Highlights Split Of Opinion Between Circuit Courts On Interpretation Of The Phrase.
On August 25, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) granted certiorari in Murphy v. Smith, No. 16-1067 (U.S.), a prisoner’s civil rights case involving interpretation of language in the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA).
In Murphy, an Illinois prisoner won over $300,000 in a civil rights case against corrections officers alleged to have badly beaten him, causing permanent damage to his eye. Prisoner moved to recover attorney’s fees under the PLRA, which does have a limitation providing that “a portion of the judgment (not to exceed 25 percent) shall be applied to satisfy the amount of attorney’s fees awarded against the defendants.” The district court awarded fees of about $108,000 to plaintiff, but ordered him to pay about $30,000 to his attorneys and ordering the remaining $78,000 to come from corrections officers. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, finding that 25% of prisoner’s damages award was required to go to attorney’s fees (namely, about $77,000—one third of the slightly over $300,000 award) such that the corrections officer only owed $31,000 towards the fee award.
Circuit courts are divided on the interpretation of the 25% percent language, such that the issue before SCOTUS is: Does 25 percent of the money awarded to the prisoner have to go toward his attorney’s fees, before the defendants must also contribute to the fees, or can the district court require a smaller portion of the attorney’s fees to come out of the prisoner’s award?
For you purists out there, here is how SCOTUS has summarized the issue upon which certiorari was granted: “Whether the parenthetical phrase ‘not to exceed 25 percent’ as used in 42 U.S.C. §1997e(d)(2), means any amount up to 25% (as four circuits hold), or whether it means exactly 25% (as the Seventh Circuit holds).” This case may be argued as soon as December of this year, given it is on the September 25, 2017 merits calendar.
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