Lackey v. Stinnie

(Slip Opinion)              OCTOBER TERM, 2024                                       1

                                       Syllabus

         NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
       being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
       The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
       prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
       See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 

200 U. S. 321, 337

.


SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

                                       Syllabus

   LACKEY, COMMISSIONER OF THE VIRGINIA
 DEPARTMENT OF MOTOR VEHICLES v. STINNIE ET
                    AL.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR
                 THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

   No. 23–621.      Argued October 8, 2024—Decided February 25, 2025


Drivers whose licenses were suspended under a Virginia statute for fail-
 ure to pay court fines sued the Commissioner of the Virginia Depart-
 ment of Motor Vehicles under 

42 U. S. C. §1983

, challenging the stat-
 ute as unconstitutional. The District Court granted a preliminary
 injunction prohibiting the Commissioner from enforcing the statute.
 Before trial, the Virginia General Assembly repealed the statute and
 required reinstatement of licenses suspended under the law. The par-
 ties then agreed to dismiss the pending case as moot.
    Section 1988(b) allows an award of attorney’s fees to “prevailing par-
 ties” under §1983. The District Court declined to award attorney’s fees
 to the drivers under that section on the ground that parties who obtain
 a preliminary injunction do not qualify as “prevailing part[ies].” A
 Fourth Circuit panel affirmed, but the Fourth Circuit reversed en
 banc. The en banc court held that some preliminary injunctions can
 provide lasting, merits-based relief and qualify plaintiffs as prevailing
 parties, even if the case becomes moot before final judgment.
Held: The plaintiff drivers here—who gained only preliminary injunctive
 relief before this action became moot—do not qualify as “prevailing
 part[ies]” eligible for attorney’s fees under §1988(b) because no court
 conclusively resolved their claims by granting enduring judicial relief
 on the merits that materially altered the legal relationship between
 the parties. Pp. 4–13.
    (a) Under the “American Rule,” a prevailing litigant is ordinarily not
2                           LACKEY v. STINNIE

                                    Syllabus

    entitled to collect attorneys’ fees from the loser absent express statu-
    tory authorization. See Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. Wilderness So-
    ciety, 

421 U. S. 240, 249

. Congress has provided that in actions
    brought under certain civil rights statutes—including 42 U. S. C.
    §1983—“the court, in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party,
    other than the United States, a reasonable attorney’s fee as part of the
    costs.” §1988(b).
       To determine whether the drivers here qualify as “prevailing
    part[ies]” under §1988(b), the Court begins with the statute’s text. The
    Court has recognized “prevailing party” as a legal term of art. Buck-
    hannon Board & Care Home, Inc. v. West Virginia Dept. of Health and
    Human Resources, 

532 U. S. 598, 603

. When §1988(b) was adopted,
    contemporary dictionaries defined a prevailing party as one who suc-
    cessfully maintains its claim when the matter is finally resolved. See
    Black’s Law Dictionary 1352 (4th ed. 1968); Ballentine’s Law Diction-
    ary 985 (3d ed. 1969).
       Preliminary injunctions do not make a party “prevailing” because
    they do not conclusively decide the case on the merits. Such injunc-
    tions only determine if a plaintiff is likely to succeed, along with factors
    such as irreparable harm, the balance of equities, and the public in-
    terest. See Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 

555 U. S. 7, 20

. The purpose of a preliminary injunction is to preserve the
    status quo until a trial can occur, see University of Tex. v. Camenisch,
    

451 U. S. 390, 395

, and external events that render a dispute moot do
    not convert that temporary order into a conclusive adjudication.
    Pp. 4–7.
       (b) The Court’s precedents interpreting §1988(b) establish that a
    plaintiff “prevails” when a court grants enduring judicial relief that
    materially alters the legal relationship between the parties. Two re-
    cent decisions emphasize that this change must be both judicially sanc-
    tioned and enduring. In Buckhannon, the Court rejected the “catalyst
    theory”—the theory that a plaintiff may receive attorney’s fees under
    §1988(b) when he “achieves the desired result because the lawsuit
    brought about a voluntary change in the defendant’s conduct.” 

532 U. S., at 601

. The Court explained that the plaintiff was not a “pre-
    vailing party” because there had been “no judicially sanctioned change
    in the legal relationship of the parties.” 

Id., at 605

. And in Sole v.
    Wyner, 

551 U. S. 74

, the Court decided that a plaintiff initially granted
    a preliminary injunction after an abbreviated hearing, but denied a
    permanent injunction after a adjudication on the merits, did not qual-
    ify as a “prevailing party” within the meaning of §1988(b) because the
    plaintiff gained no enduring change in the legal relationship between
    herself and the defendants. Id., at 77, 78, 86. The Court’s holding in
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                                Syllabus

  this case—that the enduring nature of that change must itself be judi-
  cially sanctioned—follows naturally from Sole and Buckhannon. A
  plaintiff who wins a transient victory on a preliminary injunction does
  not become a “prevailing party” simply because external events con-
  vert the transient victory into a lasting one. Pp. 7–9.
     (c) The rule established serves the interests of judicial economy. A
  straightforward, bright-line rule is easy to administer, reducing the
  risk of significant litigation over attorney’s fees. Concerns that gov-
  ernment defendants who have lost at the preliminary injunction stage
  will strategically moot litigation are speculative, and such a risk could
  arise in only a small number of contexts. The judicial role here is lim-
  ited. Congress may amend the statutory language to empower courts
  to award attorney’s fees to plaintiffs who have enjoyed some success
  but have not prevailed in a judgment on the merits. Pp. 10–11.
     (d) The drivers’ remaining arguments are unpersuasive. The argu-
  ment that §1988(b) was enacted against a historical backdrop that fa-
  vored awarding interim costs at equity, including for preliminary in-
  junctions, was rejected by the Court in Alyeska Pipeline. 

421 U. S., at 241, 247

. The drivers also contend that the availability of fees in some
  cases while litigation is ongoing suggests that §1988(b) includes no fi-
  nality requirement, but the Court’s decisions simply indicate that at-
  torney’s fees may be awarded when conclusive, enduring judicial relief
  is meted out on an incremental basis. Finally, the availability of fees
  after a court-ordered consent decree is consistent with the rule an-
  nounced here. While the decree reflects the parties’ own resolution of
  the merits, it is approved and given force of law by a court, and it may
  grant enduring relief that materially alters the legal relationship be-
  tween the parties. The dissent conflates preliminary judicial relief
  that becomes irreversible by way of mootness with relief that is perma-
  nent by virtue of a judicial order. Pp. 11–13.

77 F. 4th 200

, reversed and remanded.

  ROBERTS, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which THOMAS,
ALITO, KAGAN, GORSUCH, KAVANAUGH, and BARRETT, JJ., joined. JACK-
SON, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SOTOMAYOR, J., joined.
                        Cite as: 

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                             Opinion of the Court

     NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
     United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of
     Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543,
     pio@supremecourt.gov, of any typographical or other formal errors.


SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
                                   _________________

                                   No. 23–621
                                   _________________


 GERALD F. LACKEY, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS THE
 COMMISSIONER OF THE VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT
  OF MOTOR VEHICLES, PETITIONER v. DAMIAN
                STINNIE, ET AL.
 ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
           APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
                              [February 25, 2025]

   CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the
Court.
   Respondents are Virginia drivers whose licenses were
suspended due to their failure to pay court fines or costs.
The drivers sued the Commissioner of the Virginia Depart-
ment of Motor Vehicles under 

42 U. S. C. §1983

, arguing
that the Virginia statute requiring suspension of their li-
censes was unconstitutional. The District Court prelimi-
narily enjoined the Commissioner from enforcing the stat-
ute. But before the case reached final judgment, the
Virginia General Assembly repealed the challenged law,
rendering the action moot. The question presented is
whether the drivers are “prevailing part[ies]” who qualify
for an award of attorney’s fees under §1988(b).
                                I
   Until recently, a Virginia statute directed the state courts
to suspend the license of any driver who failed to pay “any
fine, costs, forfeitures, restitution, or penalty lawfully as-
sessed against him” for violation of a federal, state, or local
law. The suspension remained in force until the amount
2                    LACKEY v. STINNIE

                      Opinion of the Court

due was paid in full or the driver entered into a court-
approved payment plan. 

