Cite as: 527 U. S. 343 (1999)
Opinion of the Court
date of the Act. Glover v. Johnson, Civ. Action No. 77-71229 (ED Mich., June 3, 1996), App. 148a; Hadix v. Johnson, Civ. Action No. 80-73581 (ED Mich., May 30, 1996), App. 91a. The Sixth Circuit affirmed this interpretation of the PLRA on appeal. Glover v. Johnson, 138 F. 3d 229, 249-251 (1998); Hadix v. Johnson, 144 F. 3d, at 946-948.
Fee requests next were filed in both Glover and Hadix for services performed between January 1, 1996, and June 30, 1996, a time period encompassing work performed both before and after the effective date of the PLRA. As relevant to this case, the defendant state prison officials argued that these fee requests were subject to the fee cap found in § 803(d)(3) of the PLRA, and the District Court accepted this argument in part. In nearly identical orders issued in the two cases, the court reiterated its earlier conclusion that the PLRA does not limit fees for work performed before April 26, 1996, but concluded that the PLRA fee cap does limit fees for services performed after the effective date. Hadix v. Johnson, Case No. 80-73581 (ED Mich., Dec. 4, 1996), App. to Pet. for Cert. 27a; Glover v. Johnson, Case No. 77-71229 (ED Mich., Dec. 4, 1996), App. to Pet. for Cert. 33a.
The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit consolidated the appeals from these orders, and, as relevant here, affirmed in part and reversed in part. Hadix v. Johnson, 143 F. 3d 246 (1998). According to the Court of Appeals, the PLRA's fee limitation does not apply to fee requests such as those in Hadix and Glover that relate to cases that were pending on the date of enactment. If it were applied to pending cases, the court held, it would have an impermissible retroactive effect, regardless of when the work was performed. 143 F. 3d, at 250-256.
The Court of Appeals' holding—that the PLRA's attorney's fees provisions do not apply to pending cases—is inconsistent with the holdings of other Circuits on these issues. For example, the Courts of Appeals for the Fourth and Ninth
351
Page: Index Previous 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007