Modi v. Kijakazi

• Court: District Court, N.D. California
• Decided: October 3, 2022
• Docket: 4:21-cv-02600
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

1 2 3 4 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 5 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 6 7 SHILA M., Case No. 21-cv-02600-DMR

8 Plaintiff, ORDER ON MOTION FOR 9 v. ATTORNEYS' FEES

10 KILOLO KIJAKAZI, Re: Dkt. No. 28 11 Defendant.

12 Plaintiff Shila M. moves the court pursuant to the Equal Access to Justice Act (“EAJA”), 13 28 U.S.C. § 2412, for an award of attorneys’ fees after securing a voluntary remand to the Social 14 Security Administration (“SSA”) for further proceedings. [Docket No. 26.] Kilolo Kijakazi, the 15 Commissioner of Social Security, opposes the motion. [Docket No. 29.] This matter is suitable 16 for resolution without a hearing. Civ. L.R. 7-1(b). For the reasons given below, the court grants 17 Plaintiff’s motion. 18 I. BACKGROUND 19 Plaintiff filed an application for Social Security Disability Insurance in October 2018. The 20 SSA denied the application in December 2018 and again on reconsideration in March 2019. She 21 then appealed to an Administrative Law Judge who found her not disabled on December 26, 2019. 22 After the Appeals Council denied her request for review, Plaintiff filed this action, seeking judicial 23 review on numerous grounds. On January 21, 2022, the court granted the parties’ stipulation for 24 voluntary remand of this case pursuant to sentence four of 42 U.S.C. § 405(g) and entered 25 judgment in Plaintiff’s favor. [Docket Nos. 26, 27.] 26 Plaintiff timely filed the pending motion for EAJA fees in the amount of $22,406.62. 27 [Docket No. 28.] In her reply brief, she reduced the amount she seeks to $21,536.46. [Docket No. II. LEGAL STANDARD 1 The EAJA provides for an award of attorneys’ fees to prevailing parties in cases seeking 2 judicial review of federal agency action: 3 [e]xcept as otherwise specifically provided by statute, a court shall 4 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 5 sounding in tort), including proceedings for judicial review of agency action, brought by or against the United States in any court having 6 jurisdiction of that action, unless the court finds that the position of the United States was substantially justified or that special 7 circumstances make an award unjust. 8 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d)(1)(A). “Thus, eligibility for a fee award in any civil action requires: (1) that 9 the claimant be a ‘prevailing party’; (2) that the Government’s position was not ‘substantially 10 justified’; (3) [and] that no ‘special circumstances make an award unjust.’” Comm’r v. Jean, 496 11 U.S. 154, 158 (1990). 12 To be deemed the prevailing party under the EAJA, a plaintiff must demonstrate that “(1) 13 as a factual matter, the relief sought by the lawsuit was in fact obtained as a result of having 14 brought the action, and (2) there was a legal basis for the [plaintiff’s] claim.” Andrew v. Bowen, 15 837 F.2d 875, 877-78 (9th Cir. 1988) (citation omitted). The government’s position is 16 substantially justified if the government proves that it has a “reasonable basis in law and fact.” 17 Hardisty v. Astrue, 592 F.3d 1072, 1079 (9th Cir. 2010) (quoting Pierce v. Underwood, 487 U.S. 18 552, 565 (1988)); accord Yang v. Shalala, 22 F.3d 213, 217 (9th Cir. 1994) (citation omitted). 19 This analysis focuses on “the particular issue on which the claimant earned remand” and not on 20 whether the government’s ultimate determination was substantially justified. Hardisty, 592 F.3d 21 at 1078 (citation omitted). 22 III. DISCUSSION 23 In this case, there is no dispute that Plaintiff qualifies as a prevailing party because her suit 24 secured a remand of the SSA’s final administrative decision. See Gutierrez v. Barnhart, 274 F.3d 25 1255, 1257 (9th Cir. 2001) (“An applicant for disability benefits becomes a prevailing party for 26 the purposes of the EAJA if the denial of her benefits is reversed and remanded regardless of 27 whether disability benefits ultimately are awarded.”). The Commissioner does not contend that 1 Therefore, Plaintiff is entitled to an award as a prevailing party under 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d). 2 When awarding a party attorneys’ fees pursuant to the EAJA, the court must determine the 3 reasonableness of the fees sought. Sorenson v. Mink, 239 F.3d 1140, 1145 (9th Cir. 2001). This 4 inquiry generally entails determining “the number of hours reasonably expended on the litigation 5 multiplied by a reasonable hourly rate.” Id. (quoting Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 433 6 (1983)). An award may be reduced if the movant provided inadequate documentation of the fees 7 requested, the hours spent by counsel were unreasonable, or the movant achieved “limited 8 success” in the litigation. Id. at 1146-47 (citing Hensley, 461 U.S. at 433-34, 436-37). 9 Plaintiff submits a declaration from the attorney who worked on her case, Helena Jordan. 10 Jordan billed 103 hours of time on this matter. [Docket No. 28-2 (Jordan Decl., Apr. 21, 2022) ¶ 11 3.] Plaintiff seeks the statutory mandated hourly rate, which was $217.54 for work performed in 12 2021.1 Mot. 6 (citing https://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/attorneys/statutory-maximum-rates/ (last 13 visited Sept. 25, 2022)). 14 The Commissioner does not dispute the hourly rate for Jordan. Rather, she objects to the 15 hours billed by Jordan as “patently unreasonable.” Opp’n 1. Specifically, the Commissioner 16 argues that Plaintiff’s proposed fee award is unreasonable for two reasons: 1) Plaintiff seeks 7.5 17 hours of attorney time drafting and filing an IFP application and the complaint, which the 18 Commissioner argues are “clerical tasks”; and 2) the time spent on the opening brief is 19 unreasonable given the “routine” issues raised. Id. at 2, 5. 20 As to the first argument, the Ninth Circuit has explained that “purely clerical or secretarial 21 tasks should not be billed at a paralegal [or lawyer’s] rate, regardless of who performs them . . .” 22 Davis v. City & Cnty. of San Francisco, 976 F.2d 1536, 1543 (9th Cir. 1992), opinion vacated in 23 part on denial of reh'g, 984 F.2d 345 (9th Cir. 1993) (alteration in original) (quoting Missouri v. 24 Jenkins, 491 U.S. 274, 288 n.10 (1989)). Plaintiff’s counsel concedes that an April 9, 2021 time entry for four hours related to “[f]inalizing filing docs and submitting them” “may have contained 25 26

