Lackey v. Stinnie

(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2024 1

Syllabus

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is

being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.

The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been

prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.

See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

LACKEY, COMMISSIONER OF THE VIRGINIA

DEPARTMENT OF MOTOR VEHICLES v. STINNIE ET

AL.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR

THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 23–621. Argued October 8, 2024—Decided February 25, 2025

Drivers whose licenses were suspended under a Virginia statute for fail-

ure to pay court fines sued the Commissioner of the Virginia Depart-

ment of Motor Vehicles under 42 U. S. C. §1983, challenging the stat-

ute as unconstitutional. The District Court granted a preliminary

injunction prohibiting the Commissioner from enforcing the statute.

Before trial, the Virginia General Assembly repealed the statute and

required reinstatement of licenses suspended under the law. The par-

ties then agreed to dismiss the pending case as moot.

Section 1988(b) allows an award of attorney’s fees to “prevailing par-

ties” under §1983. The District Court declined to award attorney’s fees

to the drivers under that section on the ground that parties who obtain

a preliminary injunction do not qualify as “prevailing part[ies].” A

Fourth Circuit panel affirmed, but the Fourth Circuit reversed en

banc. The en banc court held that some preliminary injunctions can

provide lasting, merits-based relief and qualify plaintiffs as prevailing

parties, even if the case becomes moot before final judgment.

Held: The plaintiff drivers here—who gained only preliminary injunctive

relief before this action became moot—do not qualify as “prevailing

part[ies]” eligible for attorney’s fees under §1988(b) because no court

conclusively resolved their claims by granting enduring judicial relief

on the merits that materially altered the legal relationship between

the parties. Pp. 4–13.

(a) Under the “American Rule,” a prevailing litigant is ordinarily not

2 LACKEY v. STINNIE

Syllabus

entitled to collect attorneys’ fees from the loser absent express statu-

tory authorization. See Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. Wilderness So-

ciety, 421 U. S. 240, 249. Congress has provided that in actions

brought under certain civil rights statutes—including 42 U. S. C.

§1983—“the court, in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party,

other than the United States, a reasonable attorney’s fee as part of the

costs.” §1988(b).

To determine whether the drivers here qualify as “prevailing

part[ies]” under §1988(b), the Court begins with the statute’s text. The

Court has recognized “prevailing party” as a legal term of art. Buck-

hannon Board & Care Home, Inc. v. West Virginia Dept. of Health and

Human Resources, 532 U. S. 598, 603. When §1988(b) was adopted,

contemporary dictionaries defined a prevailing party as one who suc-

cessfully maintains its claim when the matter is finally resolved. See

Black’s Law Dictionary 1352 (4th ed. 1968); Ballentine’s Law Diction-

ary 985 (3d ed. 1969).

Preliminary injunctions do not make a party “prevailing” because

they do not conclusively decide the case on the merits. Such injunc-

tions only determine if a plaintiff is likely to succeed, along with factors

such as irreparable harm, the balance of equities, and the public in-

terest. See Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 555 U.

S. 7, 20. The purpose of a preliminary injunction is to preserve the

status quo until a trial can occur, see University of Tex. v. Camenisch,

451 U. S. 390, 395, and external events that render a dispute moot do

not convert that temporary order into a conclusive adjudication.

Pp. 4–7.

(b) The Court’s precedents interpreting §1988(b) establish that a

plaintiff “prevails” when a court grants enduring judicial relief that

materially alters the legal relationship between the parties. Two re-

cent decisions emphasize that this change must be both judicially sanc-

tioned and enduring. In Buckhannon, the Court rejected the “catalyst

theory”—the theory that a plaintiff may receive attorney’s fees under

§1988(b) when he “achieves the desired result because the lawsuit

brought about a voluntary change in the defendant’s conduct.” 532

U. S., at 601. The Court explained that the plaintiff was not a “pre-

vailing party” because there had been “no judicially sanctioned change

in the legal relationship of the parties.” Id., at 605. And in Sole v.

Wyner, 551 U. S. 74, the Court decided that a plaintiff initially granted

a preliminary injunction after an abbreviated hearing, but denied a

permanent injunction after a adjudication on the merits, did not qual-

ify as a “prevailing party” within the meaning of §1988(b) because the

plaintiff gained no enduring change in the legal relationship between

herself and the defendants. Id., at 77, 78, 86. The Court’s holding in

Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 3

Syllabus

this case—that the enduring nature of that change must itself be judi-

cially sanctioned—follows naturally from Sole and Buckhannon. A

plaintiff who wins a transient victory on a preliminary injunction does

not become a “prevailing party” simply because external events con-

vert the transient victory into a lasting one. Pp. 7–9.

(c) The rule established serves the interests of judicial economy. A

straightforward, bright-line rule is easy to administer, reducing the

risk of significant litigation over attorney’s fees. Concerns that gov-

ernment defendants who have lost at the preliminary injunction stage

will strategically moot litigation are speculative, and such a risk could

arise in only a small number of contexts. The judicial role here is lim-

ited. Congress may amend the statutory language to empower courts

to award attorney’s fees to plaintiffs who have enjoyed some success

but have not prevailed in a judgment on the merits. Pp. 10–11.

(d) The drivers’ remaining arguments are unpersuasive. The argu-

ment that §1988(b) was enacted against a historical backdrop that fa-

vored awarding interim costs at equity, including for preliminary in-

junctions, was rejected by the Court in Alyeska Pipeline. 421 U. S., at

241, 247. The drivers also contend that the availability of fees in some

cases while litigation is ongoing suggests that §1988(b) includes no fi-

nality requirement, but the Court’s decisions simply indicate that at-

torney’s fees may be awarded when conclusive, enduring judicial relief

is meted out on an incremental basis. Finally, the availability of fees

after a court-ordered consent decree is consistent with the rule an-

nounced here. While the decree reflects the parties’ own resolution of

the merits, it is approved and given force of law by a court, and it may

grant enduring relief that materially alters the legal relationship be-

tween the parties. The dissent conflates preliminary judicial relief

that becomes irreversible by way of mootness with relief that is perma-

nent by virtue of a judicial order. Pp. 11–13.

77 F. 4th 200, reversed and remanded.

ROBERTS, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which THOMAS,

ALITO, KAGAN, GORSUCH, KAVANAUGH, and BARRETT, JJ., joined. JACK-

SON, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SOTOMAYOR, J., joined.

Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 1

Opinion of the Court

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the

United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of

Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543,

pio@supremecourt.gov, of any typographical or other formal errors.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

_________________

No. 23–621

_________________

GERALD F. LACKEY, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS THE

COMMISSIONER OF THE VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT

OF MOTOR VEHICLES, PETITIONER v. DAMIAN

STINNIE, ET AL.

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF

APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

[February 25, 2025]

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the

Court.

Respondents are Virginia drivers whose licenses were

suspended due to their failure to pay court fines or costs.

The drivers sued the Commissioner of the Virginia Depart-

ment of Motor Vehicles under 42 U. S. C. §1983, arguing

that the Virginia statute requiring suspension of their li-

censes was unconstitutional. The District Court prelimi-

narily enjoined the Commissioner from enforcing the stat-

ute. But before the case reached final judgment, the

Virginia General Assembly repealed the challenged law,

rendering the action moot. The question presented is

whether the drivers are “prevailing part[ies]” who qualify

for an award of attorney’s fees under §1988(b).

I

Until recently, a Virginia statute directed the state courts

to suspend the license of any driver who failed to pay “any

fine, costs, forfeitures, restitution, or penalty lawfully as-

sessed against him” for violation of a federal, state, or local

law. The suspension remained in force until the amount

2 LACKEY v. STINNIE

Opinion of the Court

due was paid in full or the driver entered into a court-

approved payment plan. Va. Code Ann. §46.2–395(B)

(2016) (repealed 2020). Virginia drivers—whose licenses

were suspended under the law and who asserted that they

could not afford to pay the fines or costs or keep up with a

payment plan—sued the Commissioner of the Virginia De-

partment of Motor Vehicles on their own behalf and on be-

half of a putative class. The drivers alleged that the statute

facially violated the Due Process Clause by “failing to pro-

vide sufficient notice or hearing to any driver before license

suspension” and violated both the Due Process and Equal

Protection Clauses “as applied to people who cannot afford

to pay due to their modest financial circumstances.” First

Amended Class Action Complaint in Stinnie v. Holcomb,

No. 3:16−cv−00044 (WD Va., Sept. 11, 2018), ECF Doc. 84,

pp. 2−3; see also id., at 37−43. The drivers sought declara-

tory relief, preliminary and permanent injunctive relief,

and attorney’s fees under 42 U. S. C. §1988(b).