Va. Code Ann. §46

.2–395(B)
(2016) (repealed 2020). Virginia drivers—whose licenses
were suspended under the law and who asserted that they
could not afford to pay the fines or costs or keep up with a
payment plan—sued the Commissioner of the Virginia De-
partment of Motor Vehicles on their own behalf and on be-
half of a putative class. The drivers alleged that the statute
facially violated the Due Process Clause by “failing to pro-
vide sufficient notice or hearing to any driver before license
suspension” and violated both the Due Process and Equal
Protection Clauses “as applied to people who cannot afford
to pay due to their modest financial circumstances.” First
Amended Class Action Complaint in Stinnie v. Holcomb,
No. 3:16−cv−00044 (WD Va., Sept. 11, 2018), ECF Doc. 84,
pp. 2−3; see also 

id.,

 at 37−43. The drivers sought declara-
tory relief, preliminary and permanent injunctive relief,
and attorney’s fees under 

42 U. S. C. §1988

(b).
   In December 2018, the District Court granted a prelimi-
nary injunction, prohibiting the Commissioner from enforc-
ing the statute against the drivers or future class members.
See Stinnie v. Holcomb, 

355 F. Supp. 3d 514, 520

 (WD Va.
2018). The court explained that the drivers had made “a
clear showing that [they were] likely to succeed” on their
procedural due process claim, though it noted that they
need not “establish a certainty of success.” 

Id., at 527

 (quot-
ing Di Biase v. SPX Corp., 

872 F. 3d 224, 230

 (CA4 2017)).
The court also determined that the remaining preliminary
injunction factors—the risk of irreparable harm, the bal-
ance of equities, and the public interest—weighed in the
drivers’ favor. Stinnie, 

355 F. Supp. 3d, at 532

; see Winter
v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 

555 U. S. 7, 20

(2008). The Commissioner did not appeal the grant of the
preliminary injunction.
   In April 2019, about four months before a bench trial was
scheduled to begin, the Commissioner moved to dismiss as
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                      Opinion of the Court

moot or, in the alternative, stay the case. See Stinnie v.
Holcomb, 

396 F. Supp. 3d 653

, 656 (WD Va.). The Virginia
General Assembly had recently adopted Budget Amend-
ment No. 33, which “eliminate[d] the suspension of drivers’
licenses for failure to pay court fines and costs through July
1, 2020, but [did] not repeal §46.2–395.” Ibid. The Com-
missioner represented that the General Assembly was
likely to repeal the law during the next legislative session.
The District Court granted a stay, reasoning in part that
doing so served the interests of judicial economy and ena-
bled the court to avoid “weigh[ing] in on sensitive constitu-
tional questions about license suspension schemes about
which other courts ha[d] disagreed.” Id., at 660.
   In April 2020, the Virginia General Assembly repealed
§46.2–395 and required the permanent reinstatement of li-
censes suspended under the law. See 2020 Va. Acts ch. 965.
As a result, the parties agreed that the action had become
moot and stipulated to dismissal. The drivers, however, as-
serted that they were entitled to attorney’s fees under
§1988(b), so the parties jointly requested that the court re-
tain jurisdiction to resolve that dispute. The District Court
declined to award attorney’s fees, following Smyth v.
Rivero, 

282 F. 3d 268

 (CA4 2002). See Stinnie v. Holcomb,

2021 WL 2292807

 (WD Va., June 4, 2021). In Smyth the
Fourth Circuit held that a plaintiff awarded a preliminary
injunction is not a “prevailing party” within the meaning of
§1988(b). 282 F. 3d, at 277. A Fourth Circuit panel af-
firmed, again relying on Smyth. Stinnie v. Holcomb, 

37 F. 4th 977

 (2022). Judge Harris concurred, suggesting that
the Circuit may wish to reconsider that precedent. 

Id., at 983

.
   The Fourth Circuit did so, rehearing the case en banc and
overturning its decision in Smyth. Stinnie v. Holcomb, 

77 F. 4th 200

 (2023). It observed that Smyth had become the
“outlier” among the courts of appeals. 

77 F. 4th, at 209

. It
4                    LACKEY v. STINNIE

                      Opinion of the Court

reasoned that some preliminary injunctions “provide en-
during, merits-based relief that satisfies all the requisites
of the prevailing party standard.” 

Id., at 203

. And it ex-
plained, in light of this Court’s decision in Winter v. Natural
Resources Defense Council, that a plaintiff could no longer
prevail on a preliminary injunction for reasons that “had
virtually nothing to do with the merits of her claim.” 77 F.
4th, at 208−209; see Winter, 

555 U. S., at 20

 (clarifying that
a finding of likely success on the merits is a prerequisite to
preliminary injunctive relief). Finally, it noted that Con-
gress had enacted §1988(b) in the interest of facilitating the
redress of civil rights grievances. 

77 F. 4th, at 210

.
  The en banc court articulated a new standard: “When a
preliminary injunction provides the plaintiff concrete, irre-
versible relief on the merits of her claim and becomes moot
before final judgment because no further court-ordered as-
sistance proves necessary, the subsequent mootness of the
case does not preclude an award of attorney’s fees.” 

Ibid.

Applying that standard, the en banc court vacated and re-
manded the case to allow the District Court to determine a
reasonable fee. 

Id., at 218

. Judge Quattlebaum dissented,
arguing that a preliminary injunction does not constitute a
judicial decision on the merits and that a fee award on the
basis of such an injunction therefore conflicts with both the
text of §1988(b) and this Court’s precedents. See id., at 225,
227, 231.
  We granted certiorari to determine whether the term
“prevailing party” in §1988(b) encompasses a party who is
awarded a preliminary injunction, if the case becomes moot
before the court reaches a final judgment. 

601 U. S. ___

(2024).
                               II
  Since 1796, this Court has maintained that “the Judici-
ary itself would not create a general rule, independent of
any statute, allowing awards of attorneys’ fees in federal
courts.” Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. Wilderness Society,
                  Cite as: 

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                      Opinion of the Court

421 U. S. 240, 249

 (1975) (citing Arcambel v. Wiseman, 

3 Dall. 306

 (1796)). The principle that “the prevailing litigant
is ordinarily not entitled to collect a reasonable attorneys’
fee from the loser” became known as the “American Rule.”
Alyeska Pipeline, 

421 U. S., at 247

. Federal courts may de-
part from this rule only when “there is express statutory
authorization” to do so. Hensley v. Eckerhart, 

461 U. S. 424, 429

 (1983).
   In 1976, Congress adopted the Civil Rights Attorney’s
Fees Awards Act. 

90 Stat. 2641

. The law provides that, in
actions brought under certain civil rights statutes—includ-
ing 42 U. S. C. §1983—“the court, in its discretion, may al-
low the prevailing party, other than the United States, a
reasonable attorney’s fee as part of the costs.” §1988(b).
The question is whether the drivers in this case qualify as
“prevailing part[ies]” within the meaning of §1988(b).
                              A
   When interpreting a statute, we begin with the text. As
we have previously recognized, the phrase “prevailing
party” in §1988(b) is a “legal term of art.” Buckhannon
Board & Care Home, Inc. v. West Virginia Dept. of Health
and Human Resources, 

532 U. S. 598, 603

 (2001). We as-
sume that “when Congress ‘borrows terms of art in which
are accumulated the legal tradition and meaning of centu-
ries of practice, it presumably knows and adopts the cluster
of ideas that were attached to each borrowed word.’ ”
United States v. Hansen, 

599 U. S. 762, 774

 (2023) (quoting
Morissette v. United States, 

342 U. S. 246, 263

 (1952)).
   At the time §1988(b) was adopted, Black’s Law Diction-
ary defined “prevailing party” as the party “who success-
fully prosecutes the action or successfully defends against
it.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1352 (rev. 4th ed. 1968). It ex-
plained that prevailing party status “does not depend upon
the degree of success at different stages of the suit, but
whether, at the end of the suit, or other proceeding, the
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                      Opinion of the Court

party who has made a claim against the other, has success-
fully maintained it.” Ibid.; accord, Ballentine’s Law Dic-
tionary 985 (3d ed. 1969). A prevailing party, in other
words, is “[t]he party ultimately prevailing when the mat-
ter is finally set at rest.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1352.
   Preliminary injunctions, however, do not conclusively re-
solve legal disputes. In awarding preliminary injunctions,
courts determine if a plaintiff is likely to succeed on the
merits—along with the risk of irreparable harm, the bal-
ance of equities, and the public interest. Winter, 

555 U. S., at 20

. “The purpose of a preliminary injunction is merely
to preserve the relative positions of the parties until a trial
on the merits can be held,” University of Tex. v. Camenisch,

451 U. S. 390, 395

 (1981), and “to balance the equities as
the litigation moves forward,” Trump v. International Ref-
ugee Assistance Project, 

582 U. S. 571

, 580 (2017) (per cu-
riam). “Crafting a preliminary injunction is an exercise of
discretion and judgment, often dependent as much on the
equities of a given case as the substance of the legal issues
it presents.” 

