616
VIRGINIA DEPT. OF HEALTH AND HUMAN RESOURCES Scalia, J., concurring
the body of learning from which it was taken and the meaning its use will convey to the judicial mind unless otherwise instructed. In such case, absence of contrary direction may be taken as satisfaction with widely accepted definitions, not as a departure from them." Morissette v. United States, 342 U. S. 246, 263 (1952).
The cases cited by the dissent in which we have "not treated Black's Law Dictionary as preclusively definitive," post, at 628-629, are inapposite. In both Pioneer Investment Services Co. v. Brunswick Associates Ltd. Partnership, 507 U. S. 380 (1993), and United States v. Rodgers, 466 U. S. 475 (1984), we rejected Black's definition because it conflicted with our precedent. See Pioneer, supra, at 395-396, n. 14; Rodgers, supra, at 480. We did not, as the dissent would do here, simply reject a relevant definition of a word tailored to judicial settings in favor of a more general definition from another dictionary.
II
The dissent distorts the term "prevailing party" beyond its normal meaning for policy reasons, but even those seem to me misguided. They rest upon the presumption that the catalyst theory applies when "the suit's merit led the defendant to abandon the fray, to switch rather than fight on, to accord plaintiff sooner rather than later the principal redress sought in the complaint," post, at 622 (emphasis added). As the dissent would have it, by giving the term its normal meaning the Court today approves the practice of denying attorney's fees to a plaintiff with a proven claim of discrimination, simply because the very merit of his claim led the defendant to capitulate before judgment. That is not the case. To the contrary, the Court approves the result in Parham v. Southwestern Bell Tel. Co., 433 F. 2d 421 (CA8 1970), where attorney's fees were awarded "after [a] finding that the defendant had acted unlawfully," ante, at 607-
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