Cite as: 527 U. S. 343 (1999)
Opinion of the Court
the Eastern District of Michigan claiming that the conditions of their confinement at SPSM-CC violated the First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. Five years later, the Hadix plaintiffs and the defendant prison officials entered into a consent decree to " 'assure the constitutionality' " of the conditions of confinement at SPSM-CC. Hadix v. Johnson, 144 F. 3d 925, 930 (CA6 1998) (quoting consent decree). The consent decree, which was approved by the District Court, addressed a variety of issues at SPSM-CC, ranging from sanitation and safety to food service, mail, and access to the courts.
In November 1987, the District Court entered an order awarding attorney's fees to the Hadix plaintiffs for post-judgment monitoring of the defendants' compliance with the consent decree. Hadix v. Johnson, No. 80-CV-73581 (ED Mich., Nov. 19, 1987), App. 79a. Subsequently, the Hadix plaintiffs were awarded attorney's fees through a procedure similar to the procedure that had been established for the Glover plaintiffs: The plaintiffs submitted semiannual fee requests, the defendants filed timely objections to these requests, and the District Court resolved any disputes. The District Court set, and periodically adjusted, a specific market rate for the fee awards; by 1995, that rate was set at $150 per hour for lead counsel. See Hadix v. Johnson, 65 F. 3d 532, 536 (CA6 1995).
Thus, by 1987, Glover and Hadix were on parallel paths. In both cases, the District Court had concluded that the plaintiffs were entitled to postjudgment monitoring fees under 42 U. S. C. § 1988, and the parties had established a system for awarding those fees on a semiannual basis. Moreover, in both cases, the District Court had established specific market rates for awarding fees. By the time the PLRA was enacted, the prevailing market rate in both cases had been set at $150 per hour.
The fee landscape changed with the passage of the PLRA on April 26, 1996. The PLRA, as its name suggests, con-
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