Filed: Mar. 13, 2002
Latest Update: Feb. 21, 2020
Summary: IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT _ No. 01-10543 _ DANETTE HOPE GROS; EDITH D. SIKES, Plaintiffs-Appellants, versus CITY OF GRAND PRAIRIE, TEXAS; HARRY L. CRUM; RICHARD L. BENDER Defendants-Appellees. _ Appeals from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas - Dallas Division (3:96-CV-2897-D) _ March 12, 2002 Before JONES, WIENER, and PARKER, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM:* Plaintiffs-Appellants Danette Hope Gros and Edith D. Sikes (collectively, “
Summary: IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT _ No. 01-10543 _ DANETTE HOPE GROS; EDITH D. SIKES, Plaintiffs-Appellants, versus CITY OF GRAND PRAIRIE, TEXAS; HARRY L. CRUM; RICHARD L. BENDER Defendants-Appellees. _ Appeals from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas - Dallas Division (3:96-CV-2897-D) _ March 12, 2002 Before JONES, WIENER, and PARKER, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM:* Plaintiffs-Appellants Danette Hope Gros and Edith D. Sikes (collectively, “A..
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IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
_______________________________
No. 01-10543
_______________________________
DANETTE HOPE GROS; EDITH D. SIKES,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
versus
CITY OF GRAND PRAIRIE, TEXAS; HARRY L. CRUM; RICHARD L. BENDER
Defendants-Appellees.
_________________________________________________
Appeals from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Texas - Dallas Division
(3:96-CV-2897-D)
_________________________________________________
March 12, 2002
Before JONES, WIENER, and PARKER, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:*
Plaintiffs-Appellants Danette Hope Gros and Edith D. Sikes
(collectively, “Appellants”) brought 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claims
against the City of Grand Prairie, Texas, Harry Crum, the Chief of
the City of Grand Prairie Police Department, and Lt. Bender, the
officer in charge of the Grand Prairie Police Department’s Internal
*
Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that
this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except
under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH CIR. R. 47.5.4.
1
Affairs Department (collectively, “Appellees”) for the alleged
violation of Appellants’ constitutional rights by one Officer
Rogers of the Grand Prairie Police Department.1 The action
followed a circuitous course through the district and appellate
courts, the net result of which was summary judgment dismissal with
prejudice of all of Appellants’ claims against Appellees, and an
assessment of Appellees’ costs against Appellants pursuant to
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(d). Appellants now appeal the
award of costs to Appellees, and seek costs and attorneys’ fees for
themselves. We affirm the award of costs to Appellees and the
denial of Appellants’ request for costs and attorneys’ fees.
I. Proceedings
In January 2001, the district court entered its order
dismissing with prejudice all of Appellants’ remaining claims
against Appellees not previously dismissed, and “ordered and
adjudged that...defendants’ taxable costs of court...are assessed
against plaintiffs.” After Appellants filed their first motion for
reconsideration of the court’s award of costs and objections to
Appellees’ bill of costs in February 2001, the district court
denied the request for reconsideration but referred Appellants’
bill-of-costs objections to a magistrate judge for determination,
1
Appellants also brought claims against Officer Rogers, but
he is not an Appellee in this appeal. For a full recitation of the
facts of the underlying § 1983 action, see Gros v. City of Grand
Prairie, 209 F.3d 431, 432-33 (5th Cir. 2000).
2
pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(A). After briefing was complete,
the magistrate judge issued a March 2001 Memorandum Opinion and
Order2 reducing the bill of costs by some $2,100, and leaving
approximately $13,600 assessed against Appellants. Appellants next
filed a supplemental request for reconsideration of the award of
costs, coupled with their first motion for attorneys’ fees and
costs. Both the supplemental request for reconsideration and the
first motion for attorneys’ fees and costs were denied by the
magistrate judge in April 2001. Appellants now appeal those
denials.
II. Analysis
A. Standard of Review
A district court’s denial or award of costs,3 and such court’s
award of attorneys’ fees in a § 1983 suit,4 are reviewed for abuse
of discretion. Appellees contend, as a threshold matter, that we
should review the award of costs in this case for plain error
because Appellants did not file written objections to the
magistrate judge’s orders, as required under 28 U.S.C. § 636(b).
