Appellants, plaintiff-intervenors in the District Court, represent a class of white male employees who negotiated a consent decree with appellees, the General Accounting Office (GAO) and the General Services Administration (GSA), regarding certain alleged reverse discrimination actions.1 After the District Court approved their consent decree, appellants learned that appellees proposed to enter into a potentially conflicting agreement with a group of minority and female employees. They successfully intervened in that litigation and succeeded in having changes made to the proposed decree. Appellants then filed a petition under Section 706(k) of Title VII, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e-5(k) (1976), for attorney fees incurred in the intervening litigation. The District Court denied the petition because appellants were not "prevailing parties" within the meaning of the statute. We find that the District Court applied an improper standard in determining appellants' "prevailing parties" status. Therefore, we vacate its decision and remand for further proceedings on the attorney fees petition.

This attorney fees petition arose out of an alleged conflict between two independent Title VII discrimination suits. The first suit began in May of 1973 when a class representing black and female employees--the Miller class2--initiated legal action alleging that appellees had discriminated by using racial and sexual criteria in their employment actions. Because plaintiffs' earlier administrative complaints were resolved against them,3 the District Court rejected plaintiffs' preliminary motions for class certification and summary judgment, thereby forcing the action into hibernation. In 1977, however, an intervening Supreme Court decision4 prompted the District Court to reverse itself and stirred the class to resume its action. On proper motion, the court ordered discovery to commence and officially certified the plaintiff class.5

Meanwhile, in March of 1978 another class of GAO/GSA employees, representing white males (the Smith class), filed suit, alleging reverse discrimination in employment. See Smith et al. v. Staats, Civil Action No. 78-0098 (D.D.C.1979). After numerous hearings concerning the alleged reverse discriminatory policies and practices were held,6 the parties agreed to settle their dispute.7 They proposed a broad consent judgment in which appellees would agree not to discriminate on the basis of race,8 would assure that any affirmative action programs did not adversely impact the promotional opportunities of white males,9 and would apply their personnel policies openly and evenhandedly in the future.10 The District Court approved this settlement in March 1979. App. 364.

The concurrent Miller litigation was rapidly moving forward.11 In December 1980, however, after exhaustive discussions, the parties finally agreed to enter into a consent decree of their own. This decree provided, in pertinent part, that GAO would establish a settlement fund in lieu of all monetary claims,12 would develop and implement job-related performance standards,13 would establish certain promotional goals for minority and female employees,14 would develop and implement training programs,15 and would allow plaintiffs to monitor GAO's compliance with the decree through stipulated reporting mechanisms.16 On December 19, 1980 the District Court preliminarily approved the consent judgment.

As provided in the decree, the Miller settlement was circulated among appellees' employees to give them an opportunity to object to any part of the agreement. App. 366. When they received the proposed decree, various members of the white male class became concerned. Their counsel alerted appellees that the proposed Miller decree might be in conflict with the Smith decree,17 but these warnings apparently fell on deaf ears and went unheeded.18 Worried that the District Court would approve conflicting settlements, Smith counsel next sought to intervene19 in the Miller litigation.20 Both the Miller class plaintiffs and appellees vigorously resisted this intervention.21

On July 14, 1981 the District Court allowed the Smith class22 to intervene in the Miller litigation. It further ordered the parties to meet and to "attempt to resolve their differences over paragraph 21 of the Proposed Consent Decree * * *." App. 161. The parties did meet, but could not obtain a mutually satisfactory resolution. On August 6, 1981 the District Court further admonished the parties to settle their differences and, as a result, agreement was finally reached. App. 146.

On August 10, 1981 the District Court approved a final Consent Decree in the Miller litigation. This final order included all of the changes that the Smith plaintiffs, the Miller plaintiffs, and appellees had agreed upon on August 6. For example, the "minimum" qua "minimum" promotional goals and the requirement that appellees justify their failure to meet such goals were deleted from Paragraph 21.23 Moreover, the Smith plaintiffs were accorded substantial rights to receive reports and continue monitoring the decree.24 With these and other demands met,25 the Smith class offered no more objections to the entrance of the Miller decree.

