Sole v. Wyner
The Supreme Court ruled that a woman who briefly won a preliminary injunction allowing a nude antiwar art display at a Florida beach, but ultimately lost her case on the merits, cannot collect attorney's fees for that early, temporary win.
The decision limits when civil-rights plaintiffs can recover legal fees, holding that a short-lived victory at the start of a lawsuit does not count if the final ruling wipes it out.
How it got here: A federal trial court granted a temporary injunction, later ruled for the state on the merits but still awarded fees for the early win; the appeals court affirmed the fee award, and the state asked the Supreme Court to review it.
The Case in Depth
What happened
An artist wanted to stage a nude antiwar display shaped like a peace sign at a Florida state park on Valentine's Day. State park rules required beachgoers to wear minimal clothing, so she sued state officials, citing the First Amendment, and asked for both an immediate order allowing the display and a permanent order protecting future nude displays.
The question before the Court
If a person wins a temporary court order but then loses the case for good, can she still collect attorney's fees for that early win?
Why it matters
Civil-rights plaintiffs and their lawyers often rely on the promise of fee awards to take on cases against government officials. This ruling means that winning an early, temporary court order is not enough to guarantee payment if the plaintiff ultimately loses — a lawyer's early success can turn out to be financially worthless if the case doesn't hold up.
What changes now
The case is sent back to the lower courts for further proceedings consistent with the Court's ruling, meaning the earlier fee award to the plaintiff must be undone. This is a final merits decision on the narrow question of attorney's fees; it does not resolve or reopen the underlying free-speech dispute, which the plaintiff did not appeal further.
What this does not decide
The Court expressly said it was not deciding whether a preliminary injunction could ever support a fee award when a case ends without any final merits ruling, and it took no position on how far the First Amendment protects nude artistic expression.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court applied its 'prevailing party' test for attorney's fee awards under federal civil-rights fee-shifting law, which asks whether a lawsuit produced a material change in the legal relationship between the parties, not just any temporary win.
- A preliminary injunction is issued after only a quick assessment of the plaintiff's likely success, based on a limited, rushed record — here, the hearing happened one day after filing and one day before the event, with no time for discovery or witness preparation.
- Because the preliminary order expired and had no binding effect on the later stage of the case, and both the trial court and the appeals court treated it as moot once the event occurred, the temporary order carried no lasting legal weight.
- The Court found that the final ruling on the merits — after a full record was developed — rejected the same constitutional argument the plaintiff had used to win the preliminary order, so the final decision overrode the earlier, tentative one.
- Since the challenged park rule remained valid and enforceable at the end of the case, the plaintiff never achieved a lasting change in her legal relationship with the state officials, so her early, since-undone victory could not support a fee award.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Buckhannon Board & Care Home, Inc. v. West Virginia Dept. of Health and Human Resources (532 U.S. 598)
The Court says its decision is consistent with the reasoning in this earlier fee-award case.