We conclude that we need not resolve this dispute, however: Our
2
Gros v. City of Grand Prairie, 2001 WL 276899 (N.D. Tex.
Mar. 19, 2001).
3
Dickerson v. United States, 2002 WL 58866, at *4 (5th Cir.
2002).
4
Myers v. City of West Monroe, 211 F.3d 289, 292 (5th Cir.
2000).
3
review satisfies us that the result would be the same under either
standard.
B. Discussion
1. Award of Costs
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(d)(1) (“FRCP 54(d)(1)”)
provides, in relevant part:
Except when express provision therefor is made either in
a statute of the United States or in these rules, costs
other than attorneys’ fees shall be allowed as of course
to the prevailing party unless the court otherwise
directs....
Although there is such an express statutory provision regarding §
1983 claims,5 that provision pertains to attorneys’ fees, not
“costs other than attorneys’ fees.” The general rule of FRCP
54(d)(1) applies to this case.
Appellants argue that in § 1983 cases, attorneys’ fees are
awarded to prevailing defendants “only when a plaintiff’s
underlying claim is frivolous, unreasonable, or groundless,”6 and
that the award of costs to defendants in the instant case is a “de
facto award of [attorneys’] fees to a prevailing defendant in a
meritorious lawsuit.” Although there is ample support in our
jurisprudence for Appellants’ initial proposition (that prevailing
5
42 U.S.C. § 1988.
6
Myers v. City of West Monroe, 211 F.3d 289, 292 (5th Cir.
2000) (quoting Walker v. City of Bogalusa,
168 F.3d 237, 239 (5th
Cir. 1999)).
4
defendants in a § 1983 case will be awarded attorneys’ fees
pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988 only when the plaintiff’s underlying
claim is frivolous, unreasonable, or groundless), we are cited to
none to support their novel “de facto award of attorneys’ fees”
theory, and we are independently aware of no such support. Without
the underlying premise establishing a congruence between this award
of costs and an award of attorneys’ fees, Appellants’ arguments
borrowing from attorneys’ fees jurisprudence must fail.7
Reviewing the award of costs for reversible error, then, we
find none. FRCP 54(d)(1) authorizes the court to award costs to
the prevailing party; Appellees prevailed at the summary judgment
phase of this action, and the district court assessed their costs
against Appellants accordingly. Appellees presented an itemized
bill of costs, which Appellants had the opportunity to review and
to which Appellants submitted their objections. Appellants’
objections were given thorough consideration, as evidenced by the
magistrate judge’s substantial Memorandum Opinion and Order, in
which many of Appellants’ objections were actually ratified. The
only thing that Appellants can complain of, then, is that the court
awarded costs to defendants at all. Aside from their unsuccessful
7
Appellants argue, for example, that their claims were not
frivolous, unreasonable, or groundless. They also rely on
jurisprudence in support of the proposition that attorneys’ fees
are not generally awarded to defendants in § 1983 claims, lest they
“chill the efforts of future plaintiffs to redress civil rights
violations.” These arguments would be relevant if attorneys’ fees
were at issue, but, lacking the valid analogy between costs and
attorneys’ fees, the arguments fail here.
5
attempt to recast this award of costs as an award of attorneys’
fees, Appellants offer no valid reason why the court should have
deviated from the general rule in this case. In any event, the
court certainly did not err reversibly by adhering to the general
rule. We therefore affirm the district court’s award of costs to
the Appellees, as well as the magistrate judge’s refusal to
consider Appellants’ supplemental request for reconsideration of
that award.
2. Appellants’ Request for Costs and Attorneys’ Fees
Appellants argue that the magistrate judge “abused her
discretion by not awarding [them] all costs, including attorneys’
fees,” because their § 1983 action was “the catalyst for change and
correction of the egregious civil rights violations prevalent
within the city’s police department.” As such, contend Appellants,
they should be classified as the “prevailing party” under FRCP
54(d)(1) (for costs) and under 28 U.S.C. § 1988 (for attorneys’
fees). In particular, Appellants argue that their lawsuit was the
catalyst for “the removal of Officer Rogers [the officer who
allegedly violated their constitutional rights] and the resignation
of [Police Chief] Crum [Rogers’s supervisor].” These events,
assert Appellants, “likely set the stage for significant
departmental changes.”
