Richard Stuart Ross v. United States

The Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act (“CAFRA”) provides that any claimant who “substantially prevails” in a civil forfeiture action “shall” recover attorneys’ fees. 28 U.S.C. 2465(b)(1). But in the twenty-six years since Congress passed CAFRA, this Court has never addressed the scope of its fee-shifting provision. Although it has interpreted the meaning of a distinct term of art—“prevailing party”—in other statutory contexts (see Buckhannon Bd. & Care Home, Inc. v. W. Va. Dep’t of Health & Hum. Res., 532 U.S. 598 (2001)), it has counseled courts against “adding that term of art to a fee-shifting statute from which it is conspicuously absent.” Hardt v. Reliance Standard Life Ins. Co., 560 U.S. 242, 252 (2010). And just last term, this Court further cabined the application of its “prevailing party” caselaw when it reiterated that “[a] different body of caselaw addresses when a defendant is a ‘prevailing party.’” Lackey v. Stinnie, 604 U.S. 192, 204 n.* (2025). Notwithstanding these admonitions, in the decision below, the Second Circuit joined three other circuits in holding that—even though the phrases are different—CAFRA’s “substantially prevails” language means “prevailing party.” Then, it resolved a question this Court expressly left open in CRST Van Expedited, Inc. v. EEOC, 578 U.S. 419, 434 (2016) and Lackey, by holding that a civil-forfeiture defendant needs a preclusive judgment to be a prevailing party and widened a circuit split on whether the loss of attorneys’ fees constitutes plain legal prejudice requiring mitigation. The questions presented are:

1. Whether a civil-forfeiture defendant “substantially prevails” under 28 U.S.C. 2465(b)(1) when he or she rebuffs the government by causing it to voluntarily dismiss a forfeiture action and return all claimed property it seized following litigation.

2. Whether the loss of a statutory right to attorneys’ fees constitutes plain legal prejudice.