Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 1985

Kentucky v. Graham

473 U.S. 159 | 105 S. Ct. 3099 | 87 L. Ed. 2d 114 | 1985 U.S. LEXIS 86 | 53 U.S.L.W. 4966

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Takeaway

In short, Kentucky v. Graham holds that § 1988 fees follow merits liability: winning damages from officials personally does not make their governmental employer liable for attorney's fees.

Background

After a Kentucky state trooper was murdered, 30 to 40 local, county, and state officers went without a warrant to the Elizabethtown home of suspect Clyde Graham's father. The officers entered twice and arrested the six occupants, although Graham was not there. The occupants alleged that they were beaten, terrorized, unlawfully searched, and falsely arrested. A state Attorney General investigation later found excessive force and a complete breakdown of police discipline.

The occupants brought a federal civil-rights damages action against individual law-enforcement officers, the City of Elizabethtown, Hardin County, Kentucky, and Kentucky State Police Commissioner Kenneth Brandenburgh. Brandenburgh was named in both his individual and official capacities. The Commonwealth of Kentucky was named solely as a potential source of attorney's fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1988, not as a defendant liable for damages on the merits. The District Court dismissed the Commonwealth under the Eleventh Amendment.

The case settled during trial for $60,000. The settlement barred the plaintiffs from seeking attorney's fees from the individual defendants but preserved their claimed right to seek fees and costs from the Commonwealth. The District Court awarded more than $58,000 in fees and over $6,000 in costs and expenses against Kentucky, and the Sixth Circuit affirmed on the authority of Hutto v. Finney. The Supreme Court granted review and reversed the fee award.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether § 1988 permits an award of attorney's fees against a governmental entity when the plaintiff prevails only against governmental employees sued in their personal capacities.

Holding

No. Under § 1988, fee liability ordinarily follows liability on the merits; a governmental entity cannot be charged with fees when it was not the party against whom the plaintiff prevailed.

Reasoning

Section 1988 authorizes a reasonable attorney's fee for a prevailing party but does not expressly identify who must pay it. The Court held that the natural and legally sound answer is the losing party: the defendant legally responsible for the relief on the merits. As with ordinary litigation costs, fees are an incident of the judgment against the party that was prevailed against.

This conclusion follows the Court's prior decisions. A defendant that is not liable on the merits, whether because it prevailed or because immunity forecloses merits liability, ordinarily cannot be assessed fees under § 1988. Conversely, where an official is properly subject to merits relief, as in an action for prospective relief, fees may accompany that relief.

A personal-capacity suit seeks to impose liability on the official as an individual for actions taken under color of state law. A judgment in such a case is enforceable against the official's personal assets, and the plaintiff need show that the official caused the constitutional deprivation. The employing government is not the real party in interest merely because the official acted in government employment.

An official-capacity suit is materially different: it is, in substance, a suit against the governmental entity. The entity bears any judgment, and § 1983 liability depends on proof that the entity's policy or custom was a moving force behind the violation. Personal immunities may protect an official sued individually, but they are unavailable in an official-capacity action because the entity, rather than the official personally, is the real defendant.

Permitting fees against an entity after a plaintiff wins only a personal-capacity action would improperly create respondeat superior fee liability. Monell rejects respondeat superior liability for governmental entities under § 1983, and nothing in § 1988's text or history indicates that Congress meant to impose fee liability where the entity has no corresponding substantive liability.

Issue #2

Whether the plaintiffs' claims against Commissioner Brandenburgh and their designation of Kentucky as a fee defendant made the Commonwealth liable for fees under § 1988.

Holding

No. This case was necessarily litigated as a personal-capacity damages action, and naming Kentucky solely for fees could not create the merits liability required to support a fee award.

Reasoning

Although the complaint described Commissioner Brandenburgh as sued in both his individual and official capacities, the plaintiffs sought only money damages. An official-capacity damages judgment against a state officer is, in practical and legal effect, a judgment against the State itself.

The Eleventh Amendment barred a federal damages action against Kentucky absent a waiver or valid congressional abrogation. Kentucky had not waived immunity, and § 1983 does not abrogate a State's Eleventh Amendment immunity. Thus, the plaintiffs could not maintain an official-capacity damages claim against Brandenburgh that would impose monetary liability on the Commonwealth.

The plaintiffs conceded that they neither sought nor could obtain damages from Kentucky. Their effort to name the Commonwealth only for a possible fee award could not supply the missing merits claim. Section 1988 does not itself create an independent cause of action against a defendant who bears no liability for substantive relief.

Hutto v. Finney did not compel a different result. Hutto permits fees against a State when the State has been properly prevailed against on the merits, either directly or through an appropriate official-capacity action. It does not allow fees against a governmental entity simply because a plaintiff recovered from its employee in a personal-capacity suit.