The opinion
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
No. 97-30626
OTIS L WILSON, ET AL.,
Plaintiffs
OTIS L WILSON; WILLIE WILLIAMS, JR
Plaintiffs - Appellants
v.
MAYOR AND BOARD OF ALDERMAN OF ST FRANCISVILLE, LA; ET AL.
MAYOR AND BOARD OF ALDERMAN OF ST FRANCISVILLE, LA; WILLIAM
D’AQUILLA, Mayor of St Francisville; RICHARD HOLCOMB, Member of the
Board of Alderman of St. Francisville; OSCAR ROBERTSON, JR, Member
of the Board of Aldermen of St Francisville; JAMES DAVIS, Member of
the Board of Aldermen of St Francisville; JAMES R LEAKE, JR, Member
of the Board of Aldermen of St Francisville; BARBARA BONADVENTURE,
Member of the Board of Aldermen of St Francisville
Defendants - Appellees
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Louisiana
February 25, 1998
Before GARWOOD, JOLLY, and HIGGINBOTHAM, Circuit Judges.
HIGGINBOTHAM, Circuit Judge:
Plaintiffs appeal the district court’s judgment denying their
motion for attorneys’ fees. The district court held that Wilson
was not the “prevailing party” under 42 U.S.C. § 1973l(e) with
respect to the Board’s motion for relief from judgment. We agree
and AFFIRM.
I
In April 1992, the Board of Aldermen of St. Francisville,
Louisiana, replaced the at-large voting scheme used to elect the
Mayor and the Board with an apportionment plan which divided the
town into two districts. One was a single member district with a
black majority and the other was a multi-member district which was
to elect the other four Aldermen. The plan contained a residency
requirement in that each board member had to reside in the district
from which the member was elected. The Board submitted its plan to
the Attorney General for preclearance under § 5 of the Voting
Rights Act.
While the Attorney General was considering the plan, Wilson
and Williams, black residents and registered voters of St.
Francisville, filed suit claiming that the at-large system violated
the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and Section 2 of the Voting
Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1973. They sought an injunction enjoining
the elections scheduled for October 3, 1992. The district court
refused to grant them injunctive relief, but took the case under
submission.
On May 18, 1993, the Attorney General refused to preclear the
Board’s plan. In June 1993, the Board offered to settle the § 2
suit if Wilson would agree to its plan. Wilson refused to settle.
The Board asked the Attorney General to reconsider the preclearance
decision. Wilson opposed this request. The Attorney General
declined to reconsider the Board’s plan. On March 27, 1995, the
parties agreed to a consent judgment which adopted an apportionment
plan drafted by Wilson’s expert. Under this plan, St. Francisville
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was divided into three districts: one single-member minority
district and two districts which would each elect two aldermen.
The plan did not have a residency requirement. The consent
judgment awarded Wilson $17,500 for attorneys’ fees and costs since
he was the prevailing party in the suit.
Shortly after the district court approved the consent
judgment, the Supreme Court handed down Miller v. Johnson, 515 U.S.
900 (1995). In light of Miller, the Board filed a motion for
relief from the consent judgment asserting that the approved plan
was unconstitutional and asking the district court to “place the
parties back into the position they were in prior to the entry of
the Consent Judgment, to proceed in light of the Miller decision.”
See R.5 at 889. Wilson opposed the Board’s motion and moved for an
injunction ordering the Board to implement the plan under the
consent judgment. Wilson argued that the consent judgment was not
unconstitutional under Miller and that the Board was not entitled
to any relief.
The district court held the consent judgment plan
unconstitutional and set aside the consent judgment insofar as it
ordered the town to be divided into three districts. The district
court acknowledged that the parties had stipulated that there was
a violation of § 2 of the VRA, R.6 at 21-22, 26, and approved the
plan the Board proposed in 1992, absent the residency requirement.
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R.1 at 52. Neither party appealed the district court’s order
adopting the two district plan for electing the Board.1
Wilson moved for attorneys’ fees and costs for opposing the
Board’s motion for relief from judgment. The district court denied
Wilson’s request because it found the Board to be the prevailing
party with respect to the Rule 60(b) motion. Moreover, that the
Board was required to take action to enjoin the implementation of
the unconstitutional consent judgment plan and that the election
plan adopted was the one the Board originally proposed were special
circumstances justifying the denial of Wilson’s claim for
attorneys’ fees.
The only matter before us is whether Wilson is entitled to
attorneys’ fees for opposing the Board’s motion for relief from
judgment. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.
