Background
SINDAGRI brought a public civil action against the Union concerning field-duty compensation for federal employees. The Federal Regional Court for the Fourth Region partly granted the union’s appeal and awarded its lawyers R$10,000 in prevailing-party attorney fees under the Code of Civil Procedure.
The Union filed a special appeal, arguing that Article 18 of Law 7,347/1985, the Public Civil Action Law, barred the fee award under the principle of symmetry. The STJ selected the appeal as a representative repetitive case under Theme 1,177 to decide whether the Union may be ordered to pay prevailing-party fees in a public civil action.
The Court’s Holding
By majority, the STJ’s First Section granted the Union’s appeal and set aside the attorney-fee award. It adopted the following binding repetitive-case rule: “In light of the principle of symmetry, the exemption established by Article 18 of Law 7,347/1985 prevents an award of prevailing-party attorney fees against the Union when it loses a public civil action, unless bad faith is proven.”
The court reasoned that the Public Civil Action Law supplies a special fee regime that prevails over the Code of Civil Procedure. Because a union bringing such an action is not liable for prevailing-party fees when it loses absent bad faith, symmetry means that it likewise does not recover those fees when it wins against the Union.
The majority distinguished 2025 STJ decisions permitting fee awards against defendants in public civil actions brought by private associations or foundations. Those decisions were expressly limited to those private civil-society organizations and did not extend to labor unions. Justice Paulo Sérgio Domingues dissented, reasoning that the statute expressly protects plaintiffs rather than defendants and that unions should receive the same access-to-justice treatment as private associations.
Key Takeaways
- Absent proven bad faith, the Union cannot be ordered to pay prevailing-party attorney fees when it loses a public civil action brought by a labor union.
- The STJ treated Article 18 of the Public Civil Action Law as a special rule that displaces the Code of Civil Procedure’s general fee provisions.
- The ruling does not displace the separate rule allowing fee awards against defendants in actions brought by private associations or foundations.
Why It Matters
As a repetitive-case ruling under Theme 1,177, the decision supplies a controlling rule for numerous pending public civil actions involving unions and the federal government. Unions may continue pursuing collective relief without ordinary fee exposure if they lose, but generally cannot obtain prevailing-party fees from the Union if they win.
The decision also draws a consequential line between labor unions and private associations or foundations, despite their shared role in collective litigation. That distinction may affect the financial incentives for unions to bring public civil actions on behalf of represented workers.