In December 2018, the District Court granted a prelimi-

nary injunction, prohibiting the Commissioner from enforc-

ing the statute against the drivers or future class members.

See Stinnie v. Holcomb, 355 F. Supp. 3d 514, 520 (WD Va.

2018). The court explained that the drivers had made “a

clear showing that [they were] likely to succeed” on their

procedural due process claim, though it noted that they

need not “establish a certainty of success.” Id., at 527 (quot-

ing Di Biase v. SPX Corp., 872 F. 3d 224, 230 (CA4 2017)).

The court also determined that the remaining preliminary

injunction factors—the risk of irreparable harm, the bal-

ance of equities, and the public interest—weighed in the

drivers’ favor. Stinnie, 355 F. Supp. 3d, at 532; see Winter

v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 555 U. S. 7, 20

(2008). The Commissioner did not appeal the grant of the

preliminary injunction.

In April 2019, about four months before a bench trial was

scheduled to begin, the Commissioner moved to dismiss as

Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 3

Opinion of the Court

moot or, in the alternative, stay the case. See Stinnie v.

Holcomb, 396 F. Supp. 3d 653, 656 (WD Va.). The Virginia

General Assembly had recently adopted Budget Amend-

ment No. 33, which “eliminate[d] the suspension of drivers’

licenses for failure to pay court fines and costs through July

1, 2020, but [did] not repeal §46.2–395.” Ibid. The Com-

missioner represented that the General Assembly was

likely to repeal the law during the next legislative session.

The District Court granted a stay, reasoning in part that

doing so served the interests of judicial economy and ena-

bled the court to avoid “weigh[ing] in on sensitive constitu-

tional questions about license suspension schemes about

which other courts ha[d] disagreed.” Id., at 660.

In April 2020, the Virginia General Assembly repealed

§46.2–395 and required the permanent reinstatement of li-

censes suspended under the law. See 2020 Va. Acts ch. 965.

As a result, the parties agreed that the action had become

moot and stipulated to dismissal. The drivers, however, as-

serted that they were entitled to attorney’s fees under

§1988(b), so the parties jointly requested that the court re-

tain jurisdiction to resolve that dispute. The District Court

declined to award attorney’s fees, following Smyth v.

Rivero, 282 F. 3d 268 (CA4 2002). See Stinnie v. Holcomb,

2021 WL 2292807 (WD Va., June 4, 2021). In Smyth the

Fourth Circuit held that a plaintiff awarded a preliminary

injunction is not a “prevailing party” within the meaning of

§1988(b). 282 F. 3d, at 277. A Fourth Circuit panel af-

firmed, again relying on Smyth. Stinnie v. Holcomb, 37 F.

4th 977 (2022). Judge Harris concurred, suggesting that

the Circuit may wish to reconsider that precedent. Id., at

983.

The Fourth Circuit did so, rehearing the case en banc and

overturning its decision in Smyth. Stinnie v. Holcomb, 77

F. 4th 200 (2023). It observed that Smyth had become the

“outlier” among the courts of appeals. 77 F. 4th, at 209. It

4 LACKEY v. STINNIE

Opinion of the Court

reasoned that some preliminary injunctions “provide en-

during, merits-based relief that satisfies all the requisites

of the prevailing party standard.” Id., at 203. And it ex-

plained, in light of this Court’s decision in Winter v. Natural

Resources Defense Council, that a plaintiff could no longer

prevail on a preliminary injunction for reasons that “had

virtually nothing to do with the merits of her claim.” 77 F.

4th, at 208−209; see Winter, 555 U. S., at 20 (clarifying that

a finding of likely success on the merits is a prerequisite to

preliminary injunctive relief). Finally, it noted that Con-

gress had enacted §1988(b) in the interest of facilitating the

redress of civil rights grievances. 77 F. 4th, at 210.

The en banc court articulated a new standard: “When a

preliminary injunction provides the plaintiff concrete, irre-

versible relief on the merits of her claim and becomes moot

before final judgment because no further court-ordered as-

sistance proves necessary, the subsequent mootness of the

case does not preclude an award of attorney’s fees.” Ibid.

Applying that standard, the en banc court vacated and re-

manded the case to allow the District Court to determine a

reasonable fee. Id., at 218. Judge Quattlebaum dissented,

arguing that a preliminary injunction does not constitute a

judicial decision on the merits and that a fee award on the

basis of such an injunction therefore conflicts with both the

text of §1988(b) and this Court’s precedents. See id., at 225,

227, 231.

We granted certiorari to determine whether the term

“prevailing party” in §1988(b) encompasses a party who is

awarded a preliminary injunction, if the case becomes moot

before the court reaches a final judgment. 601 U. S. ___

(2024).

II

Since 1796, this Court has maintained that “the Judici-

ary itself would not create a general rule, independent of

any statute, allowing awards of attorneys’ fees in federal

courts.” Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. Wilderness Society,

Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 5

Opinion of the Court

421 U. S. 240, 249 (1975) (citing Arcambel v. Wiseman, 3

Dall. 306 (1796)). The principle that “the prevailing litigant

is ordinarily not entitled to collect a reasonable attorneys’

fee from the loser” became known as the “American Rule.”

Alyeska Pipeline, 421 U. S., at 247. Federal courts may de-

part from this rule only when “there is express statutory

authorization” to do so. Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U. S. 424,

429 (1983).

In 1976, Congress adopted the Civil Rights Attorney’s

Fees Awards Act. 90 Stat. 2641. The law provides that, in

actions brought under certain civil rights statutes—includ-

ing 42 U. S. C. §1983—“the court, in its discretion, may al-

low the prevailing party, other than the United States, a

reasonable attorney’s fee as part of the costs.” §1988(b).

The question is whether the drivers in this case qualify as

“prevailing part[ies]” within the meaning of §1988(b).

A

When interpreting a statute, we begin with the text. As

we have previously recognized, the phrase “prevailing

party” in §1988(b) is a “legal term of art.” Buckhannon

Board & Care Home, Inc. v. West Virginia Dept. of Health

and Human Resources, 532 U. S. 598, 603 (2001). We as-

sume that “when Congress ‘borrows terms of art in which

are accumulated the legal tradition and meaning of centu-

ries of practice, it presumably knows and adopts the cluster

of ideas that were attached to each borrowed word.’ ”

United States v. Hansen, 599 U. S. 762, 774 (2023) (quoting

Morissette v. United States, 342 U. S. 246, 263 (1952)).

At the time §1988(b) was adopted, Black’s Law Diction-

ary defined “prevailing party” as the party “who success-

fully prosecutes the action or successfully defends against

it.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1352 (rev. 4th ed. 1968). It ex-

plained that prevailing party status “does not depend upon

the degree of success at different stages of the suit, but

whether, at the end of the suit, or other proceeding, the

6 LACKEY v. STINNIE

Opinion of the Court

party who has made a claim against the other, has success-

fully maintained it.” Ibid.; accord, Ballentine’s Law Dic-

tionary 985 (3d ed. 1969). A prevailing party, in other

words, is “[t]he party ultimately prevailing when the mat-

ter is finally set at rest.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1352.

Preliminary injunctions, however, do not conclusively re-

solve legal disputes. In awarding preliminary injunctions,

courts determine if a plaintiff is likely to succeed on the

merits—along with the risk of irreparable harm, the bal-

ance of equities, and the public interest. Winter, 555 U. S.,

at 20. “The purpose of a preliminary injunction is merely

to preserve the relative positions of the parties until a trial

on the merits can be held,” University of Tex. v. Camenisch,

451 U. S. 390, 395 (1981), and “to balance the equities as

the litigation moves forward,” Trump v. International Ref-

ugee Assistance Project, 582 U. S. 571, 580 (2017) (per cu-

riam). “Crafting a preliminary injunction is an exercise of

discretion and judgment, often dependent as much on the

equities of a given case as the substance of the legal issues

it presents.” Id., at 579. Such relief is also “customarily

granted on the basis of procedures that are less formal and

evidence that is less complete than in a trial on the merits.”

Camenisch, 451 U. S., at 395. As a result, we have previ-

ously cautioned against “improperly equat[ing] ‘likelihood

of success’ with ‘success’ ” and treating preliminary injunc-

tions as “tantamount to decisions on the underlying mer-

its.” Id., at 394.

The transient nature of preliminary injunctions is most

apparent when a court reaches a different conclusion upon

full consideration of the merits. For example, in one of our

more recent cases interpreting §1988, Sole v. Wyner, 551

U. S. 74, 78–79 (2007), protesters sought a preliminary in-

junction against a state regulation of beach attire in order

to assemble nude in the form of a peace sign. The day after

the complaint was filed, the District Court held a hearing

and granted the preliminary injunction. Id., at 79. The

Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 7

Opinion of the Court

preliminary injunction permitted the protest to occur and

thus preserved the participants’ rights until a final deter-

mination could be made on the merits of their claim. Ulti-

mately, however, the court declined to award a permanent

injunction, ruling that the regulation was no more burden-

some than necessary to protect the public. Id., at 80−81.

Because preliminary injunctions do not conclusively re-

solve the rights of parties on the merits, they do not confer

prevailing party status. A plaintiff who secures a prelimi-

nary injunction has achieved only temporary success at an

intermediary “stage[ ] of the suit.” Black’s Law Dictionary

1352. It cannot yet be said that he will “ultimately pre-

vail[ ] when the matter is finally set at rest” or that he will

have “successfully maintained” his claim “at the end.” Ibid.

And external events that render a dispute moot do not con-

vert a temporary order designed to preserve the status of

the parties into a conclusive adjudication of their rights.

The Fourth Circuit en banc was persuaded that “Winter’s

stringent merits requirement” avoided the “risk” that “a

plaintiff may prevail, and thus be entitled to fees, based on

a preliminary injunction that had virtually nothing to do

with the merits of her claim.” 77 F. 4th, at 209. But it is

not enough that Winter guarantees a preliminary injunc-

tion award has at least something to do with the merits.

The plaintiff must succeed on the merits.

B

This conclusion is consistent with our precedents inter-

preting §1988(b). We have held that, for the purposes of

§1988(b), a plaintiff “prevails” when a court grants endur-

ing judicial relief that constitutes a “material alteration of

the legal relationship of the parties.” Texas State Teachers

Assn. v. Garland Independent School Dist., 489 U. S. 782,

792−793 (1989). For example, we have ruled that a plaintiff

may qualify as a “prevailing party” based on an award of

nominal damages, Farrar v. Hobby, 506 U. S. 103, 112

8 LACKEY v. STINNIE

Opinion of the Court

(1992), or a final victory on a material even if not predomi-

nant claim, Texas State Teachers Assn., 489 U. S., at

791−793. By contrast, a party does not qualify as a “pre-

vailing party” when a court of appeals overturns directed

verdicts and discovery orders entered against him, Hanra-

han v. Hampton, 446 U. S. 754, 756 (1980) (per curiam), or

when a court enters a declaratory judgment but does not

modify the defendant’s behavior toward the plaintiff,

Rhodes v. Stewart, 488 U. S. 1, 3−4 (1988) (per curiam)

(holding that no fees were available under §1988 when the

judgment afforded no relief to the plaintiff due to moot-

ness).

Two of our more recent decisions highlight the require-

ments that the change in legal relationship be judicially

sanctioned and enduring. In Buckhannon Board & Care

Home, Inc. v. West Virginia Department of Health and Hu-

man Resources, we rejected the “catalyst theory”—the the-

ory that a plaintiff may receive attorney’s fees under

§1988(b) when he “achieves the desired result because the

lawsuit brought about a voluntary change in the defend-

ant’s conduct.” 532 U. S., at 601; see id., at 600. In that

context, we explained that the plaintiff was not a “prevail-

ing party” because there had been “no judicially sanctioned

change in the legal relationship of the parties.” Id., at 605.

The defendant’s voluntary actions “lack[ed] the necessary

judicial imprimatur.” Ibid. We were not persuaded that

§1988(b) “authorizes federal courts to award attorney’s fees

to a plaintiff who” filed a “potentially meritless lawsuit” and

“reached the ‘sought-after destination’ without obtaining

any judicial relief.” Id., at 606 (quoting id., at 634 (Gins-

burg, J., dissenting)).

In Sole v. Wyner, we decided that “a plaintiff who gain[ed]

a preliminary injunction after an abbreviated hearing, but

[was] denied a permanent injunction after a dispositive ad-

judication on the merits,” did not qualify as a “prevailing

party” within the meaning of §1988(b). 551 U. S., at 77; see

Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 9

Opinion of the Court

id., at 78. That plaintiff, we explained, “gained no enduring

change in the legal relationship” between herself and the

defendants. Id., at 86 (emphasis added; alterations and in-

ternal quotation marks omitted). Although we left open the

question presented in this case, see ibid., we described the

plaintiff ’s success at the preliminary injunction stage as “a

transient victory at the threshold of an action,” a “fleeting

success” that “did not establish that [the plaintiff] prevailed

on the gravamen of her plea for injunctive relief,” one “ten-

tative [in] character, in view of the continuation of the liti-

gation to definitively resolve the controversy,” id., at 78, 83,

84.

We recognize that neither opinion resolves this case, but

our holding today follows naturally from these precedents.

In Sole, we established that the change in the legal rela-

tionship between the parties must be “enduring.” Id., at 86.

In Buckhannon, we established that the change must be

“judicially sanctioned.” 532 U. S., at 605. Today, we estab-

lish that the enduring nature of that change must itself be

judicially sanctioned. A plaintiff who wins a transient vic-

tory on a preliminary injunction does not become a “prevail-

ing party” simply because external events convert the tran-

sient victory into a lasting one. Rather, a plaintiff

“prevails” under the statute when a court conclusively re-

solves a claim by granting enduring judicial relief on the

merits that materially alters the legal relationship between

the parties.*

——————

*A different body of caselaw addresses when a defendant is a “prevail-

ing party” for the purposes of other fee-shifting statutes. Our decision

today should not be read to affect our previous holding that a defendant

need not obtain a favorable judgment on the merits to prevail, nor to

address the question we left open of whether a defendant must obtain a

preclusive judgment in order to prevail. See CRST Van Expedited, Inc.

v. EEOC, 578 U. S. 419, 431−434 (2016). As we have explained,

“[p]laintiffs and defendants come to court with different objectives.” Id.,

at 431.

10 LACKEY v. STINNIE

Opinion of the Court

C

The rule we establish today also serves the interests of

judicial economy. A straightforward, bright-line rule is

easy to administer, reducing the risk of “a second major lit-

igation” over attorney’s fees. Cf. Hensley, 461 U. S., at 437.

The drivers, however, suggest that our rule promotes sim-

plicity at the cost of creating perverse incentives. They fear

that government defendants who have lost at the prelimi-

nary injunction stage will strategically moot litigation ra-

ther than risk a fee award were they to ultimately lose on

the merits. See Brief for Respondents 42−47. We found

similar concerns to be “entirely speculative” when we re-

jected the catalyst theory in Buckhannon, 532 U. S., at 608.

We reiterate that such risk could arise in only a small num-

ber of contexts. After all, if a plaintiff “has a cause of action

for damages, a defendant’s change in conduct will not moot

the case.” Id., at 609. And even if the plaintiff seeks only

injunctive relief, voluntary cessation of the challenged con-

duct does not moot an action “unless it is ‘absolutely clear

that the allegedly wrongful behavior could not reasonably

be expected to recur.’ ” Ibid. (quoting Friends of the Earth,

Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC), Inc., 528

U. S. 167, 189 (2000)); see also FBI v. Fikre, 601 U. S. 234,

241 (2024) (characterizing this burden as “formidable”

(quoting Friends of the Earth, 528 U. S., at 190)). A survey

asking public interest organizations to self-report on the

impact of Buckhannon does not change our minds. See post,

at 17−18 (JACKSON, J., dissenting).

