{"id":11243,"date":"2025-02-25T11:13:58","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T19:13:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=11243"},"modified":"2025-02-25T11:13:58","modified_gmt":"2025-02-25T19:13:58","slug":"noteworthy-supreme-court-decisions-in-civil-cases-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=11243","title":{"rendered":"Noteworthy Supreme Court Decisions in Civil Cases Today"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. Supreme Court today issued two decisions in civil cases that we have been following but not participating in. The decisions involve exhaustion of administrative remedies in civil rights suits and attorneys fees for a party who gets a preliminary injunction in a case that is subsequently rendered moot.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>In some areas of law, a claimant must first exhaust administrative remedies before turning to the courts. The federal statute for civil rights suits against state and local officials, 42 U.S.C. \u00a7 1983, does not have an exhaustion requirement generally, although there is one for prisoner suits in the Prison Litigation Reform Act. Suits under this statute may generally be brought in state or federal court. In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/24pdf\/23-191_q8l1.pdf\"><em>Williams<\/em> v.\u00a0<em>Reed<\/em><\/a>, the excessive delay in the administrative process for unemployment benefits was itself the ground of complaint. Thus, a state requirement to exhaust administrative remedies effectively precluded any judicial relief. The Supreme Court decided, 5-4, that in these circumstances the state exhaustion requirement is preempted.<\/p>\n<p>In most lawsuits, both parties must pay their own attorney&#8217;s fees regardless of who wins the case. There are exceptions created by statute, one of which is 42 U.S.C. \u00a7 1988 for civil rights suits under \u00a7 1983. On its face, \u00a7 1988 provides neutrally for attorney&#8217;s fees for the prevailing party, although the Supreme Court has misconstrued it to tilt heavily in favor of prevailing plaintiffs and against prevailing defendants.<\/p>\n<p>But what does it take to be a &#8220;prevailing party&#8221;? In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/24pdf\/23-621_5ifl.pdf\"><em>Lackey<\/em> v.\u00a0<em>Stinnie<\/em><\/a>, the plaintiffs challenged a statute as unconstitutional and obtained a preliminary injunction against its enforcement pending trial. The Legislature then repealed the statute, rendering the case moot, and it was dismissed. Does that make the plaintiffs &#8220;prevailing parties&#8221;? No, said the Supreme Court, 7-2. The merits of the case were never decided, and thus there is no winner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. Supreme Court today issued two decisions in civil cases that we have been following but not participating in. The decisions involve exhaustion of administrative remedies in civil rights suits and attorneys fees for a party who gets a preliminary injunction in a case that is subsequently rendered moot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-suits","category-u-s-supreme-court"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Noteworthy Supreme Court Decisions in Civil Cases Today - Crime &amp; Consequences<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=11243\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Noteworthy Supreme Court Decisions in Civil Cases Today - Crime &amp; Consequences\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The U.S. Supreme Court today issued two decisions in civil cases that we have been following but not participating in. The decisions involve exhaustion of administrative remedies in civil rights suits and attorneys fees for a party who gets a preliminary injunction in a case that is subsequently rendered moot.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=11243\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Crime &amp; Consequences\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CriminalJusticeLegalFoundation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-02-25T19:13:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/FB_DefaultLJ.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"300\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"400\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kent Scheidegger\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Kent Scheidegger\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=11243\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=11243\",\"name\":\"Noteworthy Supreme Court Decisions in Civil Cases Today - Crime &amp; Consequences\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2025-02-25T19:13:58+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/#\/schema\/person\/1ab62da9ed4ddd3a58d70c77eef37356\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=11243#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=11243\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=11243#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Noteworthy Supreme Court Decisions in Civil Cases Today\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/\",\"name\":\"Crime &amp; Consequences\",\"description\":\"Crime and criminal law\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/#\/schema\/person\/1ab62da9ed4ddd3a58d70c77eef37356\",\"name\":\"Kent Scheidegger\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.cjlf.org\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?author=1\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Noteworthy Supreme Court Decisions in Civil Cases Today - Crime &amp; Consequences","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=11243","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Noteworthy Supreme Court Decisions in Civil Cases Today - Crime &amp; Consequences","og_description":"The U.S. Supreme Court today issued two decisions in civil cases that we have been following but not participating in. 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