Respondent New York City Department of Social Services (DSS) restored petitioner's Medicaid benefits almost immediately after the commencement of this proceeding. In view of this, Supreme Court dismissed as moot petitioner's request, inter alia, for a judgment declaring unconstitutional respondents' method of terminating such benefits. Nevertheless, Supreme Court, apparently concluding that petitioner was the prevailing party, determined that petitioner was entitled to an award of attorney's fees. This was error.
While petitioner asserts that attorney's fees were authorized because the filing of the petition was the "catalyst" for the remedial action taken by DSS, namely a restoration of his benefits, this theory of recovery has recently been rejected by the United States Supreme Court (Buckhannon Bd. Care Home, Inc. v. W. Virginia Dept. of Health and Human Resources, U.S. 121 S.Ct. 1835 [May 29, 2001]; see also, Matter of New York State Clinical Laboratory Assn., Inc. v. Kaladjian, 85 N.Y.2d 346, 354 [standard for prevailing party status under State Equal Access to Justice Act stricter than Federal counterpart]). Since Supreme Court did not issue an enforceable judgment on the merits of petitioner's constitutional claims, there was no material alteration in the legal relationship of the parties sufficient to support an award of attorney's fees (Buckhannon, supra).