MATTHEW DESHARNAIS V. UNUM LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: December 20, 2022
• Docket: 22-15336
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS DEC 20 2022 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

MATTHEW DESHARNAIS, No. 22-15336

Plaintiff-Appellant, D.C. No. 5:19-cv-06599-EJD

v. MEMORANDUM* UNUM LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY OF AMERICA,

Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California Edward J. Davila, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted December 5, 2022 San Francisco, California

Before: LUCERO,** BRESS, and VANDYKE, Circuit Judges.

Matthew Desharnais appeals the district court’s denial of his motion for

attorney’s fees under 29 U.S.C. § 1132(g)(1). A denial of an award of attorney’s

fees in an ERISA action is reviewed for abuse of discretion, Hummell v. S. E. Rykoff

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The Honorable Carlos F. Lucero, United States Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, sitting by designation. & Co., 634 F.2d 446, 452 (9th Cir. 1980), but “any elements of legal analysis and

statutory interpretation which figure in the district court’s decision are reviewable

de novo,” Micha v. Sun Life Assurance of Can., Inc., 874 F.3d 1052, 1057 (9th Cir.

2017) (citation and emphasis omitted). We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.

§ 1291, and we affirm.

To receive attorney’s fees in an ERISA action, a fees claimant must have

achieved “some success on the merits.” Hardt v. Reliance Standard Life Ins. Co.,

560 U.S. 242, 255 (2010). Once a claimant has cleared this hurdle, the court must

next consider the Hummell factors before awarding attorney’s fees. Simonia v.

Glendale Nissan/Infiniti Disability Plan, 608 F.3d 1118, 1119 (9th Cir. 2010).

Those factors include:

(1) the degree of the opposing part[y’s] culpability or bad faith; (2) the ability of the opposing part[y] to satisfy an award of fees; (3) whether an award of fees against the opposing part[y] would deter others from acting under similar circumstances; (4) whether the part[y] requesting fees sought to benefit all participants and beneficiaries of an ERISA plan or to resolve a significant legal question regarding ERISA; and (5) the relative merits of the parties’ positions.

Hummell, 634 F.2d at 453. The second Hummell factor has the greatest weight of

all the factors, but “[n]o one of the Hummell factors … is necessarily decisive, and

some may not be pertinent in a given case.” Carpenters S. Cal. Admin. Corp. v.

Russell, 726 F.2d 1410, 1416 (9th Cir. 1984).

2 Desharnais argues that the district court erred by concluding he did not

achieve “some success on the merits” under the “catalyst theory” and that the district

court abused its discretion when it concluded, in the alternative, that the Hummell

factors weighed against awarding Desharnais attorney’s fees. Assuming without

deciding that Desharnais achieved “some success on the merits,” we affirm the

district court because it did not abuse its discretion when it declined to award

attorney’s fees after weighing the Hummell factors.

Unum does have the ability to pay a fees award. But the record does not

support that Unum acted in bad faith or engaged in culpable conduct or that an award

of fees would deter others from acting similarly; the district court did not abuse its

discretion in concluding that these factors did not favor Desharnais when, due to the

parties’ efforts to resolve this matter administratively, the district court did not have

the opportunity to consider the merits of Desharnais’s position. Desharnais does not

represent a class of claimants and his claims would not have required the district

court to resolve a significant legal question regarding ERISA. And even though

Desharnais received reinstatement of his disability benefits, it is not clear that the

merits of his position were stronger than Unum’s, considering that the district court

did not have the opportunity to engage with this case on the merits. The district

court thus reasonably determined that only one factor favors a fee award and that the

other factors are either neutral or weigh against awarding attorney’s fees.

3 Because the record does not leave us with “a definite conviction that the

[district] court made a clear error of judgment in its conclusion,” Hummell, 634 F.2d

at 452, we affirm its decision to deny Desharnais’s motion for attorney’s fees.

AFFIRMED.