# Rice Services, Ltd. v. United States

> Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit · April 27, 2005 · 405 F.3d 1017

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9441193

## Case

- **Full name:** RICE SERVICES, LTD., Plaintiff-Appellee, v. UNITED STATES, Defendant-Appellant
- **Court:** Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
- **Decided:** April 27, 2005
- **Citations:** 405 F.3d 1017; 2005 U.S. App. LEXIS 7174; 2005 WL 956955
- **Precedential status:** Unpublished
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Dyk
- **Judges:** Schall, Dyk, Prost
- **Cited by:** 57 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9441193

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that “in order to be deemed a ‘prevailing party[,]’ a plaintiff [must] have obtained a court order carrying sufficient ‘judicial imprimatur’ to materially change the legal relationship of the parties.”
- noting that “to demonstrate that it is a ‘prevailing party,’ an EAJA applicant must show that it obtained an enforceable judgment on the merits or a court-ordered consent decree that materially altered the legal relationship between the parties, or the equivalent of either of …
- stating that, depending on the context and effect of the order, a remand to an administrative agency can constitute prevailing on the merits
- finding court order directing defendant to provide its promised remedial action did not confer judicial imprimatur on that promise

## Opinion text

DYK, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I join the majority opinion, and write separately only to emphasize that the voluntary abandonment of challenged conduct will not always and automatically preclude the award of attorney’s fees. As Buck-hannon itself recognized, there may be circumstances in which a continuing controversy will exist despite the claimed voluntary abandonment; the merits of the case will be decided; and the winning party will be entitled to prevailing party status. Thus in Buckhannon, the Court stated:
It is well settled that a defendant’s voluntary cessation of a challenged practice does not deprive a federal court of its power to determine the legality of the practice unless it is absolutely clear that the allegedly wrongful behavior could not reasonably be expected to recur. If a case is not found to be moot, and the plaintiff later procures an enforceable judgment, the court may of course award attorney’s fees.
Buckhannon Bd. & Care Home, Inc. v. W. Va. Dep’t of Health & Human Res., 532 U.S. 598, 609 , 121 S.Ct. 1835 , 149 L.Ed.2d 855 (2001) (internal citations omitted).
The majority here correctly concludes that this is not such a case. There was no settlement agreement leading to the entry of an enforceable decree, and the Court of Federal Claims entered an injunctive order without deciding the merits. Under such circumstances, I agree that there is no entitlement to fees.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9441193. Public record. Not legal advice.