Id., at 579

. Such relief is also “customarily
granted on the basis of procedures that are less formal and
evidence that is less complete than in a trial on the merits.”
Camenisch, 

451 U. S., at 395

. As a result, we have previ-
ously cautioned against “improperly equat[ing] ‘likelihood
of success’ with ‘success’ ” and treating preliminary injunc-
tions as “tantamount to decisions on the underlying mer-
its.” 

Id., at 394

.
   The transient nature of preliminary injunctions is most
apparent when a court reaches a different conclusion upon
full consideration of the merits. For example, in one of our
more recent cases interpreting §1988, Sole v. Wyner, 

551 U. S. 74

, 78–79 (2007), protesters sought a preliminary in-
junction against a state regulation of beach attire in order
to assemble nude in the form of a peace sign. The day after
the complaint was filed, the District Court held a hearing
and granted the preliminary injunction. 

Id., at 79

. The
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                      Opinion of the Court

preliminary injunction permitted the protest to occur and
thus preserved the participants’ rights until a final deter-
mination could be made on the merits of their claim. Ulti-
mately, however, the court declined to award a permanent
injunction, ruling that the regulation was no more burden-
some than necessary to protect the public. 

Id.,

 at 80−81.
   Because preliminary injunctions do not conclusively re-
solve the rights of parties on the merits, they do not confer
prevailing party status. A plaintiff who secures a prelimi-
nary injunction has achieved only temporary success at an
intermediary “stage[ ] of the suit.” Black’s Law Dictionary
1352. It cannot yet be said that he will “ultimately pre-
vail[ ] when the matter is finally set at rest” or that he will
have “successfully maintained” his claim “at the end.” 

Ibid.

And external events that render a dispute moot do not con-
vert a temporary order designed to preserve the status of
the parties into a conclusive adjudication of their rights.
   The Fourth Circuit en banc was persuaded that “Winter’s
stringent merits requirement” avoided the “risk” that “a
plaintiff may prevail, and thus be entitled to fees, based on
a preliminary injunction that had virtually nothing to do
with the merits of her claim.” 

77 F. 4th, at 209

. But it is
not enough that Winter guarantees a preliminary injunc-
tion award has at least something to do with the merits.
The plaintiff must succeed on the merits.
                               B
   This conclusion is consistent with our precedents inter-
preting §1988(b). We have held that, for the purposes of
§1988(b), a plaintiff “prevails” when a court grants endur-
ing judicial relief that constitutes a “material alteration of
the legal relationship of the parties.” Texas State Teachers
Assn. v. Garland Independent School Dist., 

489 U. S. 782

,
792−793 (1989). For example, we have ruled that a plaintiff
may qualify as a “prevailing party” based on an award of
nominal damages, Farrar v. Hobby, 

506 U. S. 103

, 112
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                      Opinion of the Court

(1992), or a final victory on a material even if not predomi-
nant claim, Texas State Teachers Assn., 489 U. S., at
791−793. By contrast, a party does not qualify as a “pre-
vailing party” when a court of appeals overturns directed
verdicts and discovery orders entered against him, Hanra-
han v. Hampton, 

446 U. S. 754, 756

 (1980) (per curiam), or
when a court enters a declaratory judgment but does not
modify the defendant’s behavior toward the plaintiff,
Rhodes v. Stewart, 

488 U. S. 1

, 3−4 (1988) (per curiam)
(holding that no fees were available under §1988 when the
judgment afforded no relief to the plaintiff due to moot-
ness).
  Two of our more recent decisions highlight the require-
ments that the change in legal relationship be judicially
sanctioned and enduring. In Buckhannon Board & Care
Home, Inc. v. West Virginia Department of Health and Hu-
man Resources, we rejected the “catalyst theory”—the the-
ory that a plaintiff may receive attorney’s fees under
§1988(b) when he “achieves the desired result because the
lawsuit brought about a voluntary change in the defend-
ant’s conduct.” 

532 U. S., at 601

; see 

id., at 600

. In that
context, we explained that the plaintiff was not a “prevail-
ing party” because there had been “no judicially sanctioned
change in the legal relationship of the parties.” 

Id., at 605

.
The defendant’s voluntary actions “lack[ed] the necessary
judicial imprimatur.” 

Ibid.

 We were not persuaded that
§1988(b) “authorizes federal courts to award attorney’s fees
to a plaintiff who” filed a “potentially meritless lawsuit” and
“reached the ‘sought-after destination’ without obtaining
any judicial relief.” Id., at 606 (quoting id., at 634 (Gins-
burg, J., dissenting)).
  In Sole v. Wyner, we decided that “a plaintiff who gain[ed]
a preliminary injunction after an abbreviated hearing, but
[was] denied a permanent injunction after a dispositive ad-
judication on the merits,” did not qualify as a “prevailing
party” within the meaning of §1988(b). 

551 U. S., at 77

; see
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                          Opinion of the Court

id., at 78

. That plaintiff, we explained, “gained no enduring
change in the legal relationship” between herself and the
defendants. 

Id., at 86

 (emphasis added; alterations and in-
ternal quotation marks omitted). Although we left open the
question presented in this case, see ibid., we described the
plaintiff ’s success at the preliminary injunction stage as “a
transient victory at the threshold of an action,” a “fleeting
success” that “did not establish that [the plaintiff] prevailed
on the gravamen of her plea for injunctive relief,” one “ten-
tative [in] character, in view of the continuation of the liti-
gation to definitively resolve the controversy,” 

id., at 78, 83, 84

.
   We recognize that neither opinion resolves this case, but
our holding today follows naturally from these precedents.
In Sole, we established that the change in the legal rela-
tionship between the parties must be “enduring.” 

Id., at 86

.
In Buckhannon, we established that the change must be
“judicially sanctioned.” 

532 U. S., at 605

. Today, we estab-
lish that the enduring nature of that change must itself be
judicially sanctioned. A plaintiff who wins a transient vic-
tory on a preliminary injunction does not become a “prevail-
ing party” simply because external events convert the tran-
sient victory into a lasting one. Rather, a plaintiff
“prevails” under the statute when a court conclusively re-
solves a claim by granting enduring judicial relief on the
merits that materially alters the legal relationship between
the parties.*

——————
  *A different body of caselaw addresses when a defendant is a “prevail-
ing party” for the purposes of other fee-shifting statutes. Our decision
today should not be read to affect our previous holding that a defendant
need not obtain a favorable judgment on the merits to prevail, nor to
address the question we left open of whether a defendant must obtain a
preclusive judgment in order to prevail. See CRST Van Expedited, Inc.
v. EEOC, 

578 U. S. 419

, 431−434 (2016). As we have explained,
“[p]laintiffs and defendants come to court with different objectives.” 

Id., at 431

.
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                       Opinion of the Court

                                C
   The rule we establish today also serves the interests of
judicial economy. A straightforward, bright-line rule is
easy to administer, reducing the risk of “a second major lit-
igation” over attorney’s fees. Cf. Hensley, 

461 U. S., at 437

.
The drivers, however, suggest that our rule promotes sim-
plicity at the cost of creating perverse incentives. They fear
that government defendants who have lost at the prelimi-
nary injunction stage will strategically moot litigation ra-
ther than risk a fee award were they to ultimately lose on
the merits. See Brief for Respondents 42−47. We found
similar concerns to be “entirely speculative” when we re-
jected the catalyst theory in Buckhannon, 

532 U. S., at 608

.
We reiterate that such risk could arise in only a small num-
ber of contexts. After all, if a plaintiff “has a cause of action
for damages, a defendant’s change in conduct will not moot
the case.” 

Id., at 609

. And even if the plaintiff seeks only
injunctive relief, voluntary cessation of the challenged con-
duct does not moot an action “unless it is ‘absolutely clear
that the allegedly wrongful behavior could not reasonably
be expected to recur.’ ” 

Ibid.

