Handy v. Penal Institutions Commissioner

The defendants appeal from a judgment, entered by a single justice of this court, awarding attorneys’ fees to the plaintiffs in this class action, which was based in part on claims of violations of constitutional rights protected under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1988). The defendants argue that (1) defects in the complaint, which they have not waived, bar recovery of attorneys’ fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 (1988); (2) attorneys’ fees may not be awarded under § 1988 because this action was not a cause of improvements that the defendants made in the Suffolk County house of correction at Deer Island (Deer…