Ricky D Fox, Petitioner v. Judy Ann Vice, As Executrix of the Estate of Vice, et al. (563 U.S. 826)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 6, 2011 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 563 U.S. 826 · 131 S. Ct. 2205
- Decided
- June 6, 2011
- Term
- October Term 2010
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Kagan
- Issue area
- Attorneys
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Kagan delivered the opinion of the Court. Federal law authorizes a court to award a reasonable attorney’s fee to the prevailing party in certain civil rights cases. See 42 U. S. C. § 1988. We have held that a defendant may receive such an award if the plaintiff’s suit is frivolous. In this case, the plaintiff asserted both frivolous and non-frivolous claims. We hold today that a court may grant reasonable fees to the defendant in this circumstance, but only for costs that the defendant would not have incurred but for the frivolous claims. A trial court has wide discretion in applying this standard. But here we must vacate the judgment below because the court used a different and incorrect standard in awarding fees. I This case arises out of an election for chief of police in the town of Vinton, Louisiana. The candidates were petitioner Ricky Fox (the challenger) and respondent Billy Ray Vice (the incumbent). By Fox’s account, Vice resorted to an assortment of dirty tricks to try to force Fox out of the race. In particular, Vice sent an anonymous letter to Fox threatening to publish damaging charges against him if he remained a candidate. Vice also arranged for a third party to publicly accuse Fox of using racial slurs and then to file a criminal complaint against Fox repeating those allegations. And when prosecutors ignored that faux complaint, Vice leaked it to the…
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