# Library of Congress v. Shaw

> Supreme Court of the United States · July 1, 1986 · 478 U.S. 310

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9430669

## Case

- **Full name:** LIBRARY OF CONGRESS Et Al. v. SHAW
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** July 1, 1986
- **Citations:** 478 U.S. 310; 54 U.S.L.W. 4951; 41 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 85; 40 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 36,193; 106 S. Ct. 2957; 92 L. Ed. 2d 250; 1986 U.S. LEXIS 128
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Brennan
- **Judges:** Blackmun, Burger, White, Powell, Rehnquist, O'Connor, Brennan, Marshall, Stevens
- **Cited by:** 792 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Yellow flag:** Reported superseded by statute, as recognized in Jones v. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority — not on the Supreme Court's list.
- Negative treatments: 1
- Distinguished by: 1
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9430669

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that “[t]he no-interest rule provides an added gloss of strictness upon the[] usual rules [that waivers of sovereign immunity must be construed strictly in favor of the sovereign and not be enlarged ‘beyond what the language requires’].”
- holding that 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(k), making the United States “liable for costs the same as a private person,” should not be read to authorize interest on attorney’s fees even though such interest was available against a private party
- holding that plaintiff could not recover unearned interest on an illegally exacted sum, because sovereign immunity bars the award of interest against the Government absent a contractual, statutory, or Constitutional grant
- holding that negligent assignment claim against BOP is barred by discretionary function exception
- finding that finance charges on an outstanding bill incurred by petitioner amounted to interest which, in the absence of a waiver of sovereign immunity, cannot be assessed against the United States.

