On The Front Lines

The Supreme Court Just Made It Easier for the Government to Violate Your Rights—Without Paying the Price

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court has essentially handed the government a free pass to violate the Constitution—without paying the price. The 7-2 decision in Lackey v. Stinnie could gut civil rights enforcement and leave victims without access to justice.

In reversing the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling, the Supreme Court majority has chosen to overlook the lower court’s warning that failing to require the government to pay plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees when a case becomes moot after a plaintiff wins a preliminary injunction to protect their constitutional rights could allow the government “to game the system.” In a blistering dissent that echoed amicus arguments put forth by a broad coalition of civil liberties organizations that includes The Rutherford Institute, Justices Jackson and Sotomayor pointed out that the majority’s ruling “ignores Con­gress’s clear intent to expand access to justice.” The dissent predicted that the ruling will result in “absurdities,” and “facilitates the strategic mooting of cases by [the government] to avoid paying at­torney’s fees.” The net result, cautioned the dissent, “will be less civil rights enforcement in the long run.”

“If the government is allowed to avoid the financial liabilities associated with violating the Constitution, then the government will violate the Constitution for as long as it can get away with it,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “Such a practice cripples the ability of the citizenry, especially the poor and vulnerable, to effectively seek protection from the courts and hold the government accountable.”

Damian Stinnie was among more than 900,000 people who had their driver’s licenses automatically suspended by the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) under a state law that penalized drivers for failing to pay court fines and costs which often have nothing to do with road safety or driving infractions. In July 2016, a lawsuit was filed against the DMV, alleging that the automatic suspensions violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantees of due process and equal protection. The lawsuit alleged that “hundreds of thousands of people have lost their licenses simply because they are too poor to pay, effectively depriving them of reliable, lawful transportation necessary to get to and from work, take children to school, keep medical appointments, care for ill or disabled family members, or, paradoxically, to meet their financial obligations to the courts.” For instance, one of the plaintiffs was a 24-year-old man with lymphoma who became homeless after failing to pay about $1,000 in traffic fines.

A federal district court granted the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction to temporarily end the “unconstitutional scheme” by prohibiting the DMV from suspending driver’s licenses for unpaid court costs. The DMV, seeing the writing on the wall,” made a “robust effort to stiff the plaintiffs with re­spect to attorney’s fees” by asking to postpone the trial to allow the Virginia legislature to change the law, thereby mooting and ending the case. The DMV then insisted that since the issue was resolved through legislation rather than a final court-ruling, the government could not be required to pay the plaintiffs’ attorneys for their time working on the case. The Fourth Circuit ruled against the government, concurring with every other of the ten circuits which have addressed the issue. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court reversed in favor of the government.

The amicus brief in Lackey v. Stinnie is available at www.rutherford.org. Andrew J. Pincus and Jonathan D. Stahl of Mayer Brown LLP helped advance the arguments in the brief.

The Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit civil liberties organization, provides legal assistance at no charge to individuals whose constitutional rights have been threatened or violated, and educates the public on a wide spectrum of issues affecting their freedoms.

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Case History

December 17, 2021 • Rutherford Institute Challenges Government Efforts to Sidestep Accountability and Avoid Paying Legal Fees for Constitutional Violations 

August 31, 2023 • Victory: Court Discourages Constitutional Mischief by the Government, Holds DMV Fiscally Accountable for Constitutional Violations 

September 12, 2024 • Rutherford Institute Calls on SCOTUS to Discourage Unconstitutional Mischief, Attempts by the Government to Sidestep Accountability