It is Congress’s job to craft policy and ours to interpret

the words that codify it. “Atextual judicial supplementation

is particularly inappropriate when . . . Congress has shown

that it knows how to adopt the omitted language or provi-

sion.” Rotkiske v. Klemm, 589 U. S. 8, 14 (2019). Congress

has shown that it knows how to empower courts to award

attorney’s fees to plaintiffs who have enjoyed some success

but have not prevailed in a judgment on the merits. In the

Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 11

Opinion of the Court

Freedom of Information Act, for example, Congress author-

ized courts to assess attorney’s fees when a complainant

has “substantially prevailed,” even if through “a voluntary

or unilateral change in position by the agency.” 5 U. S. C.

§552(a)(4)(E). If Congress determines that the rule we

adopt today is unwise, it may amend the statutory lan-

guage—just as it enacted §1988(b) itself in response to our

decision in Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. Wilderness Soci-

ety. 421 U. S. 240; see Hensley, 461 U. S., at 429. Until

then, “it is of course our job to apply faithfully the law Con-

gress has written.” Henson v. Santander Consumer USA

Inc., 582 U. S. 79, 89 (2017).

D

The drivers urge the opposite conclusion, but we find

their arguments unpersuasive.

First, the drivers, joined by the dissent, argue that the

dictionary definitions support them. But they assume that

the favorable resolution of a dispute is tantamount to suc-

cess on a claim in a legal action. A “prevailing party,” how-

ever, is defined in the latter sense—one who “successfully

prosecutes the action,” who has “made a claim” against an-

other and “has successfully maintained it.” Black’s Law

Dictionary 1352.

Second, the drivers and dissent contend that §1988(b)

was enacted against a historical backdrop that favored

awarding interim costs at equity, including for preliminary

injunctions. See Brief for Respondents 19−21. The dissent

in Alyeska Pipeline similarly invoked “the well-established

power of federal equity courts to award attorneys’ fees when

the interests of justice so require.” 421 U. S., at 272 (Mar-

shall, J., dissenting). We rejected that argument, however,

and determined that the American Rule supplied the de-

fault rule at law and equity, subject to narrow historical ex-

ceptions not at issue here. See id., at 241, 247 (majority

opinion).

Next, the drivers argue that the availability of fees while

12 LACKEY v. STINNIE

Opinion of the Court

litigation is ongoing suggests that §1988(b) includes no fi-

nality requirement. See Brief for Respondents 40−42. The

dissent likewise points to our statement in Buckhannon

that a “ ‘prevailing party’ is not intended to be limited to the

victor only after entry of a final judgment following a full

trial on the merits.” 532 U. S., at 607 (quoting H. R. Rep.

No. 94–1558, p. 7 (1976)); see post, at 15. We have recog-

nized that “Congress contemplated the award of fees pen-

dente lite in some cases.” Hanrahan, 446 U. S., at 757. For

example, we have explained that, in school desegregation

cases, “many final orders may issue in the course of the lit-

igation” because injunctive relief “must prove its efficacy

. . . over a period of time and often with frequent modifica-

tions.” Bradley v. School Bd. of Richmond, 416 U. S. 696,

723 (1974). Our decisions simply indicate that attorney’s

fees may be awarded when conclusive, enduring judicial re-

lief is meted out on an incremental basis. Hanrahan, 446

U. S., at 758 (“Congress intended to permit the interim

award of counsel fees only when a party has prevailed on

the merits of at least some of his claims.”). Key language

on which the dissent relies—our statement that a party pre-

vails when it “succeed[s] on any significant claim affording

it some of the relief sought,” including relief on the merits

pendente lite—explained our rejection of the “central issue

test,” which would have required a party to prevail on its

central claim in order to be awarded attorney’s fees. Texas

State Teachers Assn., 489 U. S., at 791; see post, at 4. It did

not refer to preliminary relief.

The availability of fees following the entry of a court-

ordered consent decree is fully consistent with the rule we

announce today. A consent decree reflects the parties’ own

resolution of the merits, but it is approved and given force

of law by the court. See Firefighters v. Cleveland, 478 U. S.

501, 523 (1986). Violation of a consent decree is enforceable

by a citation for contempt. Ibid. So a consent decree is like

Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 13

Opinion of the Court

a final judgment in the relevant ways: It conclusively re-

solves the claim, bears a judicial imprimatur, and may

grant enduring relief that materially alters the legal rela-

tionship between the parties. That is why “[w]e have only

awarded attorney’s fees where the plaintiff has received a

judgment on the merits or obtained a court-ordered consent

decree.” Buckhannon, 532 U. S., at 605 (citation omitted).

For its part, the dissent conflates preliminary judicial relief

that becomes irreversible by way of mootness with relief

that is permanent by virtue of a judicial order. See post, at

10−11. That a preliminary order may sometimes “func-

tion[ ] . . . like” a final order due to external circumstances,

see post, at 11 (citation omitted), is not dispositive of the

nature of the order.

* * *

Section 1988(b) permits courts to award attorney’s fees to

a “prevailing party.” A party “prevails” when a court con-

clusively resolves his claim by granting enduring relief on

the merits that alters the legal relationship between the

parties. Critically, both the change in relationship and its

permanence must result from a judicial order. A prelimi-

nary injunction, which temporarily preserves the parties’

litigating positions based in part on a prediction of the like-

lihood of success on the merits, does not render a plaintiff a

“prevailing party.” Nor do external events that moot the

action and prevent the court from conclusively adjudicating

the claim. Because the drivers in the present case gained

only preliminary injunctive relief before this action became

moot, they do not qualify as “prevailing part[ies]” eligible

for attorney’s fees under §1988(b).

The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Cir-

cuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further pro-

ceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 1

JACKSON, J., dissenting

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

_________________

No. 23–621

_________________

GERALD F. LACKEY, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS THE

COMMISSIONER OF THE VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT

OF MOTOR VEHICLES, PETITIONER v. DAMIAN

STINNIE, ET AL.

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF

APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

[February 25, 2025]

JUSTICE JACKSON, with whom JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR joins,

dissenting.

Congress has authorized courts to award attorney’s fees

to the “prevailing party” in certain civil rights cases. 42

U. S. C. §1988(b). Today, the Court holds that a plaintiff

who secures a preliminary injunction does not “prevail” un-

der this fee-shifting statute, even when the preliminary in-

junction provides meaningful relief and is never reversed

on the merits. The Court maintains that this holding “fol-

lows naturally from” our precedents. Ante, at 9. But that

will come as a surprise to the eleven Courts of Appeals that

have previously considered this issue; all of them agree that

at least some preliminary injunctions trigger fee eligibility

under §1988(b).

Stated simply, the majority’s categorical preclusion of fee

awards for any plaintiff who successfully obtains prelimi-

nary injunctive relief is unwarranted. It lacks any basis in

the text of §1988(b) and is plainly inconsistent with that

statutory provision’s clear objective, which is to encourage

attorneys to file civil rights actions on behalf of the most

vulnerable people in our society. The Court has now elimi-

nated fee eligibility for all preliminary injunctions—even

those that effectively resolve the case. But if Congress had

2 LACKEY v. STINNIE

JACKSON, J., dissenting

meant for “prevailing party” status to hinge entirely on the

“conclusive” nature of a judicial order, it could easily have

said so. It is the role of Congress, not this Court, to weigh

concerns about administrative ease against the benefits of

guaranteeing individuals an opportunity to vindicate their

civil rights.

There is no persuasive reason to believe that Congress

meant to preclude fee awards for every plaintiff who secures

preliminary injunctive relief but not a final judgment, no

matter the context. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.

