Wilkins v. Gaddy, No. 12-8148 (4th Cir. 2013)
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Plaintiff, a state prisoner, filed suit challenging the constitutionality of 42 U.S.C. 1997e(d)(2), a part of the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PLRA), as violating his right to equal protection of the laws under the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause. Plaintiff challenged a provision that caps the attorneys' fee award that a successful prisoner litigant could recover from the government in a civil rights action at 150 percent of the value of the prisoner's monetary judgment. The court declined to apply heightened equal protection scrutiny in this case and joined its sister circuits in concluding that section 1997e(d)(2) was constitutional. Congress's goals in enacting section 1997e(d)(2) included reducing marginal or frivolous prisoner civil rights lawsuits and protecting the public fisc. Such goals were legitimate and Congress acted rationally in adopting the provision. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.
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PUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 12-8148 JAMEY LAMONT WILKINS, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. OFFICER GADDY, Defendant Appellee, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Intervenor. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, at Charlotte. Robert J. Conrad, Jr., Chief District Judge. (3:08-cv-00138-RJC-DSC) Argued: September 18, 2013 Decided: November 1, 2013 Before WILKINSON, MOTZ, and FLOYD, Circuit Judges. Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Wilkinson opinion, in which Judge Motz and Judge Floyd joined. wrote the ARGUED: David Alexander Strauss, NORTH CAROLINA PRISONER LEGAL SERVICES, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellant. Kimberly D. Grande, NORTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee. Jonathan Heuer Levy, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Intervenor. ON BRIEF: Roy Cooper, North Carolina Attorney General, NORTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee. Anne Tompkins, United States Attorney, Charlotte, North Carolina, Stuart F. Delery, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Barbara L. Herwig, Civil Division, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Intervenor. 2 WILKINSON, Circuit Judge: Plaintiff is constitutionality a of state 42 prisoner U.S.C. § who challenges 1997e(d)(2), a part the of the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PLRA), as violating his right to equal protection of the Amendment s Due Process Clause. laws under the Fifth The challenged provision caps the attorneys fee award that a successful prisoner litigant may recover from the government in a civil rights action at 150 percent of the value of the prisoner s monetary judgment. The district court upheld the constitutionality of this provision, and we now affirm. I. A. Jamey Wilkins, the plaintiff, was a prisoner in the custody of the North Carolina Department of Correction (now the North Carolina Department of Public Safety). On June 13, 2007, he was incarcerated at the Lanesboro Correctional Institute in Polkton, North Carolina, escorted when another Officer inmate past Alexander his cell. Gaddy, the Wilkins defendant, and Officer Gaddy became embroiled in an argument that resulted in Officer Gaddy opening Wilkins s cell and physically subduing him. According to Wilkins, Officer Gaddy lifted and then slammed him to the concrete floor where, once pinned, Officer Gaddy punched, 3 kicked, kneed, and choked Wilkins until the officer was removed by another member of the corrections staff. Wilkins alleged that the altercation caused him a bruised heel, back and neck pains, headaches, and other health complications. B. Following the incident, Wilkins filed a pro se civil rights suit under maliciously 42 U.S.C. and § 1983 sadistically claiming assaulted that him force in violation of the Eighth Amendment. Officer with Gaddy excessive The district court dismissed the suit when it concluded that Wilkins had failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted because he had not alleged more than a de minimis injury. We affirmed. Wilkins v. Gaddy, 308 F. App x 696 (4th Cir. 2009). The Supreme Court granted Wilkins s petition for certiorari and reversed, holding that the core judicial inquiry in Eighth Amendment claims is not focused on the extent of the injury sustained by the plaintiff but rather the nature of the force used in the purported assault. 