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Brief Collection, LDF Court Filings. Henry v. Clarksdale Municipal Separate School District Response to the Court's Letter Inquiries, 1977. 44a4a305-b89a-ee11-be36-6045bdeb8873. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/b7e9fe48-fa91-40be-9c2f-83398767b152/henry-v-clarksdale-municipal-separate-school-district-response-to-the-courts-letter-inquiries. Accessed August 19, 2025.
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UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT IN THE No. 76-1207 REBECCA E. HENRY, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, vs. CLARKSDALE MUNICIPAL SEPARATE SCHOOL DISTRICT, et al., Defendants-Appellees Appeal From The United States District Court For The Northern District of Mississippi Delta Division RESPONSE TO THE COURT'S LETTER INQUIRIES JACK GREENBERG MELVYN R. LEVENTRAL Suite 2030 10 Columbus Circle New York, New York 10019 May, 1977 Attorneys for Plaintiffs- Appellants IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT No. 76-1207 REBECCA E. HENRY, et al.( Plaintiffs-Appellants, vs. CLARKSDALE MUNICIPAL SEPARATE SCHOOL DISTRICT, et al., Defendants-Appellees Appeal From The United States District Court For The Northern District of Mississippi Delta Division RESPONSE TO THE COURT'S LETTER INQUIRIES 1 2 1. Should Section 718 of the Emergency School Act, 20 U.S.C. 1617, be applied retroactively? 2. Is this case more closely analogous to Brewer v. School Board of Norfolk, 500 F.2d 1129 (4th Cir. 1974), or Scott v. Winston Salem/Forsyth City Board of Education, 400 F.Supp. 65 (M.D.N.C.) aff'd without opinion, 530 F.2d 969 (4th Cir. 1975? 3. Were Brewer and Scott correctly decided? This case does not present an issue of retroactivity. There was not, for example, a request for fees made prior to the enactment of §1617, a denial of such fees, an appeal and final disposition, followed by a request to reopen and relitigate the fee issue after §1617 was enacted. Retroactivity was the issue in Scott v. Winston- Salem Forsyth County Board of Education, 400 F.Supp 65, 67 (M.D. N.C.), aff'd without opinion, 530 F.2d 969 (4th Cir. 1975). There plaintiffs had litigated and recovered attorneys1 fees for time expended since the inception of the litigation through June 11, 1973, the court and the parties had considered the matter closed and plaintiffs, nine months later, filed a second motion to recover fees 1/ from the inception of the litigation. Nor can there be any real dispute that §1617 controls cases in which a request for an award of fees (not a request for substantive relief as was held by the district court) was pending on, or timely entered subsequent to, the date §1617 was enacted. That is the clear holding of Bradley, Brewer, supra, and a 1/ The issue of retroactivity arises when a final judg ment with all appeals exhausted, is under collateral attack. Thus in Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U.S. 618 (1965), the exclusionary rule established by Mapp v. Ohio was applied prespectively only, and was not available to state prisoner whose judgment of conviction had become final prior to Mapp. But the Mapp exclusionary rule applied to all cases pending at the time of Mapp; Johnson v. New Jersey, 384 U.S. 719 (1966); See also O'Connor v. Ohio, 385 U.S. 92 (1956); Doughty v. Maxwell, 376 U.S. 202 (1964); United States v. LaVallee, 330 F.2d 303 (2d Cir. 1964). 2 host of other cases. And both Brewer and Scott were correctly decided. The critical issue before the Court is whether in a school desegregation case, a motion for an award of fees must be entered early in the litigation or coin cidentally with an order requiring the implementation of what is perceived to be a final plan, or is a motion for an award of fees timely when filed after the equit able relief proves efficacious and the litigation nears 1/or reaches final resolution. Through the Clarksdale IV 2/ 2/ Howard v. Allen, 368 F.Supp.310, 314-15 (S.C. 1973), aff'd without opinion, 487 F.2d 1397 (4th Cir. 1973) cert. denied, 417 U.S. 912(1974)(remedial or procedural statutes to be applied "retrospectively," to cases pending at the time of enactment). United States v. Hauqhton, 413 F.2d 736,738 (9th Cir. 1969)("Statutes effecting procedural changes, which do not otherwise alter substantive rights, generally are con sidered immediately applicable to pending cases.") Standard Acc. Inc. Co. v. Miller, 170 F.2d 495 (7th Cir. 1948). Seqars v. Gomez, 360 F.Supp. 50 (D.C. S.C. 1972). Bruner v. United States, 343 U.S. 112 (1952); Ex parte Collett, 337 U.S. 55 (1949); Orr v. United States, 174 F.2d 577 (2d Cir. 1949); In re Moneys Deposited, etc. 243 F.2d 443 (3d Cir. 1957); Frye v. Celbrezze, 365 F.2d 865, 867 (4th Cir. 1966); Bowles v. Strickland, 151 F.2d 419 (5th Cir. 1945); Hoadlev v. San Francisco, 94 U.S. 4 (1876); Congress of Racial Equality v. Clinton, 346 F.2d 911 (5th Cir. 1964); Rachel v. Georgia, 342 F.2d 336 (5th Cir. 1965), aff'd 384 U.S. 780 (1966). 