Last term, the U.S. Supreme Court decided an attorneys fees case important to lawyers involved in litigation brought under any of the myriad federal civil-rights and anti-discrimination statutes or under the United States Constitution.
In Buckhannon Board & Care Home, Inc. v. West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources,[1]� the Court upended decades of settled law by holding that civil-rights plaintiffs no longer can recover attorneys fees pursuant to the so-called “catalyst theory,” under which a plaintiff could secure attorney’s fees when his or her suit served as the catalyst for a defendant to cease the action challenged in the case without a court adjudicating the merits of the case or entering a consent decree. This ruling will have a substantial impact on the ability of civil rights plaintiffs to recover attorneys fees in cases seeking injunctive relief and in such cases is likely to alter both the strategies pursued by lawyers and the issues presented to courts.
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