas, Alito, Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett
The majority held that the phrase "prevailing party" in §1988(b) is a legal term of art that, at the time of the statute's enactment, meant the party who successfully maintained their claim when the matter was finally resolved. The Court reasoned that preliminary injunctions do not conclusively decide a case on the merits — they only assess whether a plaintiff is likely to succeed, along with factors like irreparable harm and the balance of equities — and are designed merely to preserve the parties' positions until a full trial can occur. Building on two prior decisions, Buckhannon (which required that any change in the parties' legal relationship be "judicially sanctioned") and Sole v. Wyner (which required that the change be "enduring"), the Court added a third requirement: the enduring nature of the change must itself result from a judicial order, not from outside events like a legislature repealing a law. The majority also argued that a clear, easy-to-apply rule serves judicial economy by reducing costly fee disputes, and noted that Congress — not the courts — is the proper body to expand fee eligibility if it chooses, pointing to other statutes where Congress has already done exactly that.
Dissent reasoning
The dissent argued that nothing in the text of §1988(b) requires a plaintiff to obtain a conclusive final judgment in order to qualify as a "prevailing party," and that the majority invented this requirement by misreading the dictionary definitions it relied upon. Justice Jackson wrote that the relevant legal dictionaries simply ask whether a party successfully maintained their claim "at the end of the suit" — and a suit can end in many ways, including through mootness, without a final merits ruling. The dissent contended that the Court's own prior cases support fee eligibility for at least some preliminary injunctions, because those cases define "prevailing" as obtaining actual relief on the merits that materially alters the legal relationship between the parties — a standard that an unreversed preliminary injunction can satisfy. The dissent also argued that the majority's rule will produce harmful real-world consequences: it incentivizes government defendants to strategically moot cases after losing at the preliminary injunction stage to avoid fee liability, and it discourages attorneys from taking on civil rights cases where interim relief is critical, undermining Congress's clear intent to expand access to justice for people with civil rights grievances. The dissent pointed to the facts of this very case — where the Commissioner explicitly lobbied to repeal the law in part to avoid ongoing legal fees — as evidence that strategic mooting is not merely speculative.
Constitutional question
Does a plaintiff who wins a preliminary injunction — a temporary court order — qualify as a "prevailing party" eligible for attorney's fees under 42 U.S.C. §1988(b) when the case becomes moot before a final judgment is reached?
Precedent changed
The ruling extends and applies Buckhannon Board & Care Home, Inc. v. West Virginia Dept. of Health and Human Resources, 532 U.S. 598 (2001), and Sole v. Wyner, 551 U.S. 74 (2007), adding a new requirement that the enduring nature of any change in the parties' legal relationship must itself be judicially sanctioned — not produced by external events.