39 (2010). Wilkins v. Gaddy, 559 U.S. 34, Although it remanded for further proceedings, the Supreme Court express[ed] no view on the underlying merits of Wilkins s claim and noted that the relatively modest nature of his alleged injuries will no doubt limit the damages he may recover. Id. at 40. 4 Wilkins obtained representation upon remand from North Carolina Prisoner Legal Services and proceeded to trial. The jury returned a verdict holding Officer Gaddy responsible for using excessive force against Wilkins, but declined to award compensatory or punitive damages. nominal damages of $0.99. Instead, it awarded only The district court entered judgment for Wilkins in the amount of $1. Wilkins, as the prevailing party, filed a motion under the fee-shifting provision of 42 U.S.C. § 1988 for $92,306.25 in attorneys fees. While acknowledging that fee awards in prisoner lawsuits are capped by § 1997e(d)(2), violated the irrationally Wilkins Fifth argued that Amendment s treating prisoner this equal section protection and of the PLRA component non-prisoner by litigants differently. The magistrate judge to whom the matter had been referred calculated the award pursuant to § 1997e(d)(2) and recommended that Wilkins s lawyers be awarded $1.40. * Wilkins reiterated his equal protection challenge before the district court, but the court found § 1997e(d)(2) to be a constitutional exercise of legislative authority. Specifically, the district court held * The magistrate judge applied the fee cap in § 1997e(d)(2) and found that the maximum permissible award was $1.50. Next, because § 1997e(d)(2) also requires that some of the plaintiff s judgment apply toward his attorneys fee award, the magistrate judge reduced Wilkins s fee award to $1.40. 5 that the classification between prisoners and non-prisoners in § 1997e(d)(2) interests, was rationally including reducing protecting the public fisc. basis standard of related to marginal legitimate prisoner government lawsuits and It further noted that the rational review commands judicial deference to legislative acts unless the relationship of the chosen means to the desired ends is bereft of logical support. the district adopted the Wilkins s court declined magistrate counsel to judge s $1.40 in strike down recommendation, attorneys fees. Consequently, § 1997e(d)(2), and awarded Wilkins now appeals. II. Wilkins seeks the full award of $92,306.25 in attorneys fees for his counsel. To that end, he contends that the fee cap in § 1997e(d)(2) creates a distinction between prisoner and nonprisoner litigants that cannot stand under the Fifth Amendment. First, Wilkins does admit that courts do not review classifications involving prisoners with strict scrutiny. He asserts, however, that statutes governing inmates still require a heightened standard of review because of prisoners unique characteristics. Second, he argues that § 1997e(d)(2) fails even ordinary rational basis review because it arbitrarily and irrationally discriminates against 6 prisoner civil rights litigants in that the fee cap bears no rational relationship to the admittedly legitimate governmental objectives at which it is aimed. Appellant s Br. 7. We are not persuaded by either contention. A. Government may not constitutionally deny to any person the equal protection of the laws. But this principle is not and cannot be absolute because it is a practical necessity that most legislation classif[y] for one purpose or another, with resulting disadvantage to various groups or persons. Evans, 517 affects U.S. a 620, 631 (1996). fundamental right generally accord legislation a validity by a basis the applying or Indeed, some rational unless protected strong Romer v. a class, statute courts presumption standard of of review. Heller v. Doe, 509 U.S. 312, 319 (1993). This standard is quite deferential. It simply requires courts to determine whether the classification in question is, at a minimum, goals. rationally related to legitimate governmental City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Ctr., Inc., 473 U.S. 432, 440 (1985). In other words, the fit between the enactment and the public purposes behind it need not be mathematically precise. As adopting the speculation long as Congress classification, unsupported by has which evidence 7 a reasonable can or include empirical basis for rational data, the statute will pass constitutional muster. FCC v. Beach Commc ns., Inc., 508 U.S. 307, 315 (1993). The rational basis standard to thus embodies an idea critical the continuing vitality of our democracy: that courts