Appellants subsequently filed their petition for attorney fees and costs, asking $26,023.75 for legal services and $2,449.24 for costs. App. 84. Appellees opposed the petition on the ground that appellants were not "prevailing parties" within the meaning of Title VII's attorney fees provision. App. 77.

On May 27, 1982 the District Court denied appellants' petition for attorney fees. The court noted that appellants, as full parties to the action, "did, in some sense, prevail in the underlying case by virtue of the fact that they succeeded in having the affirmative action provisions of that consent decree modified * * *." App. 3. Nonetheless, it found that appellants were not "prevailing parties" within the meaning of the statute:

First, there is no way of establishing that the proposed affirmative action provisions were originated by any actions of this defendant; on the contrary, it seems quite likely that such provisions were requested by the original plaintiffs during the settlement discussions. Since the proposed decree was negotiated among and entered into by all of the original parties, why should this particular defendant be required to assume the costs of the plaintiff-intervenors' efforts to modify the decree.

Second, even if defendant GAO could be charged with some degree of responsibility as a result of its originally consenting to the proposed affirmative action provisions, there has been no determination made that these provisions would in fact have resulted in legally cognizable and actionable discrimination against those represented by plaintiff-intervenors. Instead, all the court has before it are the facts that the plaintiff-intervenors believed the provisions would result in discrimination against their clients and that the original negotiators of these provisions agreed to modify them after discussions with the plaintiff-intervenors; these facts appear insufficient to support a threshold finding by this court that the provisions in issue did, in fact, propose and/or authorize actual discrimination against white males at GAO. * * *

App. 5-6 (emphasis in original). Thus, even though "plaintiff-intervenors may well have performed valuable services to both their clients and * * * the public by intervening in this proceeding," App. 6, the District Court would not award attorney fees because appellants had not "proven the defendant guilty, to some degree, of discrimination * * *." App. 4.

Plaintiff-intervenors filed this petition for review on June 7, 1982. We now vacate the District Court's judgment and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Under Title VII the District Court must award attorney fees to the prevailing party in civil rights litigation unless special circumstances would render such an award unjust. New York Gaslight Club, Inc. v. Carey, 447 U.S. 54, 100 S. Ct. 2024, 64 L. Ed. 2d 723 (1980); Christiansburg Garment Co. v. EEOC, 434 U.S. 412, 98 S. Ct. 694, 54 L. Ed. 2d 648 (1978); Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U.S. 405, 95 S. Ct. 2362, 45 L. Ed. 2d 280 (1975); see also Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., 390 U.S. 400, 88 S. Ct. 964, 19 L. Ed. 2d 1263 (1968) (same under Title II). It is well recognized that the attorney fees provisions are to be liberally applied because the private "plaintiff is the chosen instrument of Congress to vindicate a 'policy that Congress considered of the highest priority.' " Christiansburg Garment Co. v. EEOC, supra, 434 U.S. at 418, 98 S. Ct. at 698 (quoting Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., supra, 390 U.S. at 402, 88 S. Ct. at 966).26 District Courts, therefore, have only narrow discretion to deny fee awards27 and must find that parties have "prevailed" whenever their actions have arguably advanced the purposes of Title VII.28 "The statutory reference to the court's 'discretion' does not authorize a refusal to award any fees to a prevailing plaintiff unless special circumstances would render such an award unjust." Kulkarni v. Alexander, 662 F.2d 758, 766 n. 18 (D.C.Cir.1978).

The keynote case in this circuit, one which most appropriately places the term "prevailing party" within this scheme, is Comm'rs Court of Medina County, Texas v. United States, 683 F.2d 435 (D.C.Cir.1982). In Medina the court endorsed granting attorney fees to defendant-intervenors whose case had become moot under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.29 Medina outlined a liberal, two-pronged test for determining fee claimants' "prevailing party" status. In the first prong the court must determine that the fee claimant has substantially received the relief sought. Id. at 440. Fee claimants can satisfy this inquiry by showing that the "final result represents, in a real sense, a disposition that furthers" their interests. Id. at 441.30 In the second prong the court must determine that "the lawsuit was a catalyst motivating defendants to provide" the requested relief, id. at 442 (emphasis in original), or that the "lawsuit was a necessary factor in obtaining the relief." Id. To satisfy this second prong fee claimants must demonstrate that their claims were "not wholly insubstantial"31 and that these claims contributed to their obtaining the resulting relief.32 Having satisfied these two prongs, fee claimants are entitled to attorney fees unless the court finds special circumstances that would render the award unjust. Id.

In this case the District Court determined that appellants were not "prevailing parties," and thus were not entitled to attorney fees. Though it clearly found that appellants had achieved their objective33 and were the cause of the results obtained,34 it denied appellants "prevailing party" status because they had not proved "any sufficient threshold showing of real discrimination * * * to justify allowing [them] to shift their counsel fees to this defendant agency." App. 6. Though claimants clearly "believed the provisions would result in discrimination against their clients and * * * the original negotiators * * * agreed to modify [these provisions] after discussions with" the fee claimants, the court did not find facts sufficient "to support a threshold finding * * * that the provisions in issue did, in fact, propose and/or authorize actual discrimination against white males at GAO." App. 5-6.

On its face, the District Court's "threshold of discrimination" test, based as it is on sufficient facts in the record, see id., appears to hold fee claimants to a higher standard than the law requires.35 Fee claimants do not have to show facts proving defendants "guilty, to some degree, of discrimination," see App. at 3-4, to establish their "prevailing party" status. To the contrary, for purposes of the attorney fees provisions, they need only allege a claim that is colorable under the civil rights laws--that has some minimum basis in law. See note 31 supra. This is a question of law, not fact.36

However, we hesitate to find that claimants were "prevailing parties" on the basis of the appellate record alone. Despite some broad statements that seemingly imposed an overly-demanding burden on appellants, see pages 339-340 supra, the District Court also found that claimants had not demonstrated that "these provisions would in fact have resulted in legally cognizable and actionable discrimination." Id. at 340. Arguably, this statement can be read as a conclusion, by the District Court, that fee claimants had not alleged a claim with colorable merit in Title VII law. On the other hand, the District Court's broader statements indicate that it may have been looking for something more than a non-frivolous claim. Thus we think a remand is appropriate so that the District Court can more carefully consider the petition in light of the appropriate standards of law, and thus clear up the confusion that now exists in its analysis.37

Of course, even if the District Court determines that appellants stated a not wholly insubstantial Title VII claim, it might still find special circumstances that would render an award of attorney fees unjust. See Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., supra, 390 U.S. at 401, 402, 88 S. Ct. at 966. In deciding whether such special circumstances exist, the District Court can, for example, consider the "pyrrhic" nature of plaintiffs' victory.38 See Comm'rs Court of Medina County, Texas v. United States, supra, 683 F.2d at 443. Similarly, it can consider whether claimants' intervention was timely39 and whether their intervention was necessary to protect the policies embodied in Title VII.40 But the District Court should not consider the absence of a finding of wrongdoing or the possibility that defendant was not motivated by bad faith.41 Attorney fees are not designed merely to penalize defendants, but to encourage injured individuals to seek relief. Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., supra, 390 U.S. at 402, 88 S. Ct. at 966. Thus the determinative factor must be the role of plaintiffs' lawsuit, not the motivations of the defendant.

When the District Court applies an improper standard to a petition for attorney fees, this court must order the lower court to remedy its error. Foster v. Boorstin, 561 F.2d 340 (D.C.Cir.1977). We believe that the District Court's "threshold of discrimination" standard may have held appellants to a higher standard than is appropriate. Accordingly, we remand to the District Court for further proceedings on fee claimants' petition. The District Court must decide whether appellants have stated a not wholly insubstantial claim and, if they have, whether special circumstances exist that would render an award of attorney fees unjust.

So ordered.