Case ID: f-appx_385/html/0639-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Verita GILL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. COMMISSIONER SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION, Defendant-Appellee.
    No. 09-35257.
    United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
    Submitted June 7, 2010.
    
    Filed June 22, 2010.
    Tim Wilborn, Wilborn Law Office, PC, Oregon City, OR, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
    Adrian Lee Brown, Assistant U.S. Attorney, Office of the U.S. Attorney, Portland, OR, Leisa Wolf, Esquire, SSA — Social Security Administration, Office of the General Counsel, Seattle, WA, for Defendant-Appellee.
    Before: HALL, FERNANDEZ, and McKEOWN, Circuit Judges.
    
      
       The panel unanimously finds this case suitable for decision without oral argument. Fed. R.App. P. 34(a)(2).
    
   MEMORANDUM

Verita Gill appeals the district court’s award of fees pursuant to the Equal Access to Justice Act. 28 U.S.C. § 2412. We affirm.

Gill asserts that the district court erred when it determined that the number of reasonably expended hours was less than the number actually expended by counsel. We disagree. We have reviewed the district court’s decision and the record, and we are unable to say that the district court abused its discretion when it explained that, considering the nature and complexity of this case, it was unreasonable for counsel to expend more than the forty hours the district court allowed. Put another way, we have scrutinized the decision and the record with particular care because we insist that district courts eschew policies that turn into substitutes for the exercise of their discretion, but that error did not occur here.

AFFIRMED. 
      
       This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
     
      
      . See Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 433-34, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 1939, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983); Comm’r, INS v. Jean, 496 U.S. 154, 163, 110 S.Ct. 2316, 2321, 110 L.Ed.2d 134 (1990); Atkins v. Apfel, 154 F.3d 986, 988 (9th Cir.1998).
     
      
      . See Atkins, 154 F.3d at 987.
     
      
      . See Moreno v. City of Sacramento, 534 F.3d 1106, 1111 (9th Cir.2008); Sorenson v. Mink, 239 F.3d 1140, 1145 (9th Cir.2001); Cunningham v. County of L.A., 879 F.2d 481, 484-85 (9th Cir.1988).
     
      
      . See Moreno, 534 F.3d at 1116.