II
We review a district court’s award of attorneys’ fees for
abuse of discretion and its supporting factual findings for clear
error. Watkins v. Fordice, 7 F.3d 453, 456 (5th Cir. 1993).
“Only ‘prevailing parties’ may recover attorneys’ fees under
42 U.S.C. §§ 1973l(e), 1988.” Id. “A plaintiff prevails if the
relief obtained, through judgment or settlement, materially alters
the defendants’ behavior in a way directly benefitting the
plaintiff.” Id. “[A]t a minimum, to be considered a prevailing
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The parties agreed that the Mayor would be elected under the
at-large scheme.
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party . . . the plaintiff must be able to point to a resolution of
the dispute which changes the legal relationship between itself and
the defendant.” Texas State Teachers Ass’n v. Garland Indep. Sch.
Dist., 489 U.S. 782, 792 (1989). “Beyond this absolute limitation,
a technical victory may be so insignificant . . . as to be
insufficient to support prevailing party status.” Id. In an
action to prevent the modification of an earlier judgment, the
plaintiff will be deemed to have prevailed if the judgment is left
undisturbed. Walker v. HUD, 99 F.3d 761, 767 (5th Cir. 1996).
Wilson argues that he is entitled to attorneys’ fees in
opposing the Board’s motion because he succeeded in preventing the
Board from returning to the at-large voting regime and preserving
the benefits the consent judgment granted to him viz., a judicial
pronouncement that there was a § 2 violation, a change in the
election system from at-large to a multi-district scheme with a
majority black district, and an award of attorneys’ fees. Wilson’s
argument is unconvincing.
We, like the district court, do not construe the Board’s Rule
60(b) motion as a request to return to the at-large voting scheme.
After Miller, the Board believed the adopted plan suffered from
unconstitutional line drawing of the voting districts. The
district court agreed with the Board, finding one district of the
plan to be “bizarrely shaped”, R.6 at 17, and the plan itself
unconstitutional. Wilson interprets the Board’s request to return
to the position it was in prior to the consent judgment to mean
that the Board sought re-implementation of the at-large system.
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The context of that statement indicates otherwise. First, the
Board asked for the parties to be returned to the positions they
were in prior to the entry of the consent judgment so that they
could proceed in light of Miller. That the Board recognized the
relevancy of Miller shows its intent to adopt a constitutional
multi-district voting scheme and not a desire to revert back to the
at-large system. Second, prior to the entry of the consent
judgment, the Board was pursuing preclearance of its two-district
plan, not vigorously opposing the dismantling of the at-large
scheme.
Wilson’s opposition to the Board’s Rule 60(b) motion was not
necessary to preserve the victories previously garnered. In ruling
on the Board’s motion, the district court acknowledged that the
parties had stipulated that there was a § 2 violation. At this
stage in the litigation, it was beyond peradventure that the
district court would adopt a plan with a black majority district.
Similarly, Wilson’s prior award of attorneys’ fees was never in
danger of being overturned. Hence, the district court’s
reaffirmation of its earlier rulings did not signal an alteration
in the Board’s behavior benefitting Wilson. See Farrar v. Hobby,
506 U.S. 103, 111-12 (1992).
Wilson further contends that he was the prevailing party
because he succeeded in removing the residency requirement from the
Board’s plan. Though the district court extracted the residency
requirement from the Board’s plan, we believe that Wilson’s
opposition to the Board’s motion for relief was not the motivating
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factor for this action. In opposing the Board’s motion for relief,
Wilson forcefully argued for an injunction requiring the Board to
implement the plan set forth in the consent judgment. In his
supporting brief, Wilson never mentioned his desire to have, or the
significance of, an election scheme without a residency
requirement. Instead of Wilson’s protests, the factor most likely
compelling the district court’s removal of the residency
requirement was the Attorney General’s objection to the plan as
originally proposed. See generally City of Rome v. United States,
446 U.S. 156, 185 (1979) (noting the harmful effects of residency
requirements).
We hold that Wilson’s opposition to the Board’s motion for
relief from judgment did not cause any material change in the legal
relationship of the parties to his benefit. The Board sought to
have the district court declare unconstitutional the plan under the
consent judgment; Wilson sought to have the district court enforce
the consent judgment. In no way did Wilson seek the action the
district court took - declaring the consent judgment plan
unconstitutional and adopting the Board’s plan absent the residency
requirement. Since he did not prevent the Board from disturbing
the consent judgment, the district court did not clearly err in
finding that Wilson was not the prevailing party with respect to
the Board’s motion for relief from judgment and did not abuse its
discretion in refusing to award Wilson attorneys’ fees.
The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.
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