AFR files second U.S. Supreme Court brief
Americans for Forfeiture Reform is pleased to announce the filing of our second amicus curiae brief with the U.S. Supreme Court this term: Brief of Amicus Curiae Americans for Forfeiture Reform in Support of Petitioner, CRST Van Expedited, Inc. v. EEOC, No. 14-1375 (U.S. Jan. 25, 2016) (formatted copy below).
AFR owes an enormous amount of gratitude to Mahesha P. Subbaraman, of Subbaraman PLLC, our counselor for this brief, among others.
We also owe substantial thanks to those of you who have contributed time, money, effort, or any combination thereof to AFR. So, thanks!
Enjoy!
No. 14-1375
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In The
Supreme Court of the United States
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CRST VAN EXPEDITED, INC.,
Petitioner,
v.
EQUAL EMPLOYMENT
OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION,
Respondent.
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On Writ of Certiorari to the
United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
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BRIEF OF AMICUS CURIAE
AMERICANS FOR FORFEITURE REFORM IN SUPPORT OF PETITIONER
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INTEREST OF THE AMICUS CURIAE
Americans for Forfeiture Reform[1] (“AFR”) is a non-profit, non-partisan civic group concerned with the government’s fearsome power to forfeit private property, which “can be devastating when used unjustly.” Caplin & Drysdale, Chartered v. United States, 491 U.S. 617, 634 (1989). To this end, AFR is especially focused on the problem of civil forfeiture abuse. Civil forfeiture lets the government profit by seizing property allegedly linked to crime without ever having to prove the owner’s guilt. This power thus raises the “serious risk that an innocent person will be deprived of his property.” United States v. $191,910, 16 F.3d 1051, 1069 (9th Cir. 1994).
Given this reality, AFR works to increase public awareness of civil forfeiture abuse and the urgent need for legal reform. AFR advances this goal in a variety of ways, including the filing of amicus curiae briefs and helping property owners find effective legal counsel in civil forfeiture cases.[2]
AFR is accordingly interested in the present case. This case requires the Court to answer a legal question that could affect the willingness of property owners to resist wrongful government civil forfeiture actions despite Congress’s enactment of a fee-shifting law meant to enable such resistance.[3] That question, in short, is whether the court-ordered dismissal of a government suit for failure to comply with statutory preconditions to filing suit renders the defendant a “prevailing party” eligible to seek a fee award.
AFR believes the Court should answer this question with a resounding “yes.” By doing so, the Court will clarify its fee-award jurisprudence in a manner that “permits meaningful judicial review and produces reasonably predictable results.” Perdue v. Kenny A., 130 S. Ct. 1662, 1672 (2010). The Court will also vindicate the “interest of citizens in some minimum standard of decency, honor, and reliability in their dealings with their Government.” Heckler v. Cmty. Health Servs. of Crawford Cnty., Inc., 467 U.S.
51, 61 (1984); see id. at 61 n.13 (collecting cases).
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SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT
In his 2015 Year-End Report the Chief Justice reminded all lawyers of their duty to avoid “antagonistic tactics, wasteful procedural maneuvers, and teetering brinksmanship.”[4] Yet, when it comes to government civil suits against private defendants, the government too often engages in just such brinksmanship. Consider the present case. The district court found that the “EEOC’s failure to investigate the [Title VII] claims of . . . 67 allegedly aggrieved persons . . . foreclosed any possibility that the parties might settle all or some of this dispute without the expense of a federal lawsuit.” Pet. App. 211a.
But so long as this kind of conduct enables the government to “pound an opponent into submission,” the government has every incentive to engage in it. Freeport-McMoRan Oil & Gas Co. v. FERC, 962 F.2d 45, 48 (D.C. Cir. 1992). Thus, to level the playing field, Congress has enacted a host of fee-shifting laws granting private defendants who prevail in court the ability to recover their attorney’s fees from the government. These laws include 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(k), which holds the government liable for fees in Title VII suits, and 28 U.S.C. § 2465(b)(1)(A), which does the same in federal civil forfeiture actions.
For these laws to serve their purpose, however, it must be recognized that private defendants do not need a merits judgment or a court-ordered consent decree in order to “prevail” against the government and qualify for a fee award. Cf. Buckhannon Bd. & Care Home, Inc. v. W. Va. Dep’t of Health & Human Res., 532 U.S. 598, 600 (2001). Private defendants also serve to prevail when the court orders dismissal of the government’s claims. See Angel v. Bullington, 330 U.S. 183, 190 (1947) (“The ‘merits’ of a claim are disposed of when it is refused enforcement.”).
The Eighth Circuit failed to realize that here. It held that the district court’s dismissal of sixty-seven government claims did not make Petitioner a “prevailing party” eligible to receive fees under § 2000e5(k). See Pet. App. 23a–24a. The Eighth Circuit based this conclusion on the legal ground for the dismissal: the government’s failure to satisfy Title VII’s preconditions for filing suit. See id. The Eighth Circuit held that because this ground was “not . . . a ruling on the merits,” Petitioner lacked any basis to claim prevailing-party status. Id.; see Buckhannon, 532 U.S. at 603–04 (a “prevailing party” is usually a litigant who has received “some relief on the merits”).
What the Eighth Circuit’s analysis did not take into account, however, is the effect of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41 on the “dismissal of actions.” In particular, Rule 41(b) provides that for “involuntary dismissals”—like the dismissal here—“[u]nless the dismissal order states otherwise . . . any dismissal not under this rule—except one for lack of jurisdiction, improper venue, or failure to join a party under Rule 19—operates as an adjudication on the merits.” This means the Eighth Circuit had to treat the district court’s dismissal order in this case as a ruling “on the merits” given that this order: (1) did not “state otherwise”; and (2) did not concern “lack of jurisdiction, improper venue, or failure to join a party under Rule 19.” See Pet. App. 202a–217a.
The Eighth Circuit should thus be reversed for failing to follow Rule 41. At the same time, the Court should observe that Rule 41 clarifies three further aspects of prevailing-party status for defendants. First, court-ordered dismissals will often confer prevailing-party status on defendants. Second, courtordered dismissals for failure to meet statutory preconditions to filing suit are as much “on the merits” as dismissals for failure to establish a claim element. Third, court-ordered dismissals “without prejudice” can still alter the parties’ legal relationship in ways that make defendants into prevailing parties.
Taken together, these observations reconcile the Court’s fee-shifting jurisprudence with the main goal of defendants in court: to avoid an adverse judgment and end the litigation. Defendants should be eligible for fee awards regardless of how they achieve this goal—be it through a merits judgment in their favor, a consent decree, or a court-ordered dismissal. The Court now has the chance to clarify this point of law and, in the process, incentivize the government to litigate its suits in a far more level manner.
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