partial civil rights practitioners. Id. VI. CROSS-APPEAL. Plaintiffs argue that the district court should have declined to apply the Coulter 3% rule because “unusual circumstances” justified a higher award. Plaintiffs and Amici also urge us to abandon the Coulter presumptive cap altogether. We agree that intervening Supreme Court authority has undermined Coulter’s presumptive cap for fees for fee awards and therefore abrogate that ruling today. Accordingly, we need not address ., 970 F.2d 834, 838 n.2 (Fed. Cir. 1992) (“A decision that fails to consider Supreme Court precedent does not control if the court determines that the prior panel would have reached a different conclusion if it had considered controlling precedent.”); Tucker v. Phyfer, 819 F.2d 1030, 1035 n.7 (11th Cir. 1987) (<HOLDING>); Wilson v. Taylor, 658 F.2d 1021, 1035 (5th
holding that we are bound by prior panel opinions until they are overruled or abrogated by the supreme court or this court sitting en banc holding that the court may disregard pri or panel decision that failed to reference previous supreme court opinions and stating that we do not view ourselves as violating the prior panel rule rather we are simply discharging our duty to follow clearly controlling supreme court precedent holding that one panel of this court is bound by the precedent of an earlier panel absent en banc reconsideration or a superseding contrary decision of the supreme court holding that when intervening supreme court case law is clearly irreconcilable with a prior circuit decision a panel of this court is bound by the later and controlling authority and should reject the prior circuit opinion holding that a three judge panel is free to reexamine the holding of a prior panel when the supreme court has undercut the theory or reasoning underlying the prior circuit precedent in such a way that the cases are clearly irreconcilable