27 1 Plaintiff seeks the same rate for three hours of work billed in 2022, even though the rate for the 1 clerical work” and withdraws that time. Reply 2. Accordingly, Plaintiff’s proposed fee award will 2 be reduced by $870.16. 3 With respect to the remaining 3.5 hours for work related to the complaint and IFP 4 application, the Commissioner argues that Plaintiff is not entitled to more than two hours for such 5 work “in light of the pro forma nature of a complaint” for review of a disability determination. 6 Opp’n 3. She notes that many courts provide “simple resources for pro se complainants to file a 7 complaint seeking judicial review of the Commissioner’s final decision,” which she claims 8 “underscore that there is no need to expend significant resources at the complaint stage.” Id. 9 (citations omitted). Yet this ignores that the Honorable Edward J. Davila, who originally presided 10 over this case, dismissed the boilerplate complaint form and required Plaintiff to file an amended 11 complaint detailing “the nature of her disagreement with the Commissioner’s findings.” [Docket 12 No. 5.] Additionally, Judge Davila denied Plaintiff’s original IFP application on the ground that 13 certain responses were “seemingly inconsistent,” and Plaintiff filed a renewed IFP application that 14 consisted of a detailed declaration about her finances. [See Docket Nos. 5, 7.] The court finds that 15 Plaintiff’s request for 3.5 hours for work performed in connection with the amended complaint 16 and IFP application is not unreasonable. 17 As to the Commissioner’s second argument, she notes that Plaintiff “raised a myriad of 18 issues in this case” but that her argument presented only “three routine areas.” According to the 19 Commissioner, the amount of time counsel spent on the opening brief—88 hours—is unreasonable 20 and excessive, particularly since the parties stipulated to a remand after that brief. Opp’n 5. The 21 Commissioner suggests that the fee request is higher “due to the inexperience of Plaintiff’s 22 counsel,” citing a PACER search that reveals that this case is counsel’s first in which she appeared 23 as counsel of record. Opp’n 5-6, Ex. 1. The Commissioner argues that it is unreasonable to shift 24 the financial burden of training counsel onto the government and contends that the court should reduce the hours spent on the opening brief by 60 percent, to 35.2 hours, for a total of $7,657.41. 25 Opp’n 6. 26 “Social security cases are fact-intensive and require a careful application of the law to the 27 1 detail.” Patterson v. Apfel, 99 F.Supp.2d 1212, 1213 (C.D. Cal. 2000). Notwithstanding the 2 Commissioner’s argument that this case presented “routine” issues, the administrative record in 3 this case was over 1,200 pages long, with over 900 pages of medical records, and Plaintiff 4 challenged the ALJ’s decision on eight separate grounds. [See Docket No. 22 (Pl.’s Mot. for 5 Summ. J.) at 1.] See Costa v. Comm’r of Soc. Sec. Admin., 690 F.3d 1132, 1134 n.1 (9th Cir. 6 2012) (noting that “the term ‘routine’” as used to describe social security disability cases “is a bit 7 of a misnomer” since such cases “are often highly fact-intensive and require careful review of the 8 administrative record, including complex medical evidence”); Kee v. Berryhill, No. 16-CV-05170- 9 MMC, 2018 WL 4566906, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 21, 2018) (where the Commissioner argued that 10 87.4 hours claimed are “beyond [the] hours normally expended by attorneys in similar disability 11 cases” and cited cases basing fee awards on lower numbers of hours, court held that “reviewing 12 ‘the amount of time spent on other cases’ is ‘far less useful for assessing how much time an 13 attorney can reasonably spend on a specific case because that determination will always depend on 14 case-specific factors’” and found the number of hours was “reasonable in light of the size of the 15 record and the issues presented therein.”). 