Section 1988 Fees After Vacatur: Prevailing-Party Status and Supported Fee Reductions

1. Introduction and Background

This decision concerns attorneys’ fees arising from litigation over undated mail-in ballots in a 2021 Pennsylvania judicial election. Its immediate subject is not whether Pennsylvania may enforce its ballot-dating requirement, but whether voters who obtained an order requiring their ballots to be counted could recover civil-rights litigation fees—and whether the district court reasonably reduced their request.

The plaintiffs, Linda Migliori, Francis J. Fox, Richard E. Richards, Kenneth Ringer, and Sergio Rivas, submitted mail-in ballots without dating the accompanying declarations. Pennsylvania law required those declarations to be signed and dated. The Lehigh County Board of Elections excluded the undated ballots from the count.

The voters sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, invoking the “Materiality Provision,” 52 U.S.C. § 10101(a)(2)(B). Broadly stated, that provision prohibits officials from denying voting rights because of certain errors or omissions that are immaterial to determining a person’s qualifications to vote. Candidate David Ritter intervened in support of excluding the ballots; candidate Zachary Cohen also participated as an intervenor.

Procedural history

1. Initial district court proceedings: The district court concluded that the Materiality Provision could not be privately enforced in this action.
2. The 2022 merits appeal: The Third Circuit reversed and directed the district court to order the undated ballots counted. The panel’s treatment of important issues reflected arguments that the opposing parties had not contested or adequately developed.
3. Supreme Court proceedings: Ritter sought emergency relief. After a temporary stay, the Supreme Court declined to maintain the stay. The Board certified the election after counting the disputed ballots, producing a result unfavorable to Ritter.
4. Vacatur for mootness: The Supreme Court subsequently vacated the Third Circuit’s judgment and directed dismissal because the case had become moot.
5. Fee proceedings: The district court nevertheless found the voters to be prevailing parties under 42 U.S.C. § 1988, awarded fees, and reduced portions of the requested compensation.
6. The present appeals: The Board challenged fee entitlement, while the voters challenged the reductions and denial of compensation for litigating the fee petition.

The resulting decision separates three questions that can easily become conflated: whether a party prevailed, whether special circumstances justify withholding fees, and what amount constitutes a reasonable award.

2. Summary of the Court’s Decision

The majority affirmed the district court’s rulings in full.

• Prevailing-party status: The voters qualified as prevailing parties under § 1988. The majority adopted substantially the district court’s reasoning rather than independently restating the full analysis.
• Special circumstances: The majority likewise affirmed the conclusion that no special circumstances made a fee award unjust.
• Specificity of objections: The Board sufficiently identified the work it challenged and explained why the associated hours were unreasonable.
• Reduction of hours: The district court permissibly used its experience to assess excessive time within the categories challenged by the Board.
• Relevant market and rates: The district court did not clearly err by treating Allentown, rather than the entire Eastern District of Pennsylvania, as the relevant legal market or by relying on the CLS fee schedule.
• Merits-appeal work: The court adopted the recommendation awarding fees for work on the merits appeal.
• Fee-petition litigation: The voters could not recover additional fees for litigating their fee request without the necessary separate lodestar analysis and supporting documentation.

Judge Matey dissented. Although he agreed that the voters satisfied existing prevailing-party standards, he disputed the underlying enforcement theory, argued that the litigation presented special circumstances warranting denial of fees, and alternatively maintained that the award inadequately reflected the voters’ limited success.

3. The Majority’s Legal Reasoning and Principal Precedents

A. Different questions require different standards of appellate review

Truesdell v. Phila. Hous. Auth., 290 F.3d 159, 163 (3d Cir. 2002), supplies the plenary-review standard for legal issues governing fee applications. The majority uses it to distinguish entitlement to fees from the discretionary calculation of their amount.

Rode v. Dellarciprete, 892 F.2d 1177 (3d Cir. 1990), performs several functions. The majority relies on it for abuse-of-discretion review of fee reasonableness and for the requirement that compensation for fee-petition litigation receive a separate lodestar analysis. The dissent also invokes it for the proposition that a lodestar may require reduction when the results obtained do not justify the calculated amount.

B. Prevailing-party status survived the procedural end of the merits dispute

The majority affirms the district court’s prevailing-party and special-circumstances determinations substantially for the reasons given in Migliori v. Lehigh Cnty. Bd. of Elections, 668 F. Supp. 3d 337, 345–49 (E.D. Pa. 2023). That incorporation is important: the appellate opinion announces the result but does not reproduce the district court’s complete doctrinal explanation.