3/ That the litigation had not come to an end is further "confirmed by a Motion of Defendants for Order of Dismissal filed in the trial court on January 16, 1976. Therein defendants acknowledge that the case did not come to a conclusion until the school system had been operating,for three years, a fully unitary system. See appellants Motion for Leave to Supplement the Record [on appeal], and order granting same, April 25, 1977, (per Tjoflat, C.J) . 3 thislanguage quoted in the Court's letter inquiry, Court has already resolved this critical issue in plaintiffs' favor; i.e., the Court, in effect, held that the litigation was drawing to a close with Clarksdale IV ^ and that a motion for fees was, at that point, appropriate. Accordingly, Clarksdale IV indeed precludes the district court holding that the litigation "had come to an end before a request for fees had been made. 11 Moreover, the Clarksdale IV holding is entirely responsive to consider ations controlling school desegregation and equity litigation generally. In Johnson v. Combs, 471 F.2d 84, 87 (5th Cir. 1972) 1 / 4/ What effect does the following language in Clarksdale IV have on the present litigation; The district court shall also grant a hearing to determine whether or not the appellants’ actions in this lawsuit were carried out in an "unreasonable and obdurately obstinate" manner in the years preceding July 1, 1972, so as to entitle appellees to be awarded reason able attorneys' fees for services before that date. I_d. 585-86. More specifically, is the finding of the district court that this litigation had come to an end before a request for fees had been made precluded by the above language? 5/ On remand the district court, on September 18, 1974, entered an order requiring the submission of proof of attorneys' fees in accordance with the mandate of Clarksdale IV. (A.280-82) Plaintiffs, after obtaining extensions of^ time, filed their affidavits in Support of Motion for Award of Fees on January 10, 1975 (A.281) and January 22, 1975 (A.287) . 4 (rejected on other grounds in Bradley v. Richmond School Board, 416 U.S. 696, n. 20 (1974)), this Court held that §1617 allows fee awards only "upon 'the entry of a final order.' . . . Since most school cases involve relief of an injunctive nature which must prove its efficacy over a period of time it is obvious that many significant and appealable decrees will occur in the course of litigation which should not qualify as final in the sense of deter mining the issues in controversy." See also, Appellants' Reply Brief, pp. 7-11. In Sprague v. Ticonic National Bank, 307 U.S. 161, 168 (1939) 83 L.Ed. 1184, plaintiff first requested attor- neys' fees only after the conclusion of the case on the merits; the trial court held that the request for fees came too late. The Supreme Court reversed,holding through Mr. Justice Frankfurter: Certainly the claim for . . . [attorneys' fees] was not directly in issue in the original proceedings by Sprague . . . . Its disposition . . . could be implied only if a claim for such . . . [fees] was necessarily implied in the claim in tne original suit, and its failure to ask for such . . . [fees] an implied waiver. These implications are repelled by the basis on which such costs are granted. They are not of a routine character like ordinary taxable costs; they are contingent upon the exigencies of equitable litigation, the final disposition of which in its entire process including appeal place such a claim in much better perspective than it would have at an earlier stage. Such are the considerations which underlay the decision in Internal Improv. Fund, v. Greenbough 105 U.S. 527, 5 in holding that an order allowing . . . [attorneys fees] was a final judgment for purposes of appeal because 'the inguiry was a collateral one, having a distinct and independent character. (Emphasis added) Finally, the Court asks whether "plaintiff's request for attorneys' fees, initially made in their brief on appeal in Henry v. Clarksdale M.S.S.D., 480 F.2d 533 (5th Cir. 1973) (Clarksdale IV), [was] sufficient to put fees incurred prior to that time in issue," and whether "due process considerations preclude such an application." aWe have already argued that/motion for fees after 6/ remand of Clarksdale IV would have been timely; such a motion was unnecessary since this Court, through its mandate in Clarksdale IV, directed the district court to consider an award of fees. In any event, under the reasoning of Bradley there is no violation of due process even assuming "a delay." 