[PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________ FILED
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
No. 11-15053 ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
Non-Argument Calendar APRIL 30, 2012
________________________ JOHN LEY
CLERK
D.C. Docket No. 9:02-cv-80309-CMA
FRIENDS OF THE EVERGLADES, et al.,
Plaintiffs-Counter Defendants,
MICCOSUKEE TRIBE OF INDIANS OF FLORIDA,
a Florida municipality,
lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll l Intervenor Plaintiff-Counter
lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll ll Defendant-Appellant,
versus
SOUTH FLORIDA WATER MANAGEMENT DISTRICT,
lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll Defendant-Counter Claimant-
llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll Appellee,
l
HENRY DEAN, Executive Director,
llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll Defendant,
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
U.S. SUGAR CORPORATION,
lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll l Intervenors-Defendants-Appellees.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
________________________
(April 30, 2012)
Before CARNES, WILSON and KRAVITCH, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida (the Tribe) appeals the district
court’s denial of its motion for attorneys’ fees. The district court found that the
Tribe was not a “prevailing party” because, although the district court had ruled in
its favor, the decision was overturned on appeal. After a thorough review, we
affirm.
The complex history of this case is set out in Friends of Everglades v. South
Florida Water Management District,
570 F.3d 1210, 1213-15 (11th Cir. 2009). In
short, the Friends of the Everglades and Fishermen Against the Destruction of the
Environment filed suit against the South Florida Water Management District (the
Water District) under the Clean Water Act to enjoin the Water District from
pumping polluted canal water into Lake Okeechobee. The Tribe joined the suit on
the plaintiffs’ side. After a two-month bench trial, the district court found in favor
of the plaintiffs and issued an injunction to the executive director of the Water
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District, requiring him to apply for a National Pollution Discharge Elimination
System permit.
Id. On appeal, this court reversed and remanded in relevant part,
deferring to a recently-enacted EPA regulation that confirmed the permit was not
required.
Id.
While the case was pending on appeal, the Tribe filed a motion for
attorneys’ fees and costs totaling over $1.4 million. The Tribe asserted that it was
the prevailing party and thus was entitled to fees under 33 U.S.C. § 1365(d). After
this court reversed the district court’s order on the injunction, the district court
denied the motion for fees and costs, concluding that the Tribe was not the
prevailing party and that equity did not call for the Tribe to obtain fees. This is the
Tribe’s appeal.
The Tribe argues that it was entitled to fees as the “prevailing party” because
it achieved some form of relief, namely an injunction and the promulgation of the
EPA’s new rules. The Tribe further argues that equity required the court grant the
motion for fees, as the Tribe had no control over the promulgation of the new rules
and the court should consider the Water District’s influence on the EPA to enact
the rules.
We review the denial of a motion for attorneys’ fees and costs for abuse of
discretion. Sahyers v. Prugh, Holliday & Karatinos, P.L.,
560 F.3d 1241, 1244
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(11th Cir. 2009). We will find an abuse of discretion only when a decision is in
clear error, the district court applied an incorrect legal standard or followed
improper procedures, or when neither the district court’s decision nor the record
provide sufficient explanation to enable meaningful appellate review. Peer v.
Lewis,
606 F.3d 1306, 1311 (11th Cir. 2010); Cox Enters., Inc. v. News–Journal
Corp.,
510 F.3d 1350, 1360 (11th Cir. 2007).
Generally, parties pay their own fees and costs in connection with bringing a
law suit unless some statutory fee-shifting provision permits the court to award
fees to a “prevailing party.” Alyeska Pipeline Serv. Co. v. Wilderness Soc’y,
421
U.S. 240, 247 (1975); Loggerhead Turtle v. Cnty. Council of Volusia Cnty., Fla.,
307 F.3d 1318, 1322 (11th Cir. 2002). Absent a contrary legislative directive, a
“prevailing party” is one who prevails on “any significant issue” and thereby
achieves some of the benefits sought by bringing suit. Tex. State Teachers Ass’n v.
Garland Indep. Sch. Dist.,
489 U.S. 782, 791-92 (1989). Here, the Clean Water
Act specifically allows the court to award attorneys’ fees and costs to “any
prevailing or substantially prevailing party, whenever the court determines that
such award is appropriate.” 33 U.S.C. § 1365(d). A prevailing or substantially
prevailing party is one who prevailed “in what the lawsuit originally sought to
accomplish.” Hughey v. JMS Dev. Corp.,
78 F.3d 1523, 1532 (11th Cir. 1996)
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(citation omitted). In other words, an award of attorneys’ fees in a Clean Water
Act suit is appropriate when the moving party has advanced the goals of the Act.
Chemical Mfrs. Ass’n v. United States Envtl. Prot. Agency,
885 F.2d 1276, 1279
(5th Cir. 1989).
In addition to the “prevailing party” requirement, the district court must
determine that the award is “appropriate.” 33 U.S.C. § 1365(d); Loggerhead
Turtle, 307 F.3d at 1323 (citing Ruckelshaus v. Sierra Club,
463 U.S. 680 (1983)).
As the Supreme Court has explained, “the term ‘appropriate’ modifies but does not
completely reject the traditional rule that a fee claimant must ‘prevail’ before it
may recover attorney’s fees.”
Ruckelshaus, 463 U.S. at 686. Thus, “absent some
degree of success on the merits by the claimant, it is not ‘appropriate’ for a federal
court to award attorney’s fees.”
Id. at 694; see also
id. at 688 n.9 (“[T]rivial
success on the merits, or purely procedural victories, would [not] justify an award
of fees under statutes setting out the ‘when appropriate’ [ sic ] standard.”).1 Thus,
“there is unambiguous evidence that Congress intended the ‘whenever . . .
appropriate’ fee provisions of the . . . Clean Water Act to allow fee awards to
plaintiffs who do not obtain court-ordered relief but whose suit has a positive
1
Ruckelshaus was a Clean Air Act case, but the Court explained that its holding applied
to the use of “appropriate” in all statutes containing the “whenever . . . appropriate” standard.
Ruckelshaus, 463 U.S. at 682 n.1. Because the Clean Water Act uses this term, we apply
Ruckelshaus here.
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catalytic effect.” Loggerhead
Turtle, 307 F.3d at 1326.
The crux of the Tribe’s argument on appeal is that it substantially prevailed
because its lawsuit was the catalyst that prompted the EPA to enact the new rules,
even though those rules were contrary to the Tribe’s position. We disagree.
The Tribe did not prevail, or substantially prevail, in its suit. It did not
obtain an injunction or a declaratory judgment entered in its favor; nor was there a
settlement or consent decree. See Hewitt v. Helms,
482 U.S. 755, 760 (1987)
(discussing “prevailing party” under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 and concluding that the
plaintiff was not a prevailing party because he did not obtain any relief on the
merits of his claim); see also Falanga v. State Bar of Ga.,
150 F.3d 1333, 1347
(11th Cir. 1998) (reversing award of attorneys’ fees because once the court of
appeals reversed the district court’s judgment, the plaintiffs were no longer the
prevailing party). Indeed, the result the Tribe sought – an injunction requiring the
Water District to obtain a permit – is exactly what the Tribe did not receive. All
that can be said of the Tribe’s action is that it led the EPA to promulgate rules
contrary to the Tribe’s position. We do not think this renders the Tribe a
“substantially prevailing” party; nor is this is what was intended by the idea that a
law suit has a positive catalytic effect.
The inclusion of the term “whenever . . . appropriate” supports our
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conclusion here. Although Congress intended to permit courts to award fees “to
plaintiffs who do not obtain court-ordered relief but whose suit has a positive
catalytic effect,” it did not intend for this provision to extend to unsuccessful
parties. See Loggerhead
Turtle, 307 F.3d at 1326 (citing
Ruckelshaus, 463 U.S. at
686 n.8). Essentially, the Tribe, as the losing party, seeks to obtain fees and costs
from the winning party. We cannot conclude that Congress intended such a result.
See
Ruckleshaus, 463 U.S. at 684.
We also disagree with the Tribe that equity demands it receive fees and
costs. The Tribe bases its equity argument on its belief that the Water District
influenced the EPA to enact a new rule contrary to the Tribe’s position. The Tribe
cites no law in support of its claim on fees in this regard. Given the level of
deference in our review, we cannot conclude that the district court abused its
discretion in this case.
AFFIRMED.
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