ST. LOUIS — The Eighth Circuit Appellate Court granted St. Louis Effort for AIDS attorney’s fees in its suit to enjoin the Health Insurance Marketplace Innovation Act (HIMIA) on Dec. 8.
The case was remanded back to the district court to calculate fees.
The court reversed a Jefferson County district court’s decision to deny attorney’s fees in St. Louis Effort for AIDS’ suit against the state.
Effort for AIDS along with Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri sued the state in 2013 after the legislature passed a law barring them and other navigators -- individuals hired to assist people with buying health insurance in state and federal exchanges -- from providing advice to their customers about health care plans under the Affordable Care Act.
Justice William Duane Benton stated in the appellate court's ruling that the claims met the fee substantiality test.
“The legal theories arise from a common nucleus of operative fact," he wrote.
Effort for AIDS sued the State of Missouri to enjoin HIMIA, claiming the new law was unconstitutional. Insurance agents and brokers said that the legislature would help keep unscrupulous counselors out of the insurance arena.
Under the law, navigators were limited in what they could advise, if anything; and were not able to assist consumers in signing up for coverage through HealthCare.gov.
The district judge imposed an injunction that prevented key parts of the state law from being enforced while the case was heard, and the Missouri Department of Insurance appealed that decision.
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling in April 2015 to uphold most of the lower court’s injunction, allowing navigators in Missouri to work without as many limits and without worry about what they could say to consumers. The district court granted summary judgment to Effort for AIDS, finding preemption of three provisions. The district court said that although Effort for AIDS’ claims challenged the same HIMIA provisions, the legal theories involved different considerations and did not arise from a common nucleus of operative fact, so fees could not be awarded.
Effort for AIDS appealed the exclusion of attorney’s fees.
Benton mentioned the “American rule” in courts, “where each litigant pays his own attorney’s fees, win or lose, unless a statute or contract provides otherwise," to explain why attorney fees should be granted in this case.
“Congress established rule 1988 b as an exception to the American rule for private actions brought under 42 u.s.c 1983 and other measures designed to secure civil rights. Section 1988(b)’s authority for fees in § 1983 cases is not 'extinguished' if the court decides the case on alternative, non-fee-generating grounds," Benton stated.
The court ruled that because all of Effort for AIDS’ claims arose from Missouri’s passage of the HIMIA regulating the group, the common nucleus requirement was satisfied.
Benton furthered that, “In this case…. the plaintiffs sought the same relief under alternative legal theories. The legal theories arise from a common nucleus of operative fact.”