Cite as: 532 U. S. 598 (2001)
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
sively definitive; instead, we have accorded statutory terms, including legal "term[s] of art," ante, at 603 (opinion of the Court); ante, at 616 (Scalia, J., concurring), a contextual reading. See, e. g., Pioneer Investment Services Co. v. Brunswick Associates Ltd. Partnership, 507 U. S. 380, 395- 396, n. 14 (1993) (defining "excusable neglect," as used in Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 9006(b)(1), more broadly than Black's defines that term); United States v. Rodgers, 466 U. S. 475, 479-480 (1984) (adopting "natural, nontechnical" definition of word "jurisdiction," as that term is used in 18 U. S. C. § 1001, and declining to confine definition to "narrower, more technical meanings," citing Black's). Notably, this Court did not refer to Black's Law Dictionary in Maher v. Gagne, 448 U. S. 122 (1980), which held that a consent decree could qualify a plaintiff as "prevailing." The Court explained:
"The fact that [plaintiff] prevailed through a settlement rather than through litigation does not weaken her claim to fees. Nothing in the language of [42 U. S. C.] § 1988 conditions the District Court's power to award fees on full litigation of the issues or on a judicial determination that the plaintiff's rights have been violated." Id., at 129.
The spare "prevailing party" language of the fee-shifting provision applicable in Maher, and the similar wording of the fee-shifting provisions now before the Court, contrast with prescriptions that so tightly bind fees to judgments as to exclude the application of a catalyst concept. The Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995, for example, directs that fee awards to prisoners under § 1988 be "proportionately related to the court ordered relief for the violation." 110 Stat. 1321-72, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1997e(d)(1)(B)(i) (1994 ed., Supp. V) (emphasis added). That statute, by its express terms, forecloses an award to a prisoner on a catalyst theory. But the FHAA and ADA fee-shifting prescriptions, modeled
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