 (quoting Friends of the Earth,
Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC), Inc., 

528 U. S. 167, 189

 (2000)); see also FBI v. Fikre, 

601 U. S. 234, 241

 (2024) (characterizing this burden as “formidable”
(quoting Friends of the Earth, 

528 U. S., at 190

)). A survey
asking public interest organizations to self-report on the
impact of Buckhannon does not change our minds. See post,
at 17−18 (JACKSON, J., dissenting).
   It is Congress’s job to craft policy and ours to interpret
the words that codify it. “Atextual judicial supplementation
is particularly inappropriate when . . . Congress has shown
that it knows how to adopt the omitted language or provi-
sion.” Rotkiske v. Klemm, 

589 U. S. 8, 14

 (2019). Congress
has shown that it knows how to empower courts to award
attorney’s fees to plaintiffs who have enjoyed some success
but have not prevailed in a judgment on the merits. In the
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                      Opinion of the Court

Freedom of Information Act, for example, Congress author-
ized courts to assess attorney’s fees when a complainant
has “substantially prevailed,” even if through “a voluntary
or unilateral change in position by the agency.” 

5 U. S. C. §552

(a)(4)(E). If Congress determines that the rule we
adopt today is unwise, it may amend the statutory lan-
guage—just as it enacted §1988(b) itself in response to our
decision in Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. Wilderness Soci-
ety. 

421 U. S. 240

; see Hensley, 

461 U. S., at 429

. Until
then, “it is of course our job to apply faithfully the law Con-
gress has written.” Henson v. Santander Consumer USA
Inc., 

582 U. S. 79, 89

 (2017).
                                D
  The drivers urge the opposite conclusion, but we find
their arguments unpersuasive.
  First, the drivers, joined by the dissent, argue that the
dictionary definitions support them. But they assume that
the favorable resolution of a dispute is tantamount to suc-
cess on a claim in a legal action. A “prevailing party,” how-
ever, is defined in the latter sense—one who “successfully
prosecutes the action,” who has “made a claim” against an-
other and “has successfully maintained it.” Black’s Law
Dictionary 1352.
  Second, the drivers and dissent contend that §1988(b)
was enacted against a historical backdrop that favored
awarding interim costs at equity, including for preliminary
injunctions. See Brief for Respondents 19−21. The dissent
in Alyeska Pipeline similarly invoked “the well-established
power of federal equity courts to award attorneys’ fees when
the interests of justice so require.” 

421 U. S., at 272

 (Mar-
shall, J., dissenting). We rejected that argument, however,
and determined that the American Rule supplied the de-
fault rule at law and equity, subject to narrow historical ex-
ceptions not at issue here. See 

id., at 241, 247

 (majority
opinion).
  Next, the drivers argue that the availability of fees while
12                    LACKEY v. STINNIE

                      Opinion of the Court

litigation is ongoing suggests that §1988(b) includes no fi-
nality requirement. See Brief for Respondents 40−42. The
dissent likewise points to our statement in Buckhannon
that a “ ‘prevailing party’ is not intended to be limited to the
victor only after entry of a final judgment following a full
trial on the merits.” 

532 U. S., at 607

 (quoting H. R. Rep.
No. 94–1558, p. 7 (1976)); see post, at 15. We have recog-
nized that “Congress contemplated the award of fees pen-
dente lite in some cases.” Hanrahan, 

446 U. S., at 757

. For
example, we have explained that, in school desegregation
cases, “many final orders may issue in the course of the lit-
igation” because injunctive relief “must prove its efficacy
. . . over a period of time and often with frequent modifica-
tions.” Bradley v. School Bd. of Richmond, 

416 U. S. 696, 723

 (1974). Our decisions simply indicate that attorney’s
fees may be awarded when conclusive, enduring judicial re-
lief is meted out on an incremental basis. Hanrahan, 

446 U. S., at 758

 (“Congress intended to permit the interim
award of counsel fees only when a party has prevailed on
the merits of at least some of his claims.”). Key language
on which the dissent relies—our statement that a party pre-
vails when it “succeed[s] on any significant claim affording
it some of the relief sought,” including relief on the merits
pendente lite—explained our rejection of the “central issue
test,” which would have required a party to prevail on its
central claim in order to be awarded attorney’s fees. Texas
State Teachers Assn., 

489 U. S., at 791

; see post, at 4. It did
not refer to preliminary relief.
    The availability of fees following the entry of a court-
ordered consent decree is fully consistent with the rule we
announce today. A consent decree reflects the parties’ own
resolution of the merits, but it is approved and given force
of law by the court. See Firefighters v. Cleveland, 

478 U. S. 501, 523

 (1986). Violation of a consent decree is enforceable
by a citation for contempt. 

Ibid.

 So a consent decree is like
                  Cite as: 

604 U. S. ____

 (2025)                 13

                      Opinion of the Court

a final judgment in the relevant ways: It conclusively re-
solves the claim, bears a judicial imprimatur, and may
grant enduring relief that materially alters the legal rela-
tionship between the parties. That is why “[w]e have only
awarded attorney’s fees where the plaintiff has received a
judgment on the merits or obtained a court-ordered consent
decree.” Buckhannon, 

532 U. S., at 605

 (citation omitted).
For its part, the dissent conflates preliminary judicial relief
that becomes irreversible by way of mootness with relief
that is permanent by virtue of a judicial order. See post, at
10−11. That a preliminary order may sometimes “func-
tion[ ] . . . like” a final order due to external circumstances,
see post, at 11 (citation omitted), is not dispositive of the
nature of the order.
                             *    *     *
   Section 1988(b) permits courts to award attorney’s fees to
a “prevailing party.” A party “prevails” when a court con-
clusively resolves his claim by granting enduring relief on
the merits that alters the legal relationship between the
parties. Critically, both the change in relationship and its
permanence must result from a judicial order. A prelimi-
nary injunction, which temporarily preserves the parties’
litigating positions based in part on a prediction of the like-
lihood of success on the merits, does not render a plaintiff a
“prevailing party.” Nor do external events that moot the
action and prevent the court from conclusively adjudicating
the claim. Because the drivers in the present case gained
only preliminary injunctive relief before this action became
moot, they do not qualify as “prevailing part[ies]” eligible
for attorney’s fees under §1988(b).
   The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Cir-
cuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further pro-
ceedings consistent with this opinion.

                                                   It is so ordered.
                 Cite as: 

604 U. S. ____

 (2025)            1

                    JACKSON, J., dissenting

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
                         _________________

                          No. 23–621
                         _________________


 GERALD F. LACKEY, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS THE
 COMMISSIONER OF THE VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT
  OF MOTOR VEHICLES, PETITIONER v. DAMIAN
                STINNIE, ET AL.
 ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
           APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
                      [February 25, 2025]

  JUSTICE JACKSON, with whom JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR joins,
dissenting.
  Congress has authorized courts to award attorney’s fees
to the “prevailing party” in certain civil rights cases. 

42 U. S. C. §1988

(b). Today, the Court holds that a plaintiff
who secures a preliminary injunction does not “prevail” un-
der this fee-shifting statute, even when the preliminary in-
junction provides meaningful relief and is never reversed
on the merits. The Court maintains that this holding “fol-
lows naturally from” our precedents. Ante, at 9. But that
will come as a surprise to the eleven Courts of Appeals that
have previously considered this issue; all of them agree that
at least some preliminary injunctions trigger fee eligibility
under §1988(b).
  Stated simply, the majority’s categorical preclusion of fee
awards for any plaintiff who successfully obtains prelimi-
nary injunctive relief is unwarranted. It lacks any basis in
the text of §1988(b) and is plainly inconsistent with that
statutory provision’s clear objective, which is to encourage
attorneys to file civil rights actions on behalf of the most
vulnerable people in our society. The Court has now elimi-
nated fee eligibility for all preliminary injunctions—even
those that effectively resolve the case. But if Congress had
2                    LACKEY v. STINNIE