16 Moreover, although “a district court will always retain substantial discretion in fixing the 17 amount of an EAJA award,” Jean, 496 U.S. at 163, a reduction of fees greater than 10 percent 18 requires “specific” and “persuasive” reasons from opposing counsel. Moreno v. City of 19 Sacramento, 534 F.3d 1106, 1112 (9th Cir. 2008) (allowing a small reduction of no more than a 10 20 percent at the court’s discretion). Here, the Commissioner’s request would result in a 60 percent 21 reduction in the amount of fees requested by Plaintiff’s counsel and appears to be based solely on 22 defense counsel’s opinion about the amount of time that counsel should have spent on the case. 23 However, the Ninth Circuit has instructed that courts should generally “defer to the winning 24 lawyer’s professional judgment as to how much time he was required to spend on the case.” Id. at 1112. Moreover, Plaintiff disputes that the fees “include time for learning the law,” noting that 25 Jordan had been practicing social security disability law for over two years before filing the 26 complaint and that she represented Plaintiff before the Appeals Council in March 2020. Reply 6 27 1 Having carefully reviewed the time entries, the court finds that the number of hours 2 || claimed in this case is high, particularly since the parties stipulated to remand after Plaintiff filed 3 || her opening brief and Plaintiff was not required to review and respond to a cross motion for 4 summary judgment. See, e.g., Mitford v. Kijakazi, No. 20-CV-05360-TSH, 2021 WL 6052006, at 5 *3,5 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 21, 2021) (concluding that claimed 59.2 attorney hours and 30.7 hours of 6 || paralegal time was “on the high end for a Social Security case” in which parties stipulated to 7 remand after opening brief, collecting cases, and imposing a 10 percent reduction). Plaintiff does 8 || not convincingly explain why so many hours were expended on the opening brief, arguing only 9 || that the issues were “complex” and the administrative record and medical records were lengthy 10 and time consuming to review, and noting that the case presented a novel issue of law regarding 11 medical opinion evidence. Reply 5. Accordingly, the court exercises its discretion and imposes a 12 || reduction of 10 percent, a “haircut.” See Costa, 690 F.3d at 1136. As noted, Plaintiff requests a 5 13 total of $21,536.46 for 99 hours of work by Jordan (which includes the reduction of four hours for S 14 clerical work). The court awards Plaintiff a total of $19,382.81, which reflects the 10 percent 3 15. || reduction. 16 Finally, as Plaintiff assigned her EAJA fees to counsel, this fee award shall be paid directly 5 17 to counsel, subject to any debt offset. [See Docket No. 28-3 (Assignment Agreement between 5 1g || Plaintiff and counsel).] See Valle v. Berryhill, No. 16-CV-02358-JSC, 2018 WL 1449414, at *3 19 || (N.D. Cal. Jan. 18, 2018) (“[a]s Plaintiff assigned her EAJA fees to [counsel] (Dkt. No. 26-3), 29 || Plaintiff's award, subject to any debt offset, shall be paid directly to Plaintiffs counsel.” (citing cases)). 7 IV. Conclusion 3 For the foregoing reasons, Plaintiff's motion for an award of attorneys’ fees is granted in 24 the amount of $19,382.81. SE DISTRIGS 25 IT IS SO ORDERED. yo Dated: October 3, 2022 iS) 26 2[{xr 1s 8° ° >, □ 27 2\0 OEE BYE 28 oni SE udge □□ aN A,