Cite as: 506 U. S. 103 (1992)
Opinion of the Court
Hewitt, 482 U. S., at 762. No material alteration of the legal relationship between the parties occurs until the plaintiff becomes entitled to enforce a judgment, consent decree, or settlement against the defendant. A plaintiff may demand payment for nominal damages no less than he may demand payment for millions of dollars in compensatory damages. A judgment for damages in any amount, whether compensatory or nominal, modifies the defendant's behavior for the plaintiff's benefit by forcing the defendant to pay an amount of money he otherwise would not pay. As a result, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit erred in holding that petitioners' nominal damages award failed to render them prevailing parties.
We have previously stated that "a technical victory may be so insignificant . . . as to be insufficient to support prevailing party status." Garland, 489 U. S., at 792.4 The example chosen in Garland to illustrate this sort of "technical" victory, however, would fail to support prevailing party status under the test we adopt today. In that case, the District Court declared unconstitutionally vague a regulation requiring that "nonschool hour meetings be conducted only with prior approval from the local school principal." Ibid. We suggested that this finding alone would not sustain prevailing party status if there were " 'no evidence that the plaintiffs were ever refused permission to use school premises during non-school hours.' " Ibid. The deficiency in such a hypothetical "victory" is identical to the shortcoming in Rhodes. Despite winning a declaratory judgment, the plaintiffs could not alter the defendant school board's behavior toward them for their benefit. Now that we are confronted with the question whether a nominal damages award is the sort of "technical," "insignificant" victory that cannot confer
4 We did not consider whether the plaintiffs in Garland could be denied prevailing party status on this basis, because "[t]hey prevailed on a significant issue in the litigation and . . . obtained some of the relief they sought." 489 U. S., at 793.
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