Accordingly, the decision should not be converted into a categorical rule that every plaintiff whose favorable judgment is later vacated remains entitled to fees. Its narrower significance is that these voters retained prevailing-party status in this procedural setting, after obtaining an order that resulted in the disputed ballots being counted.

The Supreme Court’s mootness disposition did not decide the underlying statutory merits. Nevertheless, it removed the 2022 appellate judgment as an operative precedent. Fee entitlement therefore had to be assessed separately from whether that earlier opinion continued to govern future election disputes.

C. Specific objections create the permissible framework for reductions

The central authority is Bell v. United Princeton Properties, Inc., also cited in the opinion as Bell v. United Princeton Props., Inc., 884 F.2d 713 (3d Cir. 1989). Under Bell, a fee opponent must identify the contested portion of the request and explain its objection with enough specificity to notify the applicant what must be defended.

This requirement protects procedural fairness. A fee applicant should not discover only in the court’s decision that compensation was reduced for an objection never presented by the opposing party. But Bell does not require objections to eliminate all room for judicial evaluation.

Here, the Board identified particular activities and hours and explained why it considered them excessive. That satisfied the notice requirement. Once those objections were properly raised, the district court could exercise judgment in deciding the appropriate reduction.

The majority thus distinguishes:

• A new ground for objection: A reason for cutting fees that the opposing party did not actually raise.
• Judicial evaluation of an existing objection: The court’s assessment of how much time a challenged task reasonably required.

The latter is permissible. The district court considered the task’s nature, the number of attorneys involved, and their experience. Those explanations supported its reductions without turning judicial expertise into an independent, unannounced objection.

D. A federal judicial district need not constitute a single fee market

Interfaith Cmty. Org. v. Honeywell Int’l, Inc., 426 F.3d 694, 709 (3d Cir. 2005), as amended, establishes that the appropriate billing rate is a factual finding reviewed for clear error.

The district court recognized that the Eastern District of Pennsylvania encompasses locations with different legal markets and billing practices. Because this action was filed and litigated in Allentown, it selected Allentown as the relevant community. The majority found no clear error.

The court also approved reliance on the CLS fee schedule because both sides had relied on that schedule in their evidentiary submissions. The schedule therefore functioned as an accepted evidentiary benchmark in this record, not as a universally mandatory tariff.

This is a fact-sensitive ruling. It does not establish that Allentown rates must govern every case assigned there, or that evidence supporting a broader market or different rates could never matter.

E. Appellate work and fee-petition work remain distinct categories

For the merits appeal, the majority adopted the recommendation addressed in Migliori v. Lehigh Cnty. Bd. of Elections, 2025 WL 2493838, at *1 (E.D. Pa. July 31, 2025), applying the same reasoning concerning reasonable rates.

By contrast, compensation for litigating the fee petition failed for lack of substantiation. Although such work can be compensable, Rode v. Dellarciprete requires a separate lodestar analysis. The voters supplied neither that analysis nor supporting documentation, despite notice that supplemental briefing would complete the submissions.

The resulting denial was evidentiary and procedural. The court did not hold that “fees on fees” are categorically unavailable.

4. The Dissent: Competing Theories and the Authorities Supporting Them

Judge Matey’s dissent is substantially broader than the majority’s opinion. It challenges private enforcement of the Materiality Provision, questions the purposes served by organized impact litigation, and argues for a reduction reflecting limited success. These positions must be distinguished from the court’s holdings.

A. Private enforcement under § 1983

Migliori v. Cohen, 36 F.4th 153 (3d Cir. 2022), supplies the original merits history. Judge Matey explains that his earlier concurrence rested on party presentation: the opposing parties had not challenged whether the statute created an individual federal right and had inadequately developed their materiality arguments. The decision was later vacated, so it no longer supplied controlling precedent.

The dissent’s account highlights an important procedural principle: a court’s resolution may depend on the arguments the parties actually present. Judge Matey treats Ritter’s later Supreme Court submissions as supplying arguments missing from the original appeal, rather than merely repeating previously rejected positions.