are not empowered to sit as a superlegislature to judge the wisdom or desirability of legislative policy determinations. City of New Orleans v. Dukes, 427 U.S. 297, 303 (1976). Wilkins accepts the fact that we should apply rational basis review to analyze the fee cap in § 1997e(d)(2). However, he would have us apply a more searching form of rational basis review, Appellant s Br. 9 (quoting Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558, 580 (2003) (O Connor, J., concurring)), because he contends that the rational basis standard is in reality a spectrum and that prisoners possess certain characteristics which warrant the court to apply the rational basis review in a less rigid manner, Appellant s Br. 8-9. These include prisoners relative inability to protect themselves in the political process and the historical discrimination against housing, and welfare programs. give less deference to prisoners in employment, In effect, Wilkins asks us to legislative classifications involving prison litigants. We do not think that permissible approach here. sliding-scale rational basis is a Our precedent clearly holds that prisoners are not a suspect class. 8 Giarratano v. Johnson, 521 F.3d 298, 303 omitted). (4th The scrutiny when Cir. Supreme it finds 2008) Court that a (internal has only quotation applied particular marks heightened class is quasi- suspect in that it possesses immutable characteristics, faces historic or ongoing discrimination, or is subject to arbitrary burdens on some basis beyond its ability to control. Cleburne, 473 U.S. at 439-43. City of Because breaking the law is a voluntary act and many prisoners will eventually be released, the status of characteristic . classification. 1989). incarceration . . , is nor neither an an immutable invidious basis of Moss v. Clark, 886 F.2d 686, 690 (4th Cir. Moreover, it would be ironic for the law to confer special solicitude upon a class whose members had violated it. Id. Nor involved, is any for fundamental no party right of possesses access an to the entitlement courts to a congressional declaration that its attorneys fees in a federal lawsuit shall be borne by the non-prevailing party. See Johnson v. Daley, 339 F.3d 582, 586 (7th Cir. 2003) (en banc) (finding that there is no fundamental right to have one s adversary, or the public treasury, defray all or part of the cost of litigation ). These considerations militate in favor of ordinary rational basis review. that Several of our sister circuits have concluded classifications involving prisoners 9 should not receive strict scrutiny, and their reasoning also supports the parallel conclusion e.g., that Boivin heightened v. Black, scrutiny 225 F.3d is not 36, 42 warranted. (1st See, Cir. 2000) ( [P]risoners are simply not a protected class. ); Zehner v. Trigg, 133 F.3d 459, 463 (7th Cir. 1997) (finding the argument that prisoners are a protected class completely unsupported ). We note also that the Supreme Court has used the rational basis standard when considering the constitutionality of a statute distinguishing between jailed and non-jailed persons, McDonald v. Bd. of Election Comm rs of Chicago, 394 U.S. 802, 807-09 (1969), and classifications has not involving applied heightened prisoners absent scrutiny another to protected characteristic, such as race, see Johnson v. California, 543 U.S. 499, 505-09 (2005). Accordingly, we decline Wilkins s invitation to apply heightened equal protection scrutiny in this case. B. We turn now to Wilkins s rational basis challenge. When a litigant files suit in a court in the United States, he or she will typically pay the costs associated with hiring an attorney. This is the American Rule and it governs litigation in federal courts absent contrary. 15 (1994) explicit congressional authorization to the Key Tronic Corp. v. United States, 511 U.S. 809, 814(internal quotation 10 marks omitted). Congress exercised its power to partially abrogate the American Rule when it enacted the Civil Rights Attorney s Fees Awards Act of 1976, 42 U.S.C. § 1988, which granted district courts the authority to award attorneys fees from state coffers to the prevailing party in a civil rights action. By providing lawyers with a suitable award if they could achieve success in court, this fee-shifting provision encouraged them to take civil rights cases that they otherwise might not and thus ensured effective access to the judicial Hensley process v. for persons Eckerhart, 461 with U.S. civil 424, rights 429 grievances. (1983) (internal quotation marks omitted). But what Congress