Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-alsd-2_12-cv-00279/USCOURTS-alsd-2_12-cv-00279-6/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 864
Nature of Suit: Social Security - SSID Title XVI
Cause of Action: 42:405 Review of HHS Decision (SSID)

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF ALABAMA

NORTHERN DIVISION

PATRICIA VAUGHN, *

* 

Plaintiff, *

*

vs. * CIVIL ACTION NO. 12-00279-CG-B

*