Gonzaga Univ. v. Doe, 536 U.S. 273 (2002), is the foundation of the dissent’s private-right analysis. It requires an unambiguously conferred individual federal right before § 1983 can be used to enforce a statute. The distinction is between a law that benefits individuals and one that actually creates an enforceable entitlement.

Blessing v. Freestone, 520 U.S. 329 (1997), represents the earlier framework that Judge Matey believes circuit precedent continued to apply too readily. He argues that its factors cannot substitute for Gonzaga’s demand for unmistakable rights-creating language.

Medina v. Planned Parenthood S. Atl., 606 U.S. 357 (2025), is presented as the intervening clarification requiring courts to resist continued reliance on Blessing. For the dissent, it provides a reason to reconsider older circuit reasoning rather than treat the 2022 panel’s assumptions as settled.

Health & Hosp. Corp. of Marion Cnty. v. Talevski, 599 U.S. 166 (2023), reinforces the requirement of individual-focused, rights-creating statutory language. The dissent uses it to examine whether the Materiality Provision speaks in terms of individual entitlements or principally regulates official conduct.

Judge Matey concludes that the provision’s prohibition on a “person acting under color of law” is regulatory rather than sufficiently rights-creating. He also emphasizes that § 10101 expressly authorizes enforcement by the Attorney General. Importantly, the absence of an express private cause of action is not, standing alone, the entire § 1983 inquiry; his argument depends on the further conclusion that the statute confers no qualifying individual right.

Public rights, private rights, and contrary circuit decisions

• Three Rivers Ctr. for Indep. Living v. Hous. Auth. of Pittsburgh, 382 F.3d 412 (3d Cir. 2004), distinguishes individual entitlements from aggregate or systemwide statutory duties. The dissent uses that distinction to characterize the Materiality Provision as protecting a collective interest rather than a privately enforceable entitlement.

• TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U.S. 413 (2021), appears in two distinct ways. Justice Thomas’s dissent supplies language about duties owed to the community, while the Court’s opinion supplies an observation about private plaintiffs’ lack of public accountability. Neither passage itself decides whether this voting statute is enforceable under § 1983.

• Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330 (2016), is cited through Justice Thomas’s concurrence for a historical description of public rights. Its role is conceptual, not a direct holding about voting-rights enforcement.

• Schwier v. Cox, 340 F.3d 1284 (11th Cir. 2003), and Vote.Org v. Callanen, 89 F.4th 459 (5th Cir. 2023), reached conclusions contrary to the dissent’s position on private enforcement. Judge Matey discounts them because the former relied partly on Blessing and the latter partly on the former. Their inclusion shows that his interpretation is contested, not universally established.

• Brnovich v. Democratic Nat’l Comm., 594 U.S. 647 (2021), is invoked through Justice Gorsuch’s concurrence questioning private enforcement of § 2 of the Voting Rights Act. That separate opinion supplies an analogy involving another voting statute, not a binding resolution of the present provision.

• Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians v. Howe, 137 F.4th 710 (8th Cir. 2025), similarly provides an analogy concerning § 2. The supplied opinion expressly notes that the decision was vacated in July 2026. Its vacated status substantially limits its authoritative force.

B. The asserted collective character of voting rights

The dissent supports its statutory interpretation with an extended historical and philosophical argument that the franchise belongs collectively to the political community rather than existing as an indefeasible individual entitlement. This discussion is not adopted by the majority.

Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1 (1964), and Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964), are cited as decisions emphasizing the fundamental importance of voting and constitutional protection for qualified voters. They stand in tension with the dissent’s broad collective-right characterization.

The dissent contrasts those decisions with language in San Antonio Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1 (1973), and Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000). The latter concerns the absence of a freestanding federal constitutional entitlement to a popular vote for presidential electors. These context-specific statements should not be read as eliminating constitutional protections governing access to voting once a state establishes an electoral system.

Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 (1886), is cited for historical language describing the franchise as conferred subject to societal conditions. Judge Matey uses that language to support his distinction between collective political authority and individual entitlement.

The accompanying references to Cicero, Aquinas, Bellarmine, Roman censorship, English property qualifications, Blackstone, Cooley, and modern common-good constitutionalism are historical or philosophical materials, not judicial precedents. They explain the dissent’s interpretive outlook but do not create a contemporary legal requirement that voters demonstrate “virtue.”

The dissent’s reference to the SAVE America Act likewise concerns proposed legislation described as having passed the House. The opinion does not establish that the proposal became law.

