Cite as: 532 U. S. 598 (2001)
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
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The Court states that the term "prevailing party" in fee-shifting statutes has an "accepted meaning." Ante, at 608. If that is so, the "accepted meaning" is not the one the Court today announces. It is, instead, the meaning accepted by every Court of Appeals to address the catalyst issue before our 1987 decision in Hewitt, see supra, at 626, n. 4, and disa-vowed since then only by the Fourth Circuit, see supra, at 627, n. 5. A plaintiff prevails, federal judges have overwhelmingly agreed, when a litigated judgment, consent decree, out-of-court settlement, or the defendant's voluntary, postcomplaint payment or change in conduct in fact affords redress for the plaintiff's substantial grievances.
When this Court rejects the considered judgment prevailing in the Circuits, respect for our colleagues demands a cothe influential elaboration of the catalyst rule in Nadeau v. Helgemoe, 581 F. 2d, at 279-281. See 446 U. S., at 757. The Court additionally cites Texas State Teachers Assn. v. Garland Independent School Dist., 489 U. S. 782 (1989), which held, unanimously, that a plaintiff could become a "prevailing party" without obtaining relief on the "central issue in the suit." Id., at 790. Texas State Teachers linked fee awards to a "material alteration of the legal relationship of the parties," id., at 792-793, but did not say, as the Court does today, that the change must be "court-ordered," ante, at 604. The parties' legal relationship does change when the defendant stops engaging in the conduct that furnishes the basis for plaintiff's civil action, and that action, which both parties would otherwise have litigated, is dismissed.
The decision with language most unfavorable to the catalyst rule, Farrar v. Hobby, 506 U. S. 103 (1992), does not figure prominently in the Court's opinion—and for good reason, for Farrar "involved no catalytic effect." See ante, at 603, n. 5 (quoting Friends of Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC), Inc., 528 U. S. 167, 194 (2000) (internal quotation marks omitted)); supra, at 627. Farrar held that a plaintiff who sought damages of $17 million, but received damages of $1, was a "prevailing party" nonetheless not entitled to fees. 506 U. S., at 113-116. In reinforcing the link between the right to a fee award and the "degree of success obtained," id., at 114 (quoting Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U. S., at 436), Farrar's holding is consistent with the catalyst rule.
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