                     JACKSON, J., dissenting

meant for “prevailing party” status to hinge entirely on the
“conclusive” nature of a judicial order, it could easily have
said so. It is the role of Congress, not this Court, to weigh
concerns about administrative ease against the benefits of
guaranteeing individuals an opportunity to vindicate their
civil rights.
  There is no persuasive reason to believe that Congress
meant to preclude fee awards for every plaintiff who secures
preliminary injunctive relief but not a final judgment, no
matter the context. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.
                               I
                              A
   Nothing in §1988(b)’s text compels the conclusion that a
plaintiff who obtains preliminary injunctive relief is never
eligible for a fee award. Section 1988(b) states simply that,
in actions to enforce certain civil rights statutes, including

42 U. S. C. §1983

, “the court, in its discretion, may allow
the prevailing party, other than the United States, a rea-
sonable attorney’s fee as part of the costs.” §1988(b). The
majority recognizes that “prevailing party” is a legal term
of art and begins its analysis by asserting that this term
means what legal dictionaries said it meant at the time that
§1988(b) was enacted.
   According to the majority’s preferred dictionary, a “pre-
vailing party” is one “ ‘who successfully prosecutes the ac-
tion or successfully defends against it.’ ” Ante, at 5 (quoting
Black’s Law Dictionary 1352 (rev. 4th ed. 1968)). Thus, pre-
vailing party status turns on “ ‘whether, at the end of the
suit, or other proceeding, the party who has made a claim
against the other, has successfully maintained it.’ ” Ante, at
6 (quoting Black’s Law Dictionary, at 1352). Reasoning
from this definition, the majority holds that preliminary in-
junctions, which provide interim relief by their nature, can
never confer prevailing party status because they do not
“conclusively resolve the rights of parties on the merits.”
                  Cite as: 

604 U. S. ____

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                     JACKSON, J., dissenting

Ante, at 7.
   But the majority’s analysis inexplicably conflates the re-
quirement for success when the suit ends (which is what the
dictionary definition says) with a requirement that the suit
end by virtue of a “conclusive” judicial ruling on the merits
of the plaintiff ’s claims (which is nowhere in Black’s Law
Dictionary or anywhere else). In other words, the majority’s
reasoning elides the fact that a suit can end in various
ways—including through acts of the defendant or others
that moot the legal action. Black’s Law Dictionary and its
contemporaries simply require a court determining eligibil-
ity for a fee award to take stock of where things stand at
the end of the lawsuit. A prevailing party for §1988(b) pur-
poses is one who has successfully maintained his claim (in
the manner I describe below, see Part II–A, infra) “when
the matter is finally set at rest.” Black’s Law Dictionary, at
1352.
   In essence, then, the majority errs by assuming that the
only kind of resolution to a suit that can precipitate a fee
award is a “conclusive” final judgment on the merits. See,
e.g., ante, at 6–7, 9, 12. That assumption is unfounded. The
text of the fee statute does not require a final judgment in
the party’s favor, “conclusive” or otherwise. Nor does any
dictionary definition of “prevailing party” to which the ma-
jority cites. Rather, according to Black’s Law Dictionary, a
“prevailing party” is simply a “part[y] to a suit who success-
fully prosecutes the action or successfully defends against
it, prevailing on the main issue, even though not to the ex-
tent of his original contention.” Black’s Law Dictionary, at
1352. Ballentine’s Law Dictionary is substantially similar;
it defines “prevailing party” as “[t]he party who is success-
ful or partially successful in an action, so as to be entitled
to costs.” Ballentine’s Law Dictionary 985 (3d ed. 1969).
   Significantly for present purposes, both dictionaries fur-
ther emphasize that “[t]o be [a prevailing party] does not
depend upon the degree of success at different stages of the
4                    LACKEY v. STINNIE

                     JACKSON, J., dissenting

suit, but whether, at the end of the suit . . . the party who
has made a claim against the other, has successfully main-
tained it.” Black’s Law Dictionary, at 1352; accord, Ballen-
tine’s Law Dictionary, at 985. Yet, today, the majority de-
mands that, in order to prevail, the party must have
achieved a certain degree of success at a certain point in the
case: a conclusive final judgment in his favor at the end of
litigation.
                                B
  This Court has not previously linked prevailing party sta-
tus to securing a conclusive final judgment. Quite to the
contrary, we have held that a prevailing party for fee-
shifting purposes is one who has “succeeded on any signifi-
cant claim affording it some of the relief sought, either pen-
dente lite”—i.e., pending the suit—“or at the conclusion of
the litigation.” Texas State Teachers Assn. v. Garland In-
dependent School Dist., 

489 U. S. 782, 791

 (1989). That is,
a plaintiff prevails when he accomplishes his lawsuit’s “ob-
jectiv[e],” which is to achieve “a material alteration in the
legal relationship between the parties.” CRST Van Expe-
dited, Inc. v. EEOC, 

578 U. S. 419, 431

 (2016). This is be-
cause, for a plaintiff, “[a]t the end of the rainbow lies not a
judgment, but some action (or cessation of action) by the
defendant that the judgment produces—the payment of
damages, or some specific performance, or the termination
of some conduct.” Hewitt v. Helms, 

482 U. S. 755, 761

(1987).
  A plaintiff who secures a preliminary injunction award-
ing actual relief on the merits of his claim that is never re-
versed by a final decision of the court has “successfully
maintained” his claim “at the end.” Black’s Law Dictionary,
at 1352. Such a plaintiff has achieved what he has “come
                      Cite as: 

604 U. S. ____

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                         JACKSON, J., dissenting

to court” for—the desired “alteration in the legal relation-
ship between the parties.” CRST, 

578 U. S., at 431

.1
  Take this case, for example. At the point it ended—when
the District Court dismissed the litigation as moot—re-
spondents had secured a preliminary injunction against the
Commissioner of the Virginia Department of Motor Vehi-
cles. That order enabled respondents to drive their cars on
Virginia’s highways for sixteen months, over the Commis-
sioner’s objection. And, because the District Court’s interim
award had facilitated respondents’ access to the road as li-
censed drivers, they had prevailed on the merits of their
claim in every meaningful sense. Put another way, “at the
end of the litigation,” respondents did not “leav[e] the court-
house emptyhanded.” Sole v. Wyner, 

551 U. S. 74, 78

(2007). Instead, they departed having accomplished exactly
what they had sought to achieve. The fact that respondents
achieved their goal via a preliminary court ruling, as op-
posed to a final judgment, is irrelevant, for “[n]othing in the
language of §1988 conditions the District Court’s power to
award fees on full litigation of the issues or on a judicial
determination that the plaintiff ’s rights have been vio-
lated.” Maher v. Gagne, 

448 U. S. 122, 129

 (1980) (empha-
sis added).
  Juxtapose that reality with the text of other statutes that
make “prevailing party” status expressly dependent on the
entry of a final order. For example, the Emergency School
Aid Act of 1972—enacted just four years before §1988(b)—
states that, “[u]pon the entry of a final order,” a court hear-
ing a school desegregation case may “allow the prevailing
party, other than the United States, a reasonable attorney’s

——————
  1 There are, of course, other kinds of preliminary injunctive orders, in-

cluding orders that maintain the status quo. All that is necessary to re-
ject the majority’s categorical rule is the recognition that at least some
preliminary injunctions afford the type of material change that confers
prevailing party status.
6                    LACKEY v. STINNIE

                     JACKSON, J., dissenting

fee as part of the costs.” 

20 U. S. C. §1617

 (repealed) (em-
phasis added). Several statutes enacted after §1988(b) are
similarly explicit about when a fee award must be fastened
to a final judgment. See, e.g., 

28 U. S. C. §2412

(d)(2)(H) (de-
fining “prevailing party” in eminent domain proceedings to
“mea[n] a party who obtains a final judgment” of a certain
amount); 

15 U. S. C. §6104

(d) (authorizing courts hearing
actions under the Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and
Abuse Prevention Act to award “reasonable fees . . . to the
prevailing party” upon “issuing any final order”). The fact
that §1988(b) lacks any such language confirms that a con-
clusive ruling from the court in the form of a final judgment
is not a prerequisite for a fee award under that statute.
                              C
  The majority disregards these important context clues
and focuses instead on a provision of the Freedom of Infor-
mation Act (FOIA) that authorizes fee awards for a “com-
plainant” who “has substantially prevailed” by “obtain[ing]
relief through either—(I) a judicial order, or an enforceable
written agreement or consent decree; or (II) a voluntary or
unilateral change in position by the agency.” 