C. Voter qualifications versus ballot-casting requirements

Ritter v. Migliori encompasses several materially different Supreme Court actions: a temporary stay, its subsequent dissolution with a dissent, and eventual vacatur for mootness. Those actions must not be collapsed into a Supreme Court merits ruling.

Justice Alito’s dissent from denial of a stay argued that failing to comply with ballot-casting procedures differs from being denied the right to vote because of an immaterial qualification-related error. Judge Matey adopts that distinction, while recognizing that it originated here in a separate opinion rather than a controlling Supreme Court merits decision.

Pa. State Conf. of NAACP Branches v. Sec’y Commw. of Pa., 97 F.4th 120 (3d Cir. 2024), supplies the subsequent circuit holding. As described in the dissent, it concluded that Pennsylvania’s mail-ballot dating requirement is not covered by the Materiality Provision. Judge Matey regards that decision as resolving the statutory issue against the theory advanced by these voters.

The distinction remains crucial: a later adverse merits interpretation does not automatically answer whether litigants previously obtained judicial relief sufficient to qualify for fees. Indeed, Judge Matey agrees that these plaintiffs meet existing prevailing-party standards despite his merits objections.

D. Special circumstances and the private-attorney-general model

The dissent argues that § 1988 was designed to reward litigants enforcing existing civil-rights law for themselves and others, not organizations using individual plaintiffs to pursue broader legal change. Its principal historical authorities are:

• Associated Indus. of N.Y. State v. Ickes, 134 F.2d 694 (2d Cir. 1943), supplies an early description of the “private attorney general.” The opinion notes that the judgment was vacated for mootness; it serves primarily as historical background.

• Newman v. Piggie Park Enters., Inc., 390 U.S. 400 (1968), establishes that successful civil-rights injunction plaintiffs ordinarily recover fees unless special circumstances would make an award unjust. The dissent derives from it a conception of plaintiffs vindicating both personal interests and congressional policy.

• Lee v. S. Home Sites Corp., 444 F.2d 143 (5th Cir. 1971), and Incarcerated Men of Allen Cnty. Jail v. Fair, 507 F.2d 281 (6th Cir. 1974), illustrate the development of equitable fee shifting before Congress enacted § 1988.

• Alyeska Pipeline Serv. Co. v. Wilderness Soc’y, 421 U.S. 240 (1975), rejected judicial creation of a broad private-attorney-general exception to the American rule. The dissent uses it to emphasize legislative control over fee shifting and to frame § 1988 as a bounded statutory exception.

The dissent’s proposed distinction between enforcing and changing law is consequential but was not adopted. Civil-rights litigation frequently requires resolving unsettled statutory questions, and an organization’s interest in broader reform does not by itself establish that an individual plaintiff lacks a genuine injury. Here, the voters’ own ballots were excluded.

Champerty and organizational involvement

Wheeler v. Pounds, 24 Ala. 472 (1854), provides historical condemnation of champerty. Miller v. Calvin, 1984 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21057 (D. Colo. Dec. 20, 1984), supplies an analogy involving concerns that proposed class representatives were figureheads controlled by outsiders.

The dissent also cites In re Wawa, Inc. Data Sec. Litig., 85 F.4th 712 (3d Cir. 2023), by analogy to concerns about the relationship between named plaintiffs, counsel, and litigation beneficiaries. These authorities do not themselves establish that nonprofit-supported voting litigation constitutes champerty.

Farrar v. Hobby, 506 U.S. 103 (1992), is invoked through Justice O’Connor’s concurrence for the observation that a reasonable fee can sometimes be no fee. That quotation supports the possibility of denying compensation in appropriate circumstances; it does not establish a general exclusion for impact litigation.

Staten v. Hous. Auth. of Pittsburgh, 638 F.2d 599 (3d Cir. 1980), and Ashley v. Atl. Richfield Co., 794 F.2d 128 (3d Cir. 1986), supply examples of circumstances potentially supporting denial of fees: events beyond a defendant’s control and nuisance settlements, respectively. The dissent presents them as illustrations of the exception, not as factually identical cases.

The majority rejected the special-circumstances challenge by adopting the district court’s reasoning. It made no finding that the voters were sham plaintiffs or that their representation involved unlawful financing or collusion.

E. Limited success as an alternative basis for reduction

Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424 (1983), supplies the dissent’s strongest conventional fee-calculation argument. A court begins with reasonable hours multiplied by a reasonable rate, but the ultimate award must reflect the degree of success obtained.