6/ Plaintiffs' 1954 Complaint prayed for "costs herein and such further, other, additional or alternative relief as may appear to the Court to be equitable and just." (A.21-22) The Supreme Court has held that a challenge to a private club's membership practices included, through "a customary prayer for other relief" an attack on policies for serving guests of members. Plaintiffs request for costs and and other relief put defendants on notice that attorneys fees could be sought. Irvis v. Moose Lodge, 407 U.S. 153, 170 (1972). Moreover, in light of Rule 54(c), FRCP, a court is required to award all relief to which plaintiffs are entitled, even when it is not specifically requested in a pleading, provided there is no prejudice to the other party. Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U.S. 405, 424 (1975). As to whether Clarksdale defendants are prejudiced by an award of fees, see pp. 7-9 below. 6 The Bradley Court held that only upon proof of "manifest injustice," could there by a departure from the general rule that "a court is to apply the law in effect at the time it renders its decision." The Court undertook a three-part inquiry to determine under what circumstances "manifest injustice" arises from the application of the rule and, in the course of that inquiry/fully explored all the "due process" arguments available to a school district. Bradley, supra, 416 U.S. at 716-722. The Court began by noting that "manifest injustice" will generally arise "in mere private cases between individuals," or when as in Greene v. United States, 376 U.S. 149, the government attempts to deprive an individual of a matured and fully litigated claim through the retroactive application of a new regulation, 416 U.S. at 717, and n. 24. In a school desegregation case: (a) the "parties consist, on the one hand, of the School Board, a publicly funded governmental entity, and, on the other, a class of children whose constitutional right to a nondiscriminatory education has been advanced by . . . [the] litigation;" it is "not appropriate to view the parties as engaged in a routine private lawsuit" and plaintiffs are in fact representatives of the entire community; (b) a "publicly elected school board" has no "matured or unconditional right" to the "funds allocated to it by the taxpayers," which funds "were essentially held in trust for the public," (c) any claim that 7 "unanticipated obligations may be imposed upon . . . [the school board] without notice or an opportunity to be heard" has no cogency: Here no increased burden was imposed since §718 did not alter the Board's constitutional responsibility for providing pupils with a nondiscrimina- tory education. Also there was no change in the substantive obligation of the parties. From the outset, upon the filing of the original complaint in 1961, the Board engaged in a conscious course of conduct with the knowledge that, under different theories, . . . the Board could have been required to pay attorneys' fees. Even assuming a degree of uncertainty in the law at that time regarding the Board1s con stitutional obligations, there is no indication that the obligation under 718, if known, rather than simply the common-law availability of an award, would have caused the Board to . . . [alter] its conduct so as to render this litigation unnecessary and there by preclude the incurring of such costs. The availability of 718 to sustain the award of fees against the Board there fore merely serves to create an addition al basis or source for the Board's potential obligation to pay attorney's fees. It does not impose an additional or unforeseen obligation upon it. 416 U.S. at 721.(Emphasis added.) The three part inquiry undertaken in Bradley and in particular its third aspect, quoted fully immediately above, applies to the Clarksdale defendants. Assuming that our prayer for costs in the original complaint (see n.6, above), was not sufficient to put defendants on notice that attorneys' fees may be sought (an assumption 8 rejected by Bradley), there is no indication that a lack of such notice injured these defendants because they hold funds in trust for the public and because only the uninitiated would ask whether this school board and this superintendent would have defended the case differently if only they knew that they might be held liable for plaintiffs' attorneys' fees. Respectfully submitted, JACK 'GREENBERG MELVYN R. LEVENTHAL Suite 2030 10 Columbus Circle New York, N.Y.10019 Attorneys for Plaintiffs- Appellants. CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE I hereby certify that on this 11th day of May, 1977, I caused to be served by United States mail, postage prepaid, a copy of the foregoing Appellants Response to the Court's Letter Inquiries upon counsel for appellees as follows: Semmes Luckett, Esq. 121 Yazoo Avenue Clarksdale, Mississippi 38614 Attoriley for Plaintiffs- 9