I

A

Nothing in §1988(b)’s text compels the conclusion that a

plaintiff who obtains preliminary injunctive relief is never

eligible for a fee award. Section 1988(b) states simply that,

in actions to enforce certain civil rights statutes, including

42 U. S. C. §1983, “the court, in its discretion, may allow

the prevailing party, other than the United States, a rea-

sonable attorney’s fee as part of the costs.” §1988(b). The

majority recognizes that “prevailing party” is a legal term

of art and begins its analysis by asserting that this term

means what legal dictionaries said it meant at the time that

§1988(b) was enacted.

According to the majority’s preferred dictionary, a “pre-

vailing party” is one “ ‘who successfully prosecutes the ac-

tion or successfully defends against it.’ ” Ante, at 5 (quoting

Black’s Law Dictionary 1352 (rev. 4th ed. 1968)). Thus, pre-

vailing party status turns on “ ‘whether, at the end of the

suit, or other proceeding, the party who has made a claim

against the other, has successfully maintained it.’ ” Ante, at

6 (quoting Black’s Law Dictionary, at 1352). Reasoning

from this definition, the majority holds that preliminary in-

junctions, which provide interim relief by their nature, can

never confer prevailing party status because they do not

“conclusively resolve the rights of parties on the merits.”

Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 3

JACKSON, J., dissenting

Ante, at 7.

But the majority’s analysis inexplicably conflates the re-

quirement for success when the suit ends (which is what the

dictionary definition says) with a requirement that the suit

end by virtue of a “conclusive” judicial ruling on the merits

of the plaintiff ’s claims (which is nowhere in Black’s Law

Dictionary or anywhere else). In other words, the majority’s

reasoning elides the fact that a suit can end in various

ways—including through acts of the defendant or others

that moot the legal action. Black’s Law Dictionary and its

contemporaries simply require a court determining eligibil-

ity for a fee award to take stock of where things stand at

the end of the lawsuit. A prevailing party for §1988(b) pur-

poses is one who has successfully maintained his claim (in

the manner I describe below, see Part II–A, infra) “when

the matter is finally set at rest.” Black’s Law Dictionary, at

1352.

In essence, then, the majority errs by assuming that the

only kind of resolution to a suit that can precipitate a fee

award is a “conclusive” final judgment on the merits. See,

e.g., ante, at 6–7, 9, 12. That assumption is unfounded. The

text of the fee statute does not require a final judgment in

the party’s favor, “conclusive” or otherwise. Nor does any

dictionary definition of “prevailing party” to which the ma-

jority cites. Rather, according to Black’s Law Dictionary, a

“prevailing party” is simply a “part[y] to a suit who success-

fully prosecutes the action or successfully defends against

it, prevailing on the main issue, even though not to the ex-

tent of his original contention.” Black’s Law Dictionary, at

1352. Ballentine’s Law Dictionary is substantially similar;

it defines “prevailing party” as “[t]he party who is success-

ful or partially successful in an action, so as to be entitled

to costs.” Ballentine’s Law Dictionary 985 (3d ed. 1969).

Significantly for present purposes, both dictionaries fur-

ther emphasize that “[t]o be [a prevailing party] does not

depend upon the degree of success at different stages of the

4 LACKEY v. STINNIE

JACKSON, J., dissenting

suit, but whether, at the end of the suit . . . the party who

has made a claim against the other, has successfully main-

tained it.” Black’s Law Dictionary, at 1352; accord, Ballen-

tine’s Law Dictionary, at 985. Yet, today, the majority de-

mands that, in order to prevail, the party must have

achieved a certain degree of success at a certain point in the

case: a conclusive final judgment in his favor at the end of

litigation.

B

This Court has not previously linked prevailing party sta-

tus to securing a conclusive final judgment. Quite to the

contrary, we have held that a prevailing party for fee-

shifting purposes is one who has “succeeded on any signifi-

cant claim affording it some of the relief sought, either pen-

dente lite”—i.e., pending the suit—“or at the conclusion of

the litigation.” Texas State Teachers Assn. v. Garland In-

dependent School Dist., 489 U. S. 782, 791 (1989). That is,

a plaintiff prevails when he accomplishes his lawsuit’s “ob-

jectiv[e],” which is to achieve “a material alteration in the

legal relationship between the parties.” CRST Van Expe-

dited, Inc. v. EEOC, 578 U. S. 419, 431 (2016). This is be-

cause, for a plaintiff, “[a]t the end of the rainbow lies not a

judgment, but some action (or cessation of action) by the

defendant that the judgment produces—the payment of

damages, or some specific performance, or the termination

of some conduct.” Hewitt v. Helms, 482 U. S. 755, 761

(1987).

A plaintiff who secures a preliminary injunction award-

ing actual relief on the merits of his claim that is never re-

versed by a final decision of the court has “successfully

maintained” his claim “at the end.” Black’s Law Dictionary,

at 1352. Such a plaintiff has achieved what he has “come

Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 5

JACKSON, J., dissenting

to court” for—the desired “alteration in the legal relation-

ship between the parties.” CRST, 578 U. S., at 431.1

Take this case, for example. At the point it ended—when

the District Court dismissed the litigation as moot—re-

spondents had secured a preliminary injunction against the

Commissioner of the Virginia Department of Motor Vehi-

cles. That order enabled respondents to drive their cars on

Virginia’s highways for sixteen months, over the Commis-

sioner’s objection. And, because the District Court’s interim

award had facilitated respondents’ access to the road as li-

censed drivers, they had prevailed on the merits of their

claim in every meaningful sense. Put another way, “at the

end of the litigation,” respondents did not “leav[e] the court-

house emptyhanded.” Sole v. Wyner, 551 U. S. 74, 78

(2007). Instead, they departed having accomplished exactly

what they had sought to achieve. The fact that respondents

achieved their goal via a preliminary court ruling, as op-

posed to a final judgment, is irrelevant, for “[n]othing in the

language of §1988 conditions the District Court’s power to

award fees on full litigation of the issues or on a judicial

determination that the plaintiff ’s rights have been vio-

lated.” Maher v. Gagne, 448 U. S. 122, 129 (1980) (empha-

sis added).

Juxtapose that reality with the text of other statutes that

make “prevailing party” status expressly dependent on the

entry of a final order. For example, the Emergency School

Aid Act of 1972—enacted just four years before §1988(b)—

states that, “[u]pon the entry of a final order,” a court hear-

ing a school desegregation case may “allow the prevailing

party, other than the United States, a reasonable attorney’s

——————

1 There are, of course, other kinds of preliminary injunctive orders, in-

cluding orders that maintain the status quo. All that is necessary to re-

ject the majority’s categorical rule is the recognition that at least some

preliminary injunctions afford the type of material change that confers

prevailing party status.

6 LACKEY v. STINNIE

JACKSON, J., dissenting

fee as part of the costs.” 20 U. S. C. §1617 (repealed) (em-

phasis added). Several statutes enacted after §1988(b) are

similarly explicit about when a fee award must be fastened

to a final judgment. See, e.g., 28 U. S. C. §2412(d)(2)(H) (de-

fining “prevailing party” in eminent domain proceedings to

“mea[n] a party who obtains a final judgment” of a certain

amount); 15 U. S. C. §6104(d) (authorizing courts hearing

actions under the Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and

Abuse Prevention Act to award “reasonable fees . . . to the

prevailing party” upon “issuing any final order”). The fact

that §1988(b) lacks any such language confirms that a con-

clusive ruling from the court in the form of a final judgment

is not a prerequisite for a fee award under that statute.

C

The majority disregards these important context clues

and focuses instead on a provision of the Freedom of Infor-

mation Act (FOIA) that authorizes fee awards for a “com-

plainant” who “has substantially prevailed” by “obtain[ing]

relief through either—(I) a judicial order, or an enforceable

written agreement or consent decree; or (II) a voluntary or

unilateral change in position by the agency.” 5 U. S. C.

§552(a)(4)(E). The term “prevailing party” appears no-

where in this FOIA provision. But, no matter: The majority

nevertheless suggests that this is how Congress authorizes

fee shifting for “plaintiffs who have enjoyed some success

but have not prevailed in a judgment on the merits.” Ante,

at 10.

