McDonald v. Bowen

693 F. Supp. 1298, 1988 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9741, 1988 WL 91899
CourtDistrict Court, D. Massachusetts
DecidedAugust 17, 1988
DocketCiv. A. 84-2190-G
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 693 F. Supp. 1298 (McDonald v. Bowen) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Massachusetts primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
McDonald v. Bowen, 693 F. Supp. 1298, 1988 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9741, 1988 WL 91899 (D. Mass. 1988).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION AND ORDER ON FEE APPLICATIONS

GARRITY, District Judge.

This case is currently before the court on plaintiffs’ application for attorneys’ fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act (the EAJA), 28 U.S.C. § 2412(b) and (d). The named plaintiffs brought suit in 1984, challenging the regulatory policies used by the Social Security Administration to deny disability benefits on the grounds that a claimant does not have a severe impairment. The plaintiffs contended that two of these policies, viz., the agency’s application of the so-called severity test, incorporated as step two of the five-step sequential analysis for evaluating disability claims, 20 C.F.R. §§ 404.1520(c), 404.1521, 416.920(c), 416.-921, SSR 82-55 and SSR 82-56, and its refusal to consider the combined effect of several unrelated impairments when applying this test, 20 C.F.R. §§ 404.1522 and 416.922, conflicted with the Social Security Act and violated the claimants’ constitutional rights under the Fifth Amendment.

In 1985 this court granted the plaintiffs’ motion to maintain the suit as a class action. We certified as a class all those Massachusetts residents whose applications for disability benefits have been or will be denied on the grounds that they do not have a severe impairment. 612 F.Supp. 293. Finding that the regulations challenged by the plaintiffs were indeed inconsistent with the Social Security Act, we later granted the plaintiffs’ motions for summary judgment and directed the Secretary accordingly. 624 F.Supp. 375, 629 F.Supp. 1138. 1 The Court of Appeals upheld our invalidation of the Secretary’s policy concerning the combination of impairments, but held that the severity regulations, as interpreted by the Secretary in the newly issued Social Security Ruling 85-28, were valid under the Social Security Act. 795 F.2d 1118. The Court of Appeals then remanded the cases of the named plaintiffs to this court, and expressed its expectation that all claimants who had not yet exhausted their administrative remedies would now do so. Soon afterwards the plaintiffs filed a motion for summary judgment with this court, seeking a determination that administrative review would be available to the thousands of claimants whose applications for benefits were denied at step two after the start of the litigation, but who failed to *1300 begin or complete the administrative review process. On January 29, 1987, over the defendant’s objections, we granted this motion and ordered the Secretary to serve notice upon the affected class members, informing them of their right to revive their claims and resume the administrative review procedure. The Court of Appeals, while noting that the defendant’s jurisdictional objections presented “a close and perplexing” question, upheld this court’s orders. 834 F.2d 1085 (1987). Earlier this year, the Court of Appeals denied the plaintiffs’ application under the EAJA for attorneys’ fees incurred in this second appeal. (Mar. 24, 1988).

The Equal Access to Justice Act, which became law in 1980, is designed to reduce the economic deterrents often faced by individuals and private organizations in challenging unreasonable governmental action. See H.R.Rep. No. 1418, 96th Cong., 2d Sess. at 5-6, reprinted in 1980 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 4953, 4984. The EAJA makes the federal government and its agents subject to the common law and statutory exceptions to the general American rule that a party pays its own fees. Thus

[ujnless expressly prohibited by statute, a court may award reasonable fees and expenses of attorneys ... to the prevailing party in any civil action brought by or against the United States or any agency or any official of the United States acting in his or her official capacity in any court having jurisdiction of such action. The United States shall be liable for such fees and expenses to the same extent that any other party would be liable under the common law or under the terms of any statute which specifically provides for such an award.

28 U.S.C. § 2412(b) (emphasis added). The EAJA also extends the government’s liability for attorneys’ fees beyond that borne by other litigants, providing that

[e]xcept as otherwise specifically provided by statute, a court shall award to a prevailing party other than the United States fees and other expenses ... incurred by that party in any civil action (other than cases sounding in tort), including proceedings for judicial review of agency action, brought by or against the United States in any court having jurisdiction of that action, unless the court finds that the position of the United States was substantially justified or that special circumstances make an award unjust.

28 U.S.C. § 2412(d)(1)(A) (emphasis added).

The plaintiffs claim entitlement to attorneys’ fees under either subsection (b) or (d). We agree that the plaintiffs have obtained substantial benefits for the class as a whole, and can thus be considered the “prevailing party” for the purpose of assessing an award of attorneys’ fees. Shifting the plaintiffs’ legal expenses to the government would not have the effect of spreading the costs proportionally among those benefited by the litigation, however; therefore the Secretary is not liable for attorneys’ fees under the common law “common benefit” theory applicable to the United States under § 2412(b). The plaintiffs cannot obtain full recovery of attorneys’ fees under § 2412(d), either, because the defendant’s position on an important aspect of this litigation was substantially justified. The plaintiffs may recover attorneys’ fees, however, for work attributable in whole or in part to issues as to which the government has failed to prove either substantial justification for its positions or special circumstances making an award of fees unjust.

I. “Prevailing Party” Status

Before the plaintiffs can recover any attorneys’ fees under § 2412, they must demonstrate that they have prevailed against the United States in this litigation. The EAJA itself does not provide a definition of “prevailing party,” but the legislative history clearly indicates that Congress intended the term to be given a broad interpretation. In reporting on S. 265, the bill that after amendment became the Equal Access to Justice Act, the House Judiciary Committee noted that

[u]nder existing fee-shifting statutes, the definition of prevailing party has been the subject of litigation. It is the com *1301

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
693 F. Supp. 1298, 1988 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9741, 1988 WL 91899, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mcdonald-v-bowen-mad-1988.