provides, Congress can adjust or take away. It adopted the PLRA almost 20 years later in an effort to reduce the ever-growing number of prison-condition lawsuits that were threatening to overwhelm the capacity of the federal judiciary. Anderson v. XYZ Correctional Health Services, Inc., 407 F.3d 674, 676 (4th Cir. 2005). the Act is litigation replete consumed judicial resources. with an The legislative history of statements undue amount that of inmate both civil rights executive and See Intervenor Br. of the United States 6-8 (compiling congressional statements). In an effort to address this problem, the PLRA included, among other things, limitations on attorneys fees awards. Section 1997e(d)(2) states in relevant part that [i]f the award of attorney's fees is not 11 greater than 150 percent of the judgment, the excess shall be paid by the defendant. While this language is not a model of clarity, its import is apparent. 603, 607 (2d Cir. 2011). Shepard v. Goord, 662 F.3d Although § 1997e(d)(2) does not remove a district court s discretion to shift attorneys fees, it caps awards at 150 percent of a prisoner s monetary judgment. See id. at 608 (noting that every circuit to consider § 1997e(d)(2) has construed it to impose a fee cap and holding the same). Wilkins does not contest this interpretation. But non-prisoner civil rights litigants are not subject to the fee cap; it is this distinction that Wilkins claims is unconstitutional. Congress s noted earlier, goals in reducing enacting marginal § 1997e(d)(2) or frivolous rights lawsuits and protecting the public fisc. include, prisoner as civil See Jackson v. State Bd. of Pardons and Paroles, 331 F.3d 790, 798 (11th Cir. 2003). Wilkins agrees that these goals are legitimate, but contends that § 1997e(d)(2) is so poorly tailored to these ends that it Overall, could he not insists possibly the fee be cap expected is a approach to the prison litigation problem. to advance thoroughly them. irrational While the provision may not be the only or the optimal way of stemming baseless inmate lawsuits, we hold that adopting it. 12 Congress acted rationally in It was not irrational for Congress to believe that inmates have certain litigation advantages and certain incentives file lawsuits not shared by non-prisoner plaintiffs. to Inmates are provided with the necessities of life at state expense; they receive free paper, postage, and legal assistance ; and they may have greater amounts of free time in which to prepare their claims. Roller v. Gunn, 107 F.3d 227, 234 (4th Cir. 1997). Furthermore, prisoners might see legal proceedings as a means of gaining a short sabbatical in the nearest Federal courthouse, Anderson, 407 F.3d at 676 (internal quotation marks omitted), or as a tool to intimidat[e] members of the prison staff, Hadix v. Johnson, 230 F.3d 840, 844 (6th Cir. 2000). Congress was entitled to conclude that this mix of advantages and incentives finds no analogue outside prison walls. Of course, the above propositions are not indisputable, and in certain respects, prison litigants may suffer some litigation disadvantages in relation to their non-prison counterparts. But under the rational basis standard, Congress could have believed that the danger of frivolous, marginal, and trivial claims was real and that a legislative solution was required to equalize prisoner congruence meritless and non-prisoner between and litigants. § 1997e(d)(2) insubstantial perfect, it does exist. and prisoner And the goal lawsuits although of may the reducing not be Walker v. Bain, 257 F.3d 660, 670 (6th 13 Cir. 2001). A cap on attorneys fees awards requires attorneys to ask if the game is worth the candle and demand greater odds of success before agreeing to represent a prisoner. F.3d at 45. Boivin, 225 If a prisoner cannot find counsel, it may dissuade him or her from bringing such a claim at all. Or so Congress might reasonably have believed. Wilkins argues that even more basic flaws in the provision require its invalidation. He claims there is no coherent connection between § 1997e(d)(2) and limiting frivolous lawsuits because the Congress fee cannot constitutional litigation. cap applies rationally violations only to disadvantage in the name successful cases meritorious claims of reducing and of meritless But Congress could rationally have determined that limiting an attorneys fee award incentive ex ante, before the outcome is ultimately known, meritless prevents the claims. filing Johnson, of 339 at least F.3d at some 594-95. Moreover, even though there exist other rules that discourage attorneys under from Federal bringing Rule of frivolous Civil claims, Procedure such as sanctions 11 and § 1988 s requirement that reasonable attorney s fee[] awards go only to a prevailing party, nowhere in the Constitution does it say that Congress is limited to a single legislative solution to a perceived social ill. Id. at 593-94. 