The problem is that Congress had a much more targeted

objective when it enacted §552(a)(4)(E). It sought merely to

repudiate this Court’s decision in Buckhannon Board &

Care Home, Inc. v. West Virginia Dept. of Health and Hu-

man Resources, 532 U. S. 598, 606 (2001), which had held

Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 7

JACKSON, J., dissenting

that a plaintiff must obtain some “judicial relief ” to be eli-

gible for a fee award in FOIA cases.2 Since the point of

§552(a)(4)(E) was to “abrogat[e] the rule of Buckhannon in

the FOIA context and reviv[e] the possibility of FOIA fee

awards in the absence of a court decree,” Brayton v. Office

of U. S. Trade Rep., 641 F. 3d 521, 525 (CADC 2011), that

statutory provision sheds no light whatsoever on whether

the term “prevailing party” requires a plaintiff to secure a

conclusive ruling on the merits to qualify as a prevailing

party for purposes of §1988(b).

In short, while the majority insists that obtaining a pre-

liminary injunction can never suffice for a fee award under

§1988(b) “[b]ecause preliminary injunctions do not conclu-

sively resolve the rights of parties on the merits,” ante, at

7, the text of §1988(b), contemporary dictionary definitions,

and our precedents require far less. All of the Courts of Ap-

peals to consider the question—eleven in total—understood

this and thus correctly held that, for fee-shifting purposes,

it is possible for a party to prevail based on a preliminary

ruling.3 The majority’s reading of “prevailing party” in

——————

2 Congress enacted 5 U. S. C. §552(a)(4)(E) because Buckhannon had

empowered Government agencies to “stonewall valid FOIA claims” and

then prevent an award of attorney’s fees by “disclosing the documents at

the last moment before judgment,” thereby mooting the case. Brayton v.

Office of U. S. Trade Rep., 641 F. 3d 521, 525 (CADC 2011). Under Buck-

hannon, such plaintiffs were not eligible for fee awards because they had

not obtained any judicial order—preliminary, final, or otherwise. This

strategic behavior ensured that FOIA plaintiffs never became eligible for

fee awards despite incurring significant costs, so Congress intervened.

641 F. 3d, at 525.

3 See, e.g., Haley v. Pataki, 106 F. 3d 478, 484 (CA2 1997); Singer

Mgmt. Consultants, Inc. v. Milgram, 650 F. 3d 223, 229–230, and n. 4

(CA3 2011) (en banc); Stinnie v. Holcomb, 77 F. 4th 200, 210 (CA4 2023)

(en banc) (case below); Dearmore v. Garland, 519 F. 3d 517, 524 (CA5

2008); Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio Region v. Dewine, 931 F. 3d

530, 534 (CA6 2019); Dupuy v. Samuels, 423 F. 3d 714, 723, and n. 4

(CA7 2005); Rogers Group, Inc. v. Fayetteville, 683 F. 3d 903, 909–910

(CA8 2012); Higher Taste, Inc. v. Tacoma, 717 F. 3d 712, 717–718 (CA9

8 LACKEY v. STINNIE

JACKSON, J., dissenting

§1988(b) makes obtaining a court’s conclusive final judg-

ment the hallmark of that status in a manner that is both

novel and in many ways anathema to the legal term of art

that Congress actually chose.

II

A

So what does it take to qualify as a “prevailing party” for

purposes of this fee-shifting statute? In Farrar v. Hobby,

506 U. S. 103 (1992), we explained that a plaintiff “ ‘pre-

vails’ ” if he receives (1) “actual relief on the merits of his

claim” in a manner that (2) “materially alters the legal re-

lationship between the parties by modifying the defendant’s

behavior in a way that directly benefits the plaintiff.” Id.,

at 111–112; see also Lefemine v. Wideman, 568 U. S. 1, 4

(2012) (per curiam). This test is well established, and it

leads inexorably to the conclusion that, in some circum-

stances, an unreversed preliminary injunction can confer

prevailing party status.

Start with the requirement of a “ ‘material alteration of

the legal relationship of the parties,’ ” which we have re-

peatedly called the “ ‘touchstone’ ” of the prevailing party in-

quiry. Sole, 551 U. S., at 82 (quoting Garland, 489 U. S., at

792–793). A plaintiff need not obtain all of the relief he has

requested in the lawsuit to satisfy this requirement. In-

stead, under our precedents, a plaintiff who has achieved

even “ ‘some of the benefit’ ” he sought has secured the

change in the parties’ legal relationship necessary to

“cros[s] the threshold to a fee award of some kind.” Id., at

791–792 (quoting Nadeau v. Helgemoe, 581 F. 2d 275, 278–

——————

2013); Kansas Jud. Watch v. Stout, 653 F. 3d 1230, 1232, 1238–1239

(CA10 2011); Common Cause Ga. v. Georgia, 17 F. 4th 102, 107 (CA11

2021); Select Milk Producers, Inc. v. Johanns, 400 F. 3d 939, 942, 948–

949 (CADC 2005). The First Circuit has not yet considered the issue.

See Sinapi v. Rhode Island Bd. of Bar Examiners, 910 F. 3d 544, 552

(2018).

Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 9

JACKSON, J., dissenting

279 (CA1 1978); emphasis added).

A permanent injunction—just like a declaratory judg-

ment or a damages award—“will usually satisfy that test,”

Lefemine, 568 U. S., at 4, because permanent injunctive re-

lief generally “affects the behavior of the defendant toward

the plaintiff,” Rhodes v. Stewart, 488 U. S. 1, 4 (1988) (per

curiam). At least some preliminary injunctions also qual-

ify. The preliminary injunction in this case, for example,

provided respondents with actual relief by reinstating their

suspended licenses, allowing them to drive without fear of

sanction for failing to repay their fines and fees. For the

roughly sixteen months that the preliminary injunction

was in place, “that ruling worked the requisite material al-

teration in the parties’ relationship” by permitting respond-

ents to engage in conduct that would have been prohibited

otherwise. Lefemine, 568 U. S., at 5.

It is indisputable that the preliminary injunction the Dis-

trict Court issued provided a “direc[t] benefit” to respond-

ents. Farrar, 506 U. S., at 111. That relief was also

awarded “ ‘on the merits.’ ” Lefemine, 568 U. S., at 4 (quot-

ing Farrar, 506 U. S., at 111–112). We have long taken a

“practical” approach to the merits inquiry in this context.

Hanrahan v. Hampton, 446 U. S. 754, 758 (1980) (per cu-

riam). Under that approach, relief is granted “on the mer-

its” when it provides “a resolution of the dispute which

changes the legal relationship between [the plaintiff] and

the defendant.” Garland, 489 U. S., at 792 (internal quota-

tion marks omitted).

Notably, for prevailing party status, we have not required

that a court actually determine whether a legal claim is

meritorious. The majority acknowledges our holding that

the entry of a consent decree following “the parties’ own res-

olution of the merits” counts. Ante, at 12; see Farrar, 506

U. S., at 111 (recognizing that a consent decree satisfies the

requirement that the plaintiff “obtain at least some relief

on the merits of his claim”). Indeed, in Maher, we upheld a

10 LACKEY v. STINNIE

JACKSON, J., dissenting

fee award based on a consent decree that “did not purport

to adjudicate” the plaintiff ’s claims at all. 448 U. S., at 126,

n. 8, 129. We have also suggested that default judgments,

which do not involve any assessment of the merits of the

plaintiff ’s claims, “almost invariably give rise to fee

awards.” Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 579 U. S.

197, 208, n. 3 (2016).

A court’s entry of a preliminary injunction—which does

require a judge to make a preliminary assessment of the

merits—provides a basis for prevailing party status that is

at least as strong as a consent decree or a default judgment.

Plaintiffs seeking the “extraordinary remedy” of a prelimi-

nary injunction must make a “clear showing” that they are

“likely to succeed on the merits.” Winter v. Natural Re-

sources Defense Council, Inc., 555 U. S. 7, 20, 22 (2008).

