Choate

A lion produced a mouse. A seven-week jury trial in a lawsuit seeking hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages resulted in a verdict that a single sheriff’s deputy committed a civil rights violation, with an award of $3,380 in compensatory and $1,000 in punitive damages.

Plaintiffs sought almost $250,000 in attorney fees for achieving this victory, which was pyrrhic in every respect save the potential of the fee request. But the court went beyond a mere denial. Acting under the misconception that turnabout is fair play, it awarded nearly the same amount (some $240,000) for defendants’ attorney fees.

We hold the court had discretion to taketh away, but no discretion to giveth. Because of plaintiffs’ extremely limited success on their civil rights claims, we follow Farrar v. Hobby (1992) 506 U.S. 103 [ 113 S.Ct. 566 , 121 L.Ed.2d 494 ] and leave each side to bear its own attorney fees.

Plaintiffs’ other grounds for reversal are without merit. They complain the denial of their right to introduce conspiracy evidence was “error per se,” but we know of no such rule of automatic reversal in civil cases. And remanding this litigation for additional months of trial to…