Fox v. Vice

What’s at stake?
The balance between allowing people whose civil rights are violated to seek justice in court, and protecting defendants when suits are deemed frivolous.

Issue:
Whether a plaintiff in a civil rights action must pay federal statutory attorney’s fees when the plaintiff’s federal claims are deemed frivolous but the state claims are not. 

Decision date:
June 6, 2011

Outcome: 
9-0 in favor of Fox.  Justice Kagan delivered the opinion. 

What the court held:
Ricky Fox, a candidate for police chief in Vinton, Louisiana, was the victim of an extortion plot engineered by the incumbent chief. The incumbent was convicted of criminal extortion as a result of the plot. Fox sued the incumbent in a state court for federal civil rights violations and related claims based on state law. The Fifth Circuit deemed Fox’s federal claims to be frivolous but did not address the merits of his state claims. The court also ordered Fox to pay all of the convicted extortionist’s legal fees based on a federal statute allowing the court to order payment of fees to the successful party when a claim is deemed frivolous. Fox argued that the court could not award the defendant all of his attorney’s fees when only federal claims are deemed frivolous but state claims requiring an examination of the same facts are not.

The Court, in a unanimous opinion authored by Justice Kagan, stated that, “if a frivolous claim occasioned the attorney’s fees at issue, a court may decide that the defendant should not have to pay them.” However, the opinion added that, “if the defendant would have incurred those fees anyway, to defend against non-frivolous claims, then a court has no basis for transferring the expense to the plaintiff.” The Court opposed a fee-shifting system that would allow a defendant to recover all attorneys’ fees when only some claims were deemed frivolous because it “would furnish windfalls to some defendants, making them better off because they were subject to a suit including frivolous claims.” Though it will be for lower courts to decide the breakdown, the Court noted that the district court’s analysis suggested that Vice’s attorneys would have done much the same work even if Fox had not brought the federal civil rights claims that were deemed frivolous.
  

Merit briefs:

Amicus briefs: