Fair Credit Reporting: 12.7.4.1 The Buckhannon Decision
The entitlement to fees following settlement of cases involving fee-shifting statutes was thrown into some confusion by the Supreme Court’s decision in Buckhannon Board & Care Home, Inc. v. Dep’t of Health & Human Resources,949 even though the case itself did not involve a settlement agreement. In Buckhannon, the Court rejected decades of federal decisions that had awarded fees to plaintiffs as the prevailing party under the “catalyst” rule.