5 U. S. C. §552

(a)(4)(E). The term “prevailing party” appears no-
where in this FOIA provision. But, no matter: The majority
nevertheless suggests that this is how Congress authorizes
fee shifting for “plaintiffs who have enjoyed some success
but have not prevailed in a judgment on the merits.” Ante,
at 10.
  The problem is that Congress had a much more targeted
objective when it enacted §552(a)(4)(E). It sought merely to
repudiate this Court’s decision in Buckhannon Board &
Care Home, Inc. v. West Virginia Dept. of Health and Hu-
man Resources, 

532 U. S. 598, 606

 (2001), which had held
                     Cite as: 

604 U. S. ____

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                        JACKSON, J., dissenting

that a plaintiff must obtain some “judicial relief ” to be eli-
gible for a fee award in FOIA cases.2 Since the point of
§552(a)(4)(E) was to “abrogat[e] the rule of Buckhannon in
the FOIA context and reviv[e] the possibility of FOIA fee
awards in the absence of a court decree,” Brayton v. Office
of U. S. Trade Rep., 

641 F. 3d 521, 525

 (CADC 2011), that
statutory provision sheds no light whatsoever on whether
the term “prevailing party” requires a plaintiff to secure a
conclusive ruling on the merits to qualify as a prevailing
party for purposes of §1988(b).
   In short, while the majority insists that obtaining a pre-
liminary injunction can never suffice for a fee award under
§1988(b) “[b]ecause preliminary injunctions do not conclu-
sively resolve the rights of parties on the merits,” ante, at
7, the text of §1988(b), contemporary dictionary definitions,
and our precedents require far less. All of the Courts of Ap-
peals to consider the question—eleven in total—understood
this and thus correctly held that, for fee-shifting purposes,
it is possible for a party to prevail based on a preliminary
ruling.3 The majority’s reading of “prevailing party” in
——————
  2 Congress enacted 

5 U. S. C. §552

(a)(4)(E) because Buckhannon had

empowered Government agencies to “stonewall valid FOIA claims” and
then prevent an award of attorney’s fees by “disclosing the documents at
the last moment before judgment,” thereby mooting the case. Brayton v.
Office of U. S. Trade Rep., 

641 F. 3d 521, 525

 (CADC 2011). Under Buck-
hannon, such plaintiffs were not eligible for fee awards because they had
not obtained any judicial order—preliminary, final, or otherwise. This
strategic behavior ensured that FOIA plaintiffs never became eligible for
fee awards despite incurring significant costs, so Congress intervened.

641 F. 3d, at 525

.
  3 See, e.g., Haley v. Pataki, 

106 F. 3d 478, 484

 (CA2 1997); Singer

Mgmt. Consultants, Inc. v. Milgram, 

650 F. 3d 223

, 229–230, and n. 4
(CA3 2011) (en banc); Stinnie v. Holcomb, 

77 F. 4th 200, 210

 (CA4 2023)
(en banc) (case below); Dearmore v. Garland, 

519 F. 3d 517, 524

 (CA5
2008); Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio Region v. Dewine, 

931 F. 3d 530, 534

 (CA6 2019); Dupuy v. Samuels, 

423 F. 3d 714, 723

, and n. 4
(CA7 2005); Rogers Group, Inc. v. Fayetteville, 

683 F. 3d 903

, 909–910
(CA8 2012); Higher Taste, Inc. v. Tacoma, 

717 F. 3d 712

, 717–718 (CA9
8                       LACKEY v. STINNIE

                        JACKSON, J., dissenting

§1988(b) makes obtaining a court’s conclusive final judg-
ment the hallmark of that status in a manner that is both
novel and in many ways anathema to the legal term of art
that Congress actually chose.
                                II
                                A
  So what does it take to qualify as a “prevailing party” for
purposes of this fee-shifting statute? In Farrar v. Hobby,

506 U. S. 103

 (1992), we explained that a plaintiff “ ‘pre-
vails’ ” if he receives (1) “actual relief on the merits of his
claim” in a manner that (2) “materially alters the legal re-
lationship between the parties by modifying the defendant’s
behavior in a way that directly benefits the plaintiff.” 

Id.,

at 111–112; see also Lefemine v. Wideman, 

568 U. S. 1, 4

(2012) (per curiam). This test is well established, and it
leads inexorably to the conclusion that, in some circum-
stances, an unreversed preliminary injunction can confer
prevailing party status.
  Start with the requirement of a “ ‘material alteration of
the legal relationship of the parties,’ ” which we have re-
peatedly called the “ ‘touchstone’ ” of the prevailing party in-
quiry. Sole, 

551 U. S., at 82

 (quoting Garland, 489 U. S., at
792–793). A plaintiff need not obtain all of the relief he has
requested in the lawsuit to satisfy this requirement. In-
stead, under our precedents, a plaintiff who has achieved
even “ ‘some of the benefit’ ” he sought has secured the
change in the parties’ legal relationship necessary to
“cros[s] the threshold to a fee award of some kind.” 

Id.,

 at
791–792 (quoting Nadeau v. Helgemoe, 

581 F. 2d 275

, 278–

——————
2013); Kansas Jud. Watch v. Stout, 

653 F. 3d 1230, 1232

, 1238–1239
(CA10 2011); Common Cause Ga. v. Georgia, 

17 F. 4th 102, 107

 (CA11
2021); Select Milk Producers, Inc. v. Johanns, 

400 F. 3d 939, 942

, 948–
949 (CADC 2005). The First Circuit has not yet considered the issue.
See Sinapi v. Rhode Island Bd. of Bar Examiners, 

910 F. 3d 544, 552

(2018).
                  Cite as: 

604 U. S. ____

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                     JACKSON, J., dissenting

279 (CA1 1978); emphasis added).
   A permanent injunction—just like a declaratory judg-
ment or a damages award—“will usually satisfy that test,”
Lefemine, 

568 U. S., at 4

, because permanent injunctive re-
lief generally “affects the behavior of the defendant toward
the plaintiff,” Rhodes v. Stewart, 

488 U. S. 1, 4

 (1988) (per
curiam). At least some preliminary injunctions also qual-
ify. The preliminary injunction in this case, for example,
provided respondents with actual relief by reinstating their
suspended licenses, allowing them to drive without fear of
sanction for failing to repay their fines and fees. For the
roughly sixteen months that the preliminary injunction
was in place, “that ruling worked the requisite material al-
teration in the parties’ relationship” by permitting respond-
ents to engage in conduct that would have been prohibited
otherwise. Lefemine, 

568 U. S., at 5

.
   It is indisputable that the preliminary injunction the Dis-
trict Court issued provided a “direc[t] benefit” to respond-
ents. Farrar, 

506 U. S., at 111

. That relief was also
awarded “ ‘on the merits.’ ” Lefemine, 

568 U. S., at 4

 (quot-
ing Farrar, 506 U. S., at 111–112). We have long taken a
“practical” approach to the merits inquiry in this context.
Hanrahan v. Hampton, 

446 U. S. 754, 758

 (1980) (per cu-
riam). Under that approach, relief is granted “on the mer-
its” when it provides “a resolution of the dispute which
changes the legal relationship between [the plaintiff] and
the defendant.” Garland, 

489 U. S., at 792

 (internal quota-
tion marks omitted).
   Notably, for prevailing party status, we have not required
that a court actually determine whether a legal claim is
meritorious. The majority acknowledges our holding that
the entry of a consent decree following “the parties’ own res-
olution of the merits” counts. Ante, at 12; see Farrar, 

506 U. S., at 111

 (recognizing that a consent decree satisfies the
requirement that the plaintiff “obtain at least some relief
on the merits of his claim”). Indeed, in Maher, we upheld a
10                    LACKEY v. STINNIE

                      JACKSON, J., dissenting

fee award based on a consent decree that “did not purport
to adjudicate” the plaintiff ’s claims at all. 

