United States Second Circuit

In appeals from an attorney's fees award in Muslim inmates' civil rights suit arising from defendants' refusal to provide them Halal meat, the fees award is affirmed where: 1) plaintiffs were prevailing parties, as they achieved a material alteration in the legal relationship between the parties, and the so-ordered settlement bore judicial imprimatur; and 2) the Prison Litigation Reform Act's fee cap applied even though some plaintiffs were released from prison after the filing of the suit but before the successful resolution of the litigation.

Appellate Information

• Decided 11/19/2009
• Published 11/19/2009

Judges

• CALABRESI, Circuit Judge:, Before:  CALABRESI and LIVINGSTON, Circuit Judges, and KORMAN, District Judge.

Court

• United States Second Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• Richard Cohen (Donia F. Sawwan, Samantha H. Evans, Kathleen M. Aiello, Matthew Bettinger, of counsel), Fox Rothschild LLP, New York, N.Y., for Plaintiffs-Appellees-Cross-Appellants., Mary Lynn Nicolas and Martin G. Gleeson, Associate County Attorneys (Stacey Dolgin-Kmetz, Chief Deputy County Attorney, of counsel), for Charlene M. Indelicato, Westchester County Attorney, for Defendants-Appellants-Cross-Appellees.