And the court’s decision to order preliminary injunctive re-

lief often involves “searching” proceedings, Sole, 551 U. S.,

at 84, even though the “evidence . . . is less complete than

in a trial on the merits,” University of Tex. v. Camenisch,

451 U. S. 390, 395 (1981).

In this case, the District Court thoroughly assessed the

merits of respondents’ claims and granted their request for

preliminary injunctive relief after extensive briefing and an

evidentiary hearing during which multiple witnesses testi-

fied. It blinks reality to suggest that the District Court’s

order requiring the Commissioner to give respondents their

licenses back now—based on the court’s conclusion that re-

spondents were likely to succeed if this matter proceeded to

trial—was “not the stuff of which legal victories are made.”

Hewitt, 482 U. S., at 760.

It is no answer to simply declare by ipse dixit that pre-

liminary injunctions are materially different from consent

decrees because “a consent decree is like a final judgment

in the relevant ways”—i.e., “[i]t conclusively resolves the

claim, bears a judicial imprimatur, and may grant enduring

relief that materially alters the legal relationship between

Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 11

JACKSON, J., dissenting

the parties.” Ante, at 12–13. The very question before us is

the relevance of this kind of finality to the prevailing party

determination. And, luckily, that question has already

been answered: Neither the text of §1988(b) nor any of this

Court’s past cases make fee eligibility dependent on the en-

try of a conclusive final judgment, as I explained above.

In any event, if a plaintiff need only obtain an order that

is “like a final judgment” to prevail, ibid., it is not at all

clear why at least some preliminary injunctions would not

count. Consider, for example, a dispute in which the dis-

trict court reviews the evidence and the parties’ arguments

and enters the type of preliminary injunction that changes

the legal relationship of the parties. The case proceeds but

then becomes moot such that the litigation ends; the pre-

liminary injunction is not—and can never be—reversed by

a subsequent order of the court. In this scenario, all the

purportedly “relevant” characteristics of a consent decree

exist, because the parties’ legal relationship was materially

altered by judicial imprimatur, and that preliminary relief

is conclusive insofar as the case has ended and the ruling

cannot be undone by a later determination. In this circum-

stance, the preliminary injunction “functions much like the

grant of an irreversible partial summary judgment on the

merits,” Northern Cheyenne Tribe v. Jackson, 433 F. 3d

1083, 1086 (CA8 2006), which all appear to agree would suf-

fice to confer fee eligibility under §1988(b).

B

Our decisions in Buckhannon, 532 U. S. 598, and Sole,

551 U. S. 74, are not to the contrary. The majority cites

these two decisions to support its view that obtaining a pre-

liminary injunction is never sufficient to qualify the recipi-

ent for a fee award under §1988(b). Ante, at 8–9. But those

cases hold no such thing. Instead, they simply clarify that,

for a plaintiff to prevail, the requisite “change in the legal

12 LACKEY v. STINNIE

JACKSON, J., dissenting

relationship of the parties” must be both “judicially sanc-

tioned,” Buckhannon, 532 U. S., at 605, and “enduring,”

Sole, 551 U. S., at 86. Neither case mandates the majority’s

categorical rule.

In Buckhannon, this Court rejected the so-called “cata-

lyst theory,” under which a plaintiff could collect a fee

award as a “prevailing party” without securing any judicial

relief so long as the lawsuit produced “a voluntary change

in the defendant’s conduct.” 532 U. S., at 601. We held that

such a voluntary change, “although perhaps accomplishing

what the plaintiff sought to achieve by the lawsuit, lacks

the necessary judicial imprimatur on the change” to trigger

fee eligibility. Id., at 605. In Sole, we considered whether

a plaintiff who obtains a preliminary injunction but is sub-

sequently denied a permanent one prevails for fee purposes

under §1988(b). 551 U. S., at 77. We explained that when

a plaintiff ’s “initial victory” at the preliminary injunction

stage is “superseded” by a non-favorable final “ruling on the

merits,” he does not qualify as a “prevailing party,” because

the relief he received was not “enduring.” Id., at 84–86.

A preliminary injunction that mandates a judicially sanc-

tioned legal change in the parties’ relationship and is never

reversed by a final ruling on the merits satisfies both Buck-

hannon and Sole. A court that issues interim injunctive re-

lief unquestionably gives its “judicial imprimatur” to the

change afforded, as Buckhannon requires. 532 U. S., at

605. For its part, Sole stands merely for the proposition

that a party can be divested of “prevailing party” status if

his “success rested on a premise the District Court ulti-

mately rejected.” 551 U. S., at 84–86. But Sole is inappo-

site when a subsequent final decision does not thwart the

judge-sanctioned basis for the preliminary injunction. In-

deed, Sole expressly said so, by specifically reserving the

question “whether, in the absence of a final decision on the

merits of a claim for permanent injunctive relief, success in

gaining a preliminary injunction may sometimes warrant

Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 13

JACKSON, J., dissenting

an award of counsel fees,” id., at 86—the precise issue that

is before the Court today.

The majority thus overreads our precedents to support its

blanket rule that preliminary injunctions can never support

fee awards. Ante, at 7–9. With respect to Sole in particular,

it is true that we characterized the preliminary injunction

at issue there as “fleeting” and “tentative.” 551 U. S., at 83–

84; see also ante, at 9 (contrasting interim relief with relief

that “last[s]”). But the Sole Court did not tie the require-

ment for “enduring” relief to the inherent permanence of

the relevant judicial order. Instead, we made crystal clear

that “[o]f controlling importance to our decision” was the

fact that “the eventual ruling on the merits for defendants,

after both sides considered the case fit for final adjudica-

tion, superseded the preliminary ruling.” 551 U. S., at 84–

85 (emphasis added); see also id., at 78 (observing that a

plaintiff does not prevail if “at the end of the litigation, her

initial success is undone and she leaves the courthouse

emptyhanded”).

At the end of the day, Sole should be taken to mean only

what it expressly holds: Preliminary injunctive relief that

is subsequently superseded by a final judgment reversing

the ruling does not endure for fee-shifting purposes. Here,

the preliminary injunction provided actual relief to re-

spondents for more than sixteen months, and there was no

Sole-like supplanting of that preliminary relief by a subse-

quent court order.

III

A

In addition to misinterpreting the text of §1988(b) and

misconstruing our precedents, the majority ignores Con-

gress’s clear intent to expand access to justice. It is puz-

zling, to say the least, that the majority seems to go out of

its way to adopt a rule that categorically prohibits fee shift-

ing while interpreting a statute that expressly authorizes

14 LACKEY v. STINNIE

JACKSON, J., dissenting

fee awards.

There is no dispute that Congress enacted §1988(b) “for a

specific purpose”: to respond to this Court’s decision in

Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. Wilderness Society, 421 U. S.

240 (1975), which had rejected the “former equitable prac-

tice of awarding attorney’s fees to the prevailing party in

certain civil rights cases.” Farrar, 506 U. S., at 118 (O’Con-

nor, J., concurring). The Alyeska Court held that, absent

statutory authorization, courts should not depart from the

“ ‘American Rule,’ ” under which litigants ordinarily bear

their own attorney’s fees. 421 U. S., at 247. Congress

swiftly enacted §1988(b) in Alyeska’s wake to codify a civil

rights exception to the American Rule. The majority does

not, and cannot, dispute that Congress’s intent was “to en-

sure ‘effective access to the judicial process’ for persons with

civil rights grievances.” Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U. S.

424, 429 (1983) (quoting H. R. Rep. No. 94–1558, p. 1

(1976)).

Consistent with that “clear congressional intent,” this

Court has previously recognized that fee awards should be

available to “partially prevailing civil rights plaintiffs.”

Garland, 489 U. S., at 790. This principle is, in fact, readily

apparent from the statute’s enactment history. See Buck-

hannon, 532 U. S., at 607. The history demonstrates that

the question of awarding fees for success based on interim

orders was not overlooked by the legislature; to the con-

trary, Congress specifically “contemplated the award of fees

pendente lite,” at least where a party “has established his

entitlement to some relief on the merits of his claims.” Han-

rahan, 446 U. S., at 757 (citing S. Rep. No. 94–1011, p. 5

(1976); H. R. Rep. No. 94–1558, at 7–8).