448 U. S., at 126, n. 8, 129

. We have also suggested that default judgments,
which do not involve any assessment of the merits of the
plaintiff ’s claims, “almost invariably give rise to fee
awards.” Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 

579 U. S. 197, 208, n. 3

 (2016).
   A court’s entry of a preliminary injunction—which does
require a judge to make a preliminary assessment of the
merits—provides a basis for prevailing party status that is
at least as strong as a consent decree or a default judgment.
Plaintiffs seeking the “extraordinary remedy” of a prelimi-
nary injunction must make a “clear showing” that they are
“likely to succeed on the merits.” Winter v. Natural Re-
sources Defense Council, Inc., 

555 U. S. 7, 20, 22

 (2008).
And the court’s decision to order preliminary injunctive re-
lief often involves “searching” proceedings, Sole, 

551 U. S., at 84

, even though the “evidence . . . is less complete than
in a trial on the merits,” University of Tex. v. Camenisch,

451 U. S. 390, 395

 (1981).
   In this case, the District Court thoroughly assessed the
merits of respondents’ claims and granted their request for
preliminary injunctive relief after extensive briefing and an
evidentiary hearing during which multiple witnesses testi-
fied. It blinks reality to suggest that the District Court’s
order requiring the Commissioner to give respondents their
licenses back now—based on the court’s conclusion that re-
spondents were likely to succeed if this matter proceeded to
trial—was “not the stuff of which legal victories are made.”
Hewitt, 

482 U. S., at 760

.
   It is no answer to simply declare by ipse dixit that pre-
liminary injunctions are materially different from consent
decrees because “a consent decree is like a final judgment
in the relevant ways”—i.e., “[i]t conclusively resolves the
claim, bears a judicial imprimatur, and may grant enduring
relief that materially alters the legal relationship between
                  Cite as: 

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                     JACKSON, J., dissenting

the parties.” Ante, at 12–13. The very question before us is
the relevance of this kind of finality to the prevailing party
determination. And, luckily, that question has already
been answered: Neither the text of §1988(b) nor any of this
Court’s past cases make fee eligibility dependent on the en-
try of a conclusive final judgment, as I explained above.
   In any event, if a plaintiff need only obtain an order that
is “like a final judgment” to prevail, ibid., it is not at all
clear why at least some preliminary injunctions would not
count. Consider, for example, a dispute in which the dis-
trict court reviews the evidence and the parties’ arguments
and enters the type of preliminary injunction that changes
the legal relationship of the parties. The case proceeds but
then becomes moot such that the litigation ends; the pre-
liminary injunction is not—and can never be—reversed by
a subsequent order of the court. In this scenario, all the
purportedly “relevant” characteristics of a consent decree
exist, because the parties’ legal relationship was materially
altered by judicial imprimatur, and that preliminary relief
is conclusive insofar as the case has ended and the ruling
cannot be undone by a later determination. In this circum-
stance, the preliminary injunction “functions much like the
grant of an irreversible partial summary judgment on the
merits,” Northern Cheyenne Tribe v. Jackson, 

433 F. 3d 1083, 1086

 (CA8 2006), which all appear to agree would suf-
fice to confer fee eligibility under §1988(b).
                               B
  Our decisions in Buckhannon, 

532 U. S. 598

, and Sole,

551 U. S. 74

, are not to the contrary. The majority cites
these two decisions to support its view that obtaining a pre-
liminary injunction is never sufficient to qualify the recipi-
ent for a fee award under §1988(b). Ante, at 8–9. But those
cases hold no such thing. Instead, they simply clarify that,
for a plaintiff to prevail, the requisite “change in the legal
12                   LACKEY v. STINNIE

                     JACKSON, J., dissenting

relationship of the parties” must be both “judicially sanc-
tioned,” Buckhannon, 

532 U. S., at 605

, and “enduring,”
Sole, 

551 U. S., at 86

. Neither case mandates the majority’s
categorical rule.
   In Buckhannon, this Court rejected the so-called “cata-
lyst theory,” under which a plaintiff could collect a fee
award as a “prevailing party” without securing any judicial
relief so long as the lawsuit produced “a voluntary change
in the defendant’s conduct.” 

532 U. S., at 601

. We held that
such a voluntary change, “although perhaps accomplishing
what the plaintiff sought to achieve by the lawsuit, lacks
the necessary judicial imprimatur on the change” to trigger
fee eligibility. 

Id., at 605

. In Sole, we considered whether
a plaintiff who obtains a preliminary injunction but is sub-
sequently denied a permanent one prevails for fee purposes
under §1988(b). 

551 U. S., at 77

. We explained that when
a plaintiff ’s “initial victory” at the preliminary injunction
stage is “superseded” by a non-favorable final “ruling on the
merits,” he does not qualify as a “prevailing party,” because
the relief he received was not “enduring.” 

Id.,

 at 84–86.
   A preliminary injunction that mandates a judicially sanc-
tioned legal change in the parties’ relationship and is never
reversed by a final ruling on the merits satisfies both Buck-
hannon and Sole. A court that issues interim injunctive re-
lief unquestionably gives its “judicial imprimatur” to the
change afforded, as Buckhannon requires. 

532 U. S., at 605

. For its part, Sole stands merely for the proposition
that a party can be divested of “prevailing party” status if
his “success rested on a premise the District Court ulti-
mately rejected.” 551 U. S., at 84–86. But Sole is inappo-
site when a subsequent final decision does not thwart the
judge-sanctioned basis for the preliminary injunction. In-
deed, Sole expressly said so, by specifically reserving the
question “whether, in the absence of a final decision on the
merits of a claim for permanent injunctive relief, success in
gaining a preliminary injunction may sometimes warrant
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                     JACKSON, J., dissenting

an award of counsel fees,” 

id.,

 at 86—the precise issue that
is before the Court today.
   The majority thus overreads our precedents to support its
blanket rule that preliminary injunctions can never support
fee awards. Ante, at 7–9. With respect to Sole in particular,
it is true that we characterized the preliminary injunction
at issue there as “fleeting” and “tentative.” 551 U. S., at 83–
84; see also ante, at 9 (contrasting interim relief with relief
that “last[s]”). But the Sole Court did not tie the require-
ment for “enduring” relief to the inherent permanence of
the relevant judicial order. Instead, we made crystal clear
that “[o]f controlling importance to our decision” was the
fact that “the eventual ruling on the merits for defendants,
after both sides considered the case fit for final adjudica-
tion, superseded the preliminary ruling.” 551 U. S., at 84–
85 (emphasis added); see also 

id., at 78

 (observing that a
plaintiff does not prevail if “at the end of the litigation, her
initial success is undone and she leaves the courthouse
emptyhanded”).
   At the end of the day, Sole should be taken to mean only
what it expressly holds: Preliminary injunctive relief that
is subsequently superseded by a final judgment reversing
the ruling does not endure for fee-shifting purposes. Here,
the preliminary injunction provided actual relief to re-
spondents for more than sixteen months, and there was no
Sole-like supplanting of that preliminary relief by a subse-
quent court order.
                              III
                               A
   In addition to misinterpreting the text of §1988(b) and
misconstruing our precedents, the majority ignores Con-
gress’s clear intent to expand access to justice. It is puz-
zling, to say the least, that the majority seems to go out of
its way to adopt a rule that categorically prohibits fee shift-
ing while interpreting a statute that expressly authorizes
14                    LACKEY v. STINNIE

                     JACKSON, J., dissenting

fee awards.
   There is no dispute that Congress enacted §1988(b) “for a
specific purpose”: to respond to this Court’s decision in
Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. Wilderness Society, 

421 U. S. 240

 (1975), which had rejected the “former equitable prac-
tice of awarding attorney’s fees to the prevailing party in
certain civil rights cases.” Farrar, 

506 U. S., at 118

 (O’Con-
nor, J., concurring). The Alyeska Court held that, absent
statutory authorization, courts should not depart from the
“ ‘American Rule,’ ” under which litigants ordinarily bear
their own attorney’s fees. 