Judge Matey distinguishes the voters’ successful demand to have the 2021 ballots counted from their broader request for a lasting declaration that the dating requirement violated federal law. Because the latter objective failed, he argues that the district court should have reduced the award further.

The dissent criticizes the assessment reflected in Migliori v. Lehigh Cnty. Bd. of Elections, 2025 WL 2493843, at *2 n.5 (E.D. Pa. May 19, 2025), the report and recommendation adopted below. This is a separate district court document from the July 2025 decision cited by the majority.

Washington v. Phila. Cnty. Ct. of Common Pleas, 89 F.3d 1031 (3d Cir. 1996), and Cunningham v. City of McKeesport, 753 F.2d 262 (3d Cir. 1985), support the proposition that reliance on improper considerations constitutes legal error. Judge Matey uses them to argue that deferential review does not shield a fee calculation based on the wrong legal understanding of success.

This disagreement exposes two possible measures of achievement: the concrete relief obtained for the named voters and the broader precedential change sought by their advocates. The majority affirmed without separately answering the dissent’s extended analysis, expressly noting the opinion’s narrow, nonprecedential purpose.

5. Impact and Practical Significance

Fee entitlement is distinct from enduring merits success

The decision illustrates that obtaining practical, court-ordered relief and securing a permanent precedent are different achievements. Here, the former supported fee eligibility despite later mootness and vacatur. The opinion does not supply a universal test for every vacated judgment.

Specific objections matter more than generalized opposition

Fee opponents should identify challenged work and articulate why its hours are unreasonable. Applicants should respond directly with task-specific explanations. Once a proper objection is raised, the district court retains considerable latitude to assess staffing, duplication, experience, and time reasonably required.

Local-market evidence can materially affect recovery

Practitioners should not assume that the highest-rate city within a federal district determines compensation everywhere in that district. The relevant market requires evidentiary attention, and a schedule both sides use may become a persuasive benchmark.

Supplemental fee requests require independent support

Eligibility to recover fees for litigating a fee petition does not excuse failure to document that work. A separate, supported lodestar calculation is essential.

The dissent identifies future disputes without resolving them

Private enforcement after Medina v. Planned Parenthood S. Atl., the treatment of limited success, and proposed special-circumstances restrictions on impact litigation may recur. But this opinion does not adopt Judge Matey’s proposed restrictions or reopen the underlying voting-rights merits.

Its formal influence remains limited by its nonprecedential designation. Its principal value is persuasive and practical: it shows how existing fee principles operate in an unusually complicated procedural setting.

6. Complex Concepts Simplified

Section 1983

A legal vehicle for enforcing qualifying federal rights against persons acting under state authority. A statute must create an enforceable right; merely benefiting someone is insufficient.

Section 1988

A provision allowing reasonable attorneys’ fees in specified civil-rights actions. It addresses litigation costs rather than creating the underlying voting right.

Prevailing party

A party whose litigation success satisfies the legal threshold for possible fee recovery. Crossing that threshold does not guarantee every requested dollar.

Lodestar

Reasonable hours multiplied by a reasonable hourly rate. It is the starting point for calculating fees, subject to appropriate adjustments.

Fees on fees

Compensation for legal work required to obtain a fee award. Such work may qualify, but it must be separately substantiated.

Vacatur and mootness

Vacatur sets aside a judgment. Mootness means the merits dispute no longer presents a live controversy. Neither necessarily resolves every collateral question, including litigation fees.

Special circumstances

An exception allowing denial of fees when an award would be unjust despite prevailing-party status. The majority found no such circumstances here.

Champerty

A historical doctrine concerning outside support of litigation for a share or benefit from its outcome. The dissent invoked it by analogy; the court did not find unlawful champerty.

Voter qualifications versus ballot validity

The distinction between whether a person is eligible to vote and whether that person complied with procedures for submitting a countable ballot.

7. Conclusion

The Third Circuit affirmed both the voters’ eligibility for § 1988 fees and the district court’s reductions. Its practical message is that prevailing-party status does not eliminate scrutiny of hours, rates, documentation, or results.

The decision also preserves an important distinction between a judgment’s continuing precedential force and the practical relief previously obtained. Judge Matey’s broader objections to private enforcement and impact litigation remain dissenting proposals—not rules established by this nonprecedential opinion.