The majority says that Congress merely wanted §1988(b)

to authorize fee awards when “conclusive, enduring judicial

relief is meted out on an incremental basis.” Ante, at 12.

But that is not what the historical record establishes, and

Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 15

JACKSON, J., dissenting

Buckhannon flatly rejects this contention. There, we spe-

cifically observed that, per §1988(b)’s legislative history,

“ ‘ “prevailing party” is not intended to be limited to the vic-

tor only after entry of a final judgment following a full trial

on the merits.’ ” 532 U. S., at 607 (quoting H. R. Rep.

No. 94–1558, at 7); see also Hanrahan, 446 U. S., at 756–

757. The legislative history is likewise unequivocal that a

prevailing party for §1988(b) purposes should “also include

a litigant who succeeds even if the case is concluded prior

to a full evidentiary hearing before a judge or jury.”

H. R. Rep. No. 94–1558, at 7.

B

Nor could a Congress that wished to authorize fee awards

for civil rights victories have intended the absurdities that

will result from the majority’s categorical preclusion of pre-

liminary injunctive relief from §1988(b). To state the obvi-

ous, the majority’s bright-line rule lacks the nuance that is

needed to account for the various circumstances in which a

preliminary injunction may be “preliminary” in name only.

One example is the plaintiff who requests a preliminary

injunction to achieve an interim result, given the timeframe

at issue. “When protestors seek an injunction to exercise

their First Amendment rights at a specific time and place—

say to demonstrate at a Saturday parade—a preliminary

injunction will give them all the court-ordered relief they

need and the end of the parade will moot the case.”

McQueary v. Conway, 614 F. 3d 591, 599 (CA6 2010). Thus,

the Courts of Appeals regularly hold that plaintiffs who suc-

cessfully obtain a preliminary injunction that permits them

to engage in the otherwise prohibited conduct “prevail” for

fee-shifting purposes. See, e.g., Young v. Chicago, 202 F. 3d

1000, 1000–1001 (CA7 2000) (per curiam) (awarding fees to

plaintiffs who obtained a preliminary injunction to protest

a political convention even though the “suit became moot

before a definitive determination of its merits” could be

16 LACKEY v. STINNIE

JACKSON, J., dissenting

made).

In its rush to carve preliminary injunctions out of

§1988(b), the majority also overlooks situations in which

courts have, in fact, conclusively resolved the merits of a

plaintiff ’s claims at the preliminary injunction stage. A

trial court might definitively determine that a law is “ ‘ “fa-

cially unconstitutional” ’ ” in the course of granting prelimi-

nary relief, for example. Singer Mgmt. Consultants, Inc. v.

Milgram, 650 F. 3d 223, 229–230, and n. 4 (CA3 2011) (en

banc) (quoting People Against Police Violence v. Pittsburgh,

520 F. 3d 226, 229 (CA3 2008)). But the majority nonethe-

less adopts a sweeping rule under which preliminary in-

junctions can never be the basis for fee eligibility.

And to what end? The majority seeks to justify its broad

holding on the grounds that it discourages fee disputes and

thereby “serves the interests of judicial economy.” Ante, at

10. But concerns about judicial administration cannot sup-

plant Congress’s clear intent to promote access to justice via

fee shifting in civil rights cases.

What is more, it is actually the majority’s categorical rule

that will promote wasteful litigation and incentivize liti-

gants to manipulate fee liability. Under the majority’s rule,

a plaintiff who has incurred substantial attorney’s fees in

order to secure a preliminary injunction that provides all

the relief he needs will face a choice: He may either concede

that the litigation has run its course and pay his own fees,

or he may seek to litigate the case to final judgment in order

to secure a fee award. No one would blame a plaintiff with

a strong case for choosing the latter option. But such addi-

tional litigation is an inefficient waste of judicial resources

if the plaintiff has already achieved his objective at an ear-

lier part of the case.

Worse still, the majority’s rule appears to preference con-

servation of judicial resources over the maintenance of mer-

itorious civil rights lawsuits, to the extent that excluding

preliminary injunctive relief from §1988(b) facilitates the

Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 17

JACKSON, J., dissenting

strategic mooting of cases by defendants to avoid paying at-

torney’s fees. This case illustrates precisely that problem.

After a robust evidentiary hearing, the District Court is-

sued a comprehensive opinion that preliminarily enjoined

the Commissioner from enforcing the challenged law

against respondents. Seeing the writing on the wall, the

Commissioner sought and obtained a stay of the case—over

respondents’ objections—based on his representation that

the legislature was likely to repeal the challenged law. The

Commissioner then successfully lobbied the legislature to

repeal the legislation, emphasizing that doing so would, in

his words, “result in [respondents’] pending litigation being

dismissed, relieving the Department from continuing to in-

cur costly legal fees.” App. 409.

As the Fourth Circuit observed, precluding fee shifting in

this scenario is manifestly inequitable, because it leaves re-

spondents “holding the bag” for considerable litigation fees

despite—and largely because of—their having succeeded in

obtaining preliminary relief. Stinnie v. Holcomb, 77 F. 4th

200, 210 (2023) (en banc). Ironically, it was the strength of

respondents’ challenge as verified by the court’s prelimi-

nary order that prompted both the change in law and the

Commissioner’s robust effort to stiff the plaintiffs with re-

spect to attorney’s fees. Moreover, it is hardly a revelation

that lawyers who would otherwise be willing to litigate mer-

itorious civil rights cases (i.e., matters in which interim re-

lief is critical due to ongoing civil rights violations) will

likely be discouraged from taking on such representations

if fee awards can be so easily thwarted.

The majority dismisses concerns about strategic mooting

as both “ ‘entirely speculative’ ” and likely to “arise in only a

small number of contexts.” Ante, at 10 (quoting Buckhan-

non, 532 U. S., at 608). But, as I have shown, the facts of

this very case belie the majority’s nonchalance, particularly

in light of the Buckhannon experience. Research suggests

that the Court’s rejection of the catalyst theory in that case

18 LACKEY v. STINNIE

JACKSON, J., dissenting

had the predictable practical effect of discouraging public

interest organizations and private attorneys from taking on

civil rights actions. C. Albiston & L. Nielsen, The Proce-

dural Attack on Civil Rights: The Empirical Reality of

Buckhannon for the Private Attorney General, 54

UCLA L. Rev. 1087, 1092 (2007); cf. n. 2, supra. Similarly,

a multitude of legal advocacy groups have filed amicus

briefs in this case to explain that losing the ability to recoup

fees for securing interim relief will jeopardize their mis-

sions. See, e.g., Brief for Alliance Defending Freedom et al.

as Amici Curiae 7–10; Brief for American Civil Liberties

Union et al. as Amici Curiae 28–30; Brief for Lawyers’ Com-

mittee for Civil Rights Under Law et al. as Amici Curiae

17–18.

There is thus every reason to believe that the net result

of today’s decision will be less civil rights enforcement in

the long run. Without irony, the majority reads a statute

that was “enacted to [e]nsure that private citizens have a

meaningful opportunity to vindicate their [civil] rights,”

Pennsylvania v. Delaware Valley Citizens’ Council for Clean

Air, 478 U. S. 546, 559 (1986), as if Congress meant to make

private civil rights enforcement harder to achieve.

* * *

The majority holds that obtaining a preliminary injunc-

tion never entitles a plaintiff to fees under §1988(b). In do-

ing so, it overrules the decisions of every Court of Appeals

to consider the issue, relies on an atextual “conclusive judg-

ment” requirement, and ignores both our precedents and

Congress’s intent.

It is quite true that Congress has demonstrated its ability

to fix our mistakes in this realm. Ante, at 11. But, in my

view, rather than relying on Congress to check our work,

we should give full effect to the plain text and remedial pur-

pose of §1988(b) in the first instance. This Court should

have held that, when a court hearing a civil rights lawsuit

Cite as: 604 U. S. ____ (2025) 19

JACKSON, J., dissenting

issues a preliminary injunction that materially alters the

relationship between the parties and is never reversed, the

requesting party “prevails” for fee-shifting purposes and is

thus eligible for a fee award under §1988(b).