421 U. S., at 247

. Congress
swiftly enacted §1988(b) in Alyeska’s wake to codify a civil
rights exception to the American Rule. The majority does
not, and cannot, dispute that Congress’s intent was “to en-
sure ‘effective access to the judicial process’ for persons with
civil rights grievances.” Hensley v. Eckerhart, 

461 U. S. 424, 429

 (1983) (quoting H. R. Rep. No. 94–1558, p. 1
(1976)).
   Consistent with that “clear congressional intent,” this
Court has previously recognized that fee awards should be
available to “partially prevailing civil rights plaintiffs.”
Garland, 

489 U. S., at 790

. This principle is, in fact, readily
apparent from the statute’s enactment history. See Buck-
hannon, 

532 U. S., at 607

. The history demonstrates that
the question of awarding fees for success based on interim
orders was not overlooked by the legislature; to the con-
trary, Congress specifically “contemplated the award of fees
pendente lite,” at least where a party “has established his
entitlement to some relief on the merits of his claims.” Han-
rahan, 

446 U. S., at 757

 (citing S. Rep. No. 94–1011, p. 5
(1976); H. R. Rep. No. 94–1558, at 7–8).
   The majority says that Congress merely wanted §1988(b)
to authorize fee awards when “conclusive, enduring judicial
relief is meted out on an incremental basis.” Ante, at 12.
But that is not what the historical record establishes, and
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                     JACKSON, J., dissenting

Buckhannon flatly rejects this contention. There, we spe-
cifically observed that, per §1988(b)’s legislative history,
“ ‘ “prevailing party” is not intended to be limited to the vic-
tor only after entry of a final judgment following a full trial
on the merits.’ ” 

532 U. S., at 607

 (quoting H. R. Rep.
No. 94–1558, at 7); see also Hanrahan, 446 U. S., at 756–
757. The legislative history is likewise unequivocal that a
prevailing party for §1988(b) purposes should “also include
a litigant who succeeds even if the case is concluded prior
to a full evidentiary hearing before a judge or jury.”
H. R. Rep. No. 94–1558, at 7.
                               B
  Nor could a Congress that wished to authorize fee awards
for civil rights victories have intended the absurdities that
will result from the majority’s categorical preclusion of pre-
liminary injunctive relief from §1988(b). To state the obvi-
ous, the majority’s bright-line rule lacks the nuance that is
needed to account for the various circumstances in which a
preliminary injunction may be “preliminary” in name only.
  One example is the plaintiff who requests a preliminary
injunction to achieve an interim result, given the timeframe
at issue. “When protestors seek an injunction to exercise
their First Amendment rights at a specific time and place—
say to demonstrate at a Saturday parade—a preliminary
injunction will give them all the court-ordered relief they
need and the end of the parade will moot the case.”
McQueary v. Conway, 

614 F. 3d 591, 599

 (CA6 2010). Thus,
the Courts of Appeals regularly hold that plaintiffs who suc-
cessfully obtain a preliminary injunction that permits them
to engage in the otherwise prohibited conduct “prevail” for
fee-shifting purposes. See, e.g., Young v. Chicago, 

202 F. 3d 1000

, 1000–1001 (CA7 2000) (per curiam) (awarding fees to
plaintiffs who obtained a preliminary injunction to protest
a political convention even though the “suit became moot
before a definitive determination of its merits” could be
16                   LACKEY v. STINNIE

                     JACKSON, J., dissenting

made).
   In its rush to carve preliminary injunctions out of
§1988(b), the majority also overlooks situations in which
courts have, in fact, conclusively resolved the merits of a
plaintiff ’s claims at the preliminary injunction stage. A
trial court might definitively determine that a law is “ ‘ “fa-
cially unconstitutional” ’ ” in the course of granting prelimi-
nary relief, for example. Singer Mgmt. Consultants, Inc. v.
Milgram, 

650 F. 3d 223

, 229–230, and n. 4 (CA3 2011) (en
banc) (quoting People Against Police Violence v. Pittsburgh,

520 F. 3d 226, 229

 (CA3 2008)). But the majority nonethe-
less adopts a sweeping rule under which preliminary in-
junctions can never be the basis for fee eligibility.
   And to what end? The majority seeks to justify its broad
holding on the grounds that it discourages fee disputes and
thereby “serves the interests of judicial economy.” Ante, at
10. But concerns about judicial administration cannot sup-
plant Congress’s clear intent to promote access to justice via
fee shifting in civil rights cases.
   What is more, it is actually the majority’s categorical rule
that will promote wasteful litigation and incentivize liti-
gants to manipulate fee liability. Under the majority’s rule,
a plaintiff who has incurred substantial attorney’s fees in
order to secure a preliminary injunction that provides all
the relief he needs will face a choice: He may either concede
that the litigation has run its course and pay his own fees,
or he may seek to litigate the case to final judgment in order
to secure a fee award. No one would blame a plaintiff with
a strong case for choosing the latter option. But such addi-
tional litigation is an inefficient waste of judicial resources
if the plaintiff has already achieved his objective at an ear-
lier part of the case.
   Worse still, the majority’s rule appears to preference con-
servation of judicial resources over the maintenance of mer-
itorious civil rights lawsuits, to the extent that excluding
preliminary injunctive relief from §1988(b) facilitates the
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604 U. S. ____

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                      JACKSON, J., dissenting

strategic mooting of cases by defendants to avoid paying at-
torney’s fees. This case illustrates precisely that problem.
After a robust evidentiary hearing, the District Court is-
sued a comprehensive opinion that preliminarily enjoined
the Commissioner from enforcing the challenged law
against respondents. Seeing the writing on the wall, the
Commissioner sought and obtained a stay of the case—over
respondents’ objections—based on his representation that
the legislature was likely to repeal the challenged law. The
Commissioner then successfully lobbied the legislature to
repeal the legislation, emphasizing that doing so would, in
his words, “result in [respondents’] pending litigation being
dismissed, relieving the Department from continuing to in-
cur costly legal fees.” App. 409.
   As the Fourth Circuit observed, precluding fee shifting in
this scenario is manifestly inequitable, because it leaves re-
spondents “holding the bag” for considerable litigation fees
despite—and largely because of—their having succeeded in
obtaining preliminary relief. Stinnie v. Holcomb, 

77 F. 4th 200, 210

 (2023) (en banc). Ironically, it was the strength of
respondents’ challenge as verified by the court’s prelimi-
nary order that prompted both the change in law and the
Commissioner’s robust effort to stiff the plaintiffs with re-
spect to attorney’s fees. Moreover, it is hardly a revelation
that lawyers who would otherwise be willing to litigate mer-
itorious civil rights cases (i.e., matters in which interim re-
lief is critical due to ongoing civil rights violations) will
likely be discouraged from taking on such representations
if fee awards can be so easily thwarted.
   The majority dismisses concerns about strategic mooting
as both “ ‘entirely speculative’ ” and likely to “arise in only a
small number of contexts.” Ante, at 10 (quoting Buckhan-
non, 

532 U. S., at 608

). But, as I have shown, the facts of
this very case belie the majority’s nonchalance, particularly
in light of the Buckhannon experience. Research suggests
that the Court’s rejection of the catalyst theory in that case
18                    LACKEY v. STINNIE

                     JACKSON, J., dissenting

had the predictable practical effect of discouraging public
interest organizations and private attorneys from taking on
civil rights actions. C. Albiston & L. Nielsen, The Proce-
dural Attack on Civil Rights: The Empirical Reality of
Buckhannon for the Private Attorney General, 

54 UCLA L. Rev. 1087

, 1092 (2007); cf. n. 2, supra. Similarly,
a multitude of legal advocacy groups have filed amicus
briefs in this case to explain that losing the ability to recoup
fees for securing interim relief will jeopardize their mis-
sions. See, e.g., Brief for Alliance Defending Freedom et al.
as Amici Curiae 7–10; Brief for American Civil Liberties
Union et al. as Amici Curiae 28–30; Brief for Lawyers’ Com-
mittee for Civil Rights Under Law et al. as Amici Curiae
17–18.
  There is thus every reason to believe that the net result
of today’s decision will be less civil rights enforcement in
the long run. Without irony, the majority reads a statute
that was “enacted to [e]nsure that private citizens have a
meaningful opportunity to vindicate their [civil] rights,”
Pennsylvania v. Delaware Valley Citizens’ Council for Clean
Air, 

478 U. S. 546, 559

 (1986), as if Congress meant to make
private civil rights enforcement harder to achieve.
                          *     *     *
   The majority holds that obtaining a preliminary injunc-
tion never entitles a plaintiff to fees under §1988(b). In do-
ing so, it overrules the decisions of every Court of Appeals
to consider the issue, relies on an atextual “conclusive judg-
ment” requirement, and ignores both our precedents and
Congress’s intent.
   It is quite true that Congress has demonstrated its ability
to fix our mistakes in this realm. Ante, at 11. But, in my
view, rather than relying on Congress to check our work,
we should give full effect to the plain text and remedial pur-
pose of §1988(b) in the first instance. This Court should
have held that, when a court hearing a civil rights lawsuit
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604 U. S. ____

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                    JACKSON, J., dissenting

issues a preliminary injunction that materially alters the
relationship between the parties and is never reversed, the
requesting party “prevails” for fee-shifting purposes and is
thus eligible for a fee award under §1988(b).