In an important victory for prisoners’ rights in Washington, State Supreme Court unanimously rules that attorney fees must be paid on meritorious claims.
In a sweeping 9-0 opinion today, the Washington Supreme Court ruled that Allan Parmalee, a prisoner at the state’s Clallam Bay Correctional Center, is entitled to an award of attorney fees for successfully challenging the constitutionality of a state law that was used to punish him for criticizing a prison official.
The decision reversed an earlier Court of Appeals decision that, while agreeing with Parmalee that his constitutional rights had been violated, refused to compensate him for attorney costs in bringing the action.
The case stemmed from a 2005 letter Parmalee wrote in which he harshly criticized the prison superintendent. The Department of Corrections ruled he was guilty of criminal libel and punished him by putting him in isolation and suspending his privileges for ten days. Parmalee challenged the ruling in Superior Court and filed his own charges, including retaliation and violations of his rights to due process and free speech. 
After his challenge was dismissed, he appealed to the State Court of Appeals which not only found that the lower court erred in dismissing the retaliation claim but also ruled that the criminal libel statute used to punish him was “facially unconstitutional.” Yet, the Appeals Court also found that Parmalee was not entitled to an award of attorney fees unless and until he successfully litigated his retaliation claim before a trial court.
That was the controversy that the Supreme Court resoundingly settled today in the unanimous opinion authored by Justice Susan Owens.
“We find that his infraction [the violation of his constitutional rights] is certainly ‘significant issue in litigation,’” Justice Owens wrote, “and that having it vacated “‘achieve[d] some of thebenefit [Parmelee] sought in bringing suit,’” even if it did not result in monetary damages. Parmelee’s actions also resulted in the alteration of the legal relationship between the parties by modifying the DOC’s behavior in a way that directly benefited Parmelee, as an infraction that Parmelee once had on his record is no longer there.”
Thus, the Court ruled: “The Court of Appeals abused its discretion in not awarding attorney fees, and Parmelee can collect attorney fees now for his work in obtaining a vacation of his infraction and in getting the state’s criminal libel statute overturned. We remand to the Court of Appeals to determine the amount of the attorney fees.”
The Center for Justice joined the American Civil Liberties Union, Columbia Legal Services and two other legal organizations in filing briefs in support of Parmalee’s rights to have his attorney fees reimbursed.
Attorney fee awards “are essential to the protection of civil liberties,” the Center argued in its brief. “Without the availability of interim fee awards on appeal, many civil rights plaintiffs with limited resources simply will choose not to appeal erroneous trial court decisions that affect important civil rights.”
With today’s ruling, the case was remanded to the Court of Appeals for the assignment of attorney fees, and further remanded to the trial court “for litigation of Parmalee’s claims for damages for retaliation, First Amendment violations, and substantive due process violations.”
–CFJ
