Alaska Employment Law

Judge Milton Shadur, writing for a 9th Circuit panel in a civil rights case, says:

it has been firmly established for nearly three decades that the award of attorneys’ fees under Section 1988 emulates George Orwell’s Animal Farm: “Some animals are more equal than others.” In sharp contrast to the near-universal fee awards to prevailing Section 1983 plaintiffs, Hughes v. Rowe, 449 U.S. 5 (1980) (per curiam) adopted the same standard for Section 1988 awards that the seminal opinion in Christiansburg Garment Co. v. EEOC, 434 U.S. 412, (1978) had announced for a prevailing Title VII defendant:
It “may recover attorney’s fees from the plaintiff only
if the District Court finds that the plaintiff ’s action was frivolous, unreasonable, or without foundation, even though not brought in subjective bad faith” (Hughes, 449 U.S. at 14,
quoting Christiansburg Garment, 434 U.S. at 421). 

San Diego Police Officers’ Ass’n v. San Diego City Employees’ Retirement System, ___ F.3d ___ (9th Cir. June 10, 2009)