14 It is true, as Wilkins emphasizes, that Farrar v. Hobby already holds that district courts should decline to award attorneys fees if the prevailing party suffers only minimal harm. more 506 U.S. 103, 114-16 (1992). than direct courts to But Farrar does nothing consider the prevailing party s extent of success when determining the appropriate attorneys fee award under cases subject to the fee-shifting provision in § 1988. Id. at 116 (internal quotation marks omitted). By contrast, § 1997e(d)(2) categorically limits a district court s discretion rules, solely while in prisoner overlapping, civil are rights not lawsuits. These co-extensive. Indeed, district courts after Farrar occasionally dispensed substantial attorneys fees awards to prevailing received only minimal judgments. parties even when they See, e.g., Wilcox v. City of Reno, 42 F.3d 550 (9th Cir. 1994) (upholding an award of $66,535 in attorneys fees because the district court properly exercised its discretion plaintiff); under Jones v. Farrar despite Lockhart, 29 a F.3d $1 judgment 422 (8th for Cir. the 1994) (upholding the district court under Farrar and awarding $10,000 in attorneys judgment of fees $2). to Even a if prisoner Farrar litigant makes the who received fee cap a mostly redundant, as Wilkins claims, Congress is not constitutionally forbidden from enacting legislation simply because some other rule aims to resolve the same problem in a different way. 15 Wilkins further contends that the fee cap is fatally defective because it stands no chance of doing its job. It will not, in his view, dissuade prisoners from filing civil rights lawsuits; rather, they will simply proceed pro se, even if their claims are frivolous, marginal, or trivial. The precise extent to which the cap will accomplish the congressional purpose is not for us to decide, however, for Congress could reasonably conclude that at least some meritless and insubstantial lawsuits would go unfiled shoulder the when entire prisoners workload find of themselves litigating required their to cases. Walker, 257 F.3d at 669. We need not tarry over Wilkins s final contention: that § 1997e(d)(2) is not a reasonable way to conserve public funds. Protection of the public fisc is a core responsibility of the legislative branch. Supreme Court has Indeed, as to federal expenditures, the affirmed Congress s control of the purse strings: [The Appropriations Clause] is to assure that public funds will be spent according to the letter of the difficult judgments reached by Congress as to the common good and not according to the individual favor of Government agents or the individual Richmond, individual pleas 496 of U.S. litigants litigants. 414, 428 should Office (1990). have their of The Pers. extent lawyers Mgmt. to paid v. which by the people involves the setting of priorities sufficiently akin to 16 the appropriations process that we are loath to interfere. Wilkins sought over $92,000 in attorneys fees on a judgment of $1. Congress was free to conclude that fee awards so disproportionate to a monetary judgment are an unwise use of public funds. The attorneys Supreme fees litigation. Court awards Fox v. has made should Vice, not 131 clear result S. (internal quotation marks omitted). formula collateral embodied fee in while in Ct. a determining second 2216 2205, major (2011) The simple, mathematical § 1997e(d)(2) litigation that rationally ensuring that the forestalls incentive provided by an attorneys fee award still attaches to the most injurious civil rights violations. Our ruling upholding anything but novel. the fee cap in § 1997e(d)(2) is It is in accord with every other circuit to consider this provision of the PLRA. See Parker, 581 F.3d at 200; Johnson, 339 F.3d at 583; Jackson, 331 F.3d at 792-93; Foulk v. Charrier, 262 F.3d 687, 691 (8th Cir. 2001); Walker, 257 F.3d at 663; Boivin, 225 F.3d at 38. 662 F.3d at 609, the argument that As noted in Shepard, [§ 1997e(d)(2) is unconstitutional] has been uniformly rejected by the circuits in which such issues have been raised. 17 We now join those courts and affirm the judgment of the district court upholding the constitutionality of § 1997e(d)(2). AFFIRMED 18
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