6
In Farrar v. Hobby,8 the U.S. Supreme Court explained:
[T]o qualify as a prevailing party, a civil rights
plaintiff must obtain at least some relief on the merits
of his claim. The plaintiff must obtain an enforceable
judgment against the defendant from whom fees are sought,
or comparable relief through a consent decree or
settlement. Whatever relief the plaintiff secures must
directly benefit him at the time of the judgment or
settlement. Otherwise the judgment or settlement cannot
be said to affec[t] the behavior of the defendant toward
the plaintiff. Only under these circumstances can civil
rights litigation effect the material alteration of the
legal relationship of the parties and thereby transform
the plaintiff into a prevailing party. In short, a
plaintiff “prevails” when actual relief on the merits of
his claim materially alters the legal relationship
between the parties by modifying the defendant’s behavior
in a way that directly benefits the plaintiff.9
Despite this clear pronouncement by the Court, Appellants press
their “catalyst theory,” and urge that we consider them to be
“prevailing parties.” Appellants pursue this path despite the fact
that all their claims against Appellees were dismissed with
prejudice at the summary judgment stage. Appellants presumably do
so because they “(1) ... obtained the relief [that they] sought,
and (2) ... the suit itself caused the [Appellees] to alter [their]
conduct.”10 Appellants point to other cases in which the plaintiffs
were deemed prevailing parties because they had achieved the
objective of their suit despite their lack of success in the
8
506 U.S. 103 (1992).
9
Farrar, 506 U.S. 111-12 (internal citations and quotation
marks omitted) (emphasis added).
10
For these elements, Appellants cite Pembroke v. Wood County,
Tex., 981 F.2d 225, 231 n.27 (5th Cir. 1993).
7
courtroom.11
Appellees raise several valid objections to these arguments:
(1) Appellants offer nothing more than conclusional statements that
this lawsuit was the catalyst for any changes implemented by the
Grand Prairie Police Department (in fact, the alleged perpetrator,
Officer Rogers, was terminated before the suit was filed, and,
according to Appellees, Appellants know that Chief Crum retired
from his position of his own volition for reasons not connected to
this lawsuit); (2) there is no indication that Appellants’
objective in filing suit was to improve the police department’s
policies for the good of the community (Appellants’ complaint asked
only for compensatory damages, punitive damages, costs, and
attorneys’ fees for themselves alone); and (3), perhaps most
compellingly, the U.S. Supreme Court has recently expressed
disapproval of the “catalyst-theory” approach to according
“prevailing party” status to a party, when the Court considered
claims brought under the Fair Housing Amendments Act (“FHAA”) and
the American with Disabilities Act (“ADA”).12
We need not settle today how or whether the Supreme Court’s
recent pronouncement in the context of FHAA and ADA claims applies
to the instant case. It suffices for present purposes that
11
See, e.g., Hopwood v. Texas, 236 F.3d 256 (5th Cir. 2000);
Nadeau v. Helgemoe,
581 F.2d 275 (1st Cir. 1978).
12
Buckhannon Bd. & Care Home, Inc. v. West Va. Dept. of Health
& Human Resources, 121 S. Ct. 1835 (2001).
8
Appellants have not produced sufficient evidence that they obtained
the results that they sought when bringing this suit, to persuade
us that the district court committed any reversible error in not
treating them as the prevailing parties and awarding them
attorneys’ fees or costs as such. We therefore hold that neither
the magistrate judge nor the district court committed reversible
error in refusing to award the Appellants attorneys’ fees.
III. Summary
It was not reversible error to award the prevailing Appellees
costs pursuant to FRCP 54(d)(1). Neither was it error to refuse to
deem Appellants the prevailing parties and award costs and
attorneys’ fees to them, under either FRCP 54(d)(1) or 28 U.S.C. §
1988: As a matter of law, they did not prevail. The award of
costs to Appellees and the denial of the Appellants’ motion for
costs and attorneys’ fees are
AFFIRMED.
9
