characterizing as final a district court decision that resolved the merits of a case, notwithstanding the pendency of a postjudgment motion for statutory attorney's fees; unclear whether a holding
How later courts described this case
- characterizing as final a district court decision that resolved the merits of a case, notwithstanding the pendency of a postjudgment motion for statutory attorney's fees; unclear whether a holding
- reviewing the fee shifting provisions of the Equal Access to Justice Act, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2412, but refusing to substitute "broad interpretive innuendo" for "congressional silence"
- “The policies inherent in the rule requiring strict construction of waivers of sovereign immunity strongly suggest that any doubts about the scope of a waiver be resolved in favor of the narrower governmental liability”
- narrowly construing definition of which suits were “pending,” and thus may involve fee awards, at time of passage of Equal Access to Justice Act
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by Birkland v. Rotary Plaza, Inc., 643 F. Supp. 223 (1986)
Nichols is inapposite because its plaintiff never brought a cause of action under the FOIA.
The opinion
MIKVA, Circuit Judge,
concurring . in part, dissenting in part.
I concur in the result of this case and concur in the reasoning articulated in Parts II and IIIB.
I cannot concur, however, in the reasoning of Part IIIA and therefore dissent from that section. I believe that Bradley v. School Board of the City of Richmond, 416 U.S. 696 , 94 S.Ct. 2006 , 40 L.Ed.2d 476 (1974), requires us to hold that the Equal Access to Justice Act applies to this suit. Bradley squarely held that the question of fees was sufficient to keep a case open for the purpose of applying another fee statute passed by Congress. See also Knights of the Ku Klux Klan v. East Baton Rouge-Parish School Board, 679 F.2d 64 (5th Cir.1982); Heydt v. Citizens State Bank, 668 F.2d 444 (8th Cir.1982). I would therefore reverse the district court on this issue.