## Opinion text

Justice Brennan,
with whom Justice Marshall and Justice Stevens join, dissenting.
The Court today applies the rules for construing waivers of sovereign immunity in a wooden and archaic fashion to conclude that the United States has not waived its immunity to interest on attorney’s fee awards. Because the result reached by the Court frustrates the clear intention of Congress, I respectfully dissent.
The so-called “no-interest rule” is, as the Court suggests, one of considerable antiquity. 1 Ante, at 316-317. It is a corollary of the ancient principle that the sovereign is immune from suit and from liability for damages in the absence of an express waiver of immunity. And, as a corollary of the general sovereign immunity doctrine, the no-interest rule logically should be governed by the same canons of construction we employ to interpret waivers of sovereign immunity for suits for damages. Just two Terms ago, we explained *324 that “waiver of sovereign immunity is accomplished not by ‘a ritualistic formula’; rather, intent to waive immunity and the scope of such a waiver can only be ascertained by reference to underlying congressional policy.” Franchise Tax Board of California v. United States Postal Service, 467 U. S. 612 , 521 (1984) (internal citation omitted). Applying this standard here, I would hold that Congress has waived immunity from prejudgment interest on attorney’s fees in all situations where a private individual would be liable for such interest.
I begin with the relevant language of § 706(k) of Title VII, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5(k): “[T]he court, in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party, other than the [EEOC] or the United States, a reasonable attorney’s fee as a part of the costs, and the [EEOC] and the United States shall be liable for costs the same as a private person.” By this language, Congress indisputably authorized the award of reasonable attorney’s fees to prevailing parties against any losing party, including the United States. Since, in appropriate circumstances, § 706(k) permits the award of prejudgment interest (or a delay adjustment) on attorney’s fees awarded against losing parties other than the Federal Government, 2 *325 § 706(k) by its terms authorizes the award of prejudgment interest against the Federal Government under like circumstances and thus constitutes an express waiver of sovereign immunity.
The “underlying congressional policy,” Franchise Tax Board, supra, at 521, also supports this conclusion. The Senate Report relevant to the Equal Employment Act of 1972 — the legislation that amended Title VII, inter alia, to protect federal employees against employment discrimination — indicates that Congress intended that federal employees enjoy the same access to courts and the same judicial remedies that are available to other Title VII plaintiffs. S. Rep. No. 92-415 (1971). The Report states:
“[T]he committee found that an aggrieved Federal employee does not have access to the courts. In many cases, the employee must overcome a U. S. Government defense of sovereign immunity or failure to exhaust administrative remedies .... Moreover, the remedial authority of the . . . courts has also been in doubt. The provisions adopted by the committee will enable the Commission to grant full relief to aggrieved employees, or applicants .... Aggrieved employees or applicants will also have the full rights available in the courts as are granted to individuals in the private sector under title VII.” Id., at 16 (emphasis added).
See also Chandler v. Roudebush, 425 U. S. 840, 841 (1976).
The legislative history of the 1972 amendments thus demonstrates that Congress intended that federal employees enjoy the same rights and remedies in the courts as. private litigants. It therefore follows that Congress intended that in situations where private sector Title VII litigants may re *326 cover prejudgment interest on their attorney’s fees awards, so may federal employees. 3
It is true, as the Court points out, that the legislative history of the 1972 amendments to Title VII seems devoid of explicit reference to the availability of prejudgment interest on attorney’s fees awarded against the Federal Government. But, only under a highly formalistic, “ritualistic,” Franchise Tax Board, supra, at 521, canon of construction that ignores unmistakable congressional intent and that requires Congress to adhere to a talismanic formula in order to waive immunity can the absence of the words “interest on attorney’s fees” from the congressional Committee Reports limit the waiver of sovereign immunity to the attorney’s fees themselves and bar the award of interest on those fees. Such an antiquated canon of construction is unacceptable, both because it is unnecessary to protect the Government from liability to which it has not consented and because it frustrates the intention of Congress that federal employees enjoy the same rights and remedies in the courts as do individuals in the private sector.
*327 In my view, the Court of Appeals correctly held that Congress, in stating that the Federal Government is liable for attorney’s fees to the same extent as other losing parties, waived sovereign immunity for both fees and prejudgment interest thereon. 4 I therefore dissent and would affirm the judgment below.
While the “no-interest rule” is an old one, we have not always treated it as an absolute prohibition against the award of interest against the United States in the absence of an express waiver of the rule. In both Standard Oil Co. v. United States, 267 U. S. 76 (1925) (Holmes, J.), and United States v. The Thekla, 266 U. S. 328 (1924) (Holmes, J.), the Court authorized just such awards with little explanation or analysis.
See, e. g., Johnson v. University College of University of Alabama, 706 F. 2d 1205 (CA11) (holding that in calculating attorney’s fees, district courts should take into account inflation and interest), cert. denied, 464 U. S. 994 (1983); Louisville Black Police Officers Org., Inc. v. Louisville, 700 F. 2d 268 (CA6 1983) (declining to award a delay adjustment because the attorneys had been adequately compensated, but recognizing the availability of delay adjustments in appropriate eases); Chrapliwy v. Uniroyal, Inc., 670 F. 2d 760 (CA7 1982) (upholding the employment of a delay adjustment), cert. denied, 461 U. S. 956 (1983); Laffey v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., 572 F. Supp. 354 (DC 1983) (awarding delay adjustment), aff’d in part and remanded in part on other grounds, 241 U. S. App. D. C. 11, 746 F. 2d 4 (1984), cert. denied, 472 U. S. 1021 (1985); Brown v. Gillette Co., 536 F. Supp. 113 (Mass. 1982) (awarding delay adjustment); Lockheed Minority Solidarity Coalition v. Lockheed Missiles & Space Co., 406 F. Supp. 828 (ND Cal. 1976) (awarding delay adjustment). Cf. Gates v. Collier, 616 F. 2d 1268, 1278-1279 (CA5 1980); Johnson v. Summer, 488 F. Supp. 83, 85-88 (ND Miss. 1980) (both supporting the award of prejudgment interest *325 on attorney’s fees awarded under the Civil Rights Attorney’s Pees Awards Act of 1976, 42 U. S. C. § 1988 ).
The Court contends that the fact that § 706(k) contains language equating the liability of the United States for attorney’s fees to that of a private person “does not represent the requisite affirmative congressional choice to waive the no-interest rule,” ante, at 319, because § 706(k) was drafted in 1964 and was intended at that time to waive sovereign immunity for attorney’s fees and costs against the Federal Government only where the Federal Government had been the plaintiff in a Title VII case. The Court also observes that other statutes placing the United States in the same position as a private party have been narrowly construed to preserve the historic immunities that the Federal Government has enjoyed. The Court ignores, however, the relevance of the legislative history of the 1972 amendments to Title VII. As the legislative history makes clear, these amendments, by waiving the United States’ sovereign immunity as a defendant, changed the scope of §706(k)’s waiver of immunity in order to provide federal employees with the same rights and remedies in court proceedings as litigants in the private sector enjoyed under Title VII. It is this broad waiver of immunity that distinguishes §706(k) from the other statutes cited by the Court.
In dismissing respondent’s argument that Congress, by equating the United States’ liability to that of a private party, waived the Government’s immunity from prejudgment interest on attorney’s fees awards, the Court cites Boston Sand & Gravel Co. v. United States, 278 U. S. 41 (1928), without elaboration or explanation. Ante, at 319. Boston Sand concerned a “private Act” of Congress that empowered the District Court to hear a ease arising from a collision between a United States warship and a private craft, and to award “ ‘the amount of legal damages sustained by reason of said collision . . . against the United States, upon the same principle and measure of liability ... as in like cases in admiralty between private parties.’” 278 U. S., at 46 . There, the Court rejected the argument that Congress had placed the Federal Government in all respects on the same footing as a private person, noting that many similar private Acts had been understood to preclude the award of interest and suggesting that Congress might have passed the Act in question with that fact in mind.
In sharp contrast to Boston Sand, we know here from the legislative history of the 1972 amendments to Title VII that Congress intended that federal employees enjoy precisely the same rights and remedies in federal court as do litigants from the private sector. See supra, at 325. Consequently, Boston Sand is inapposite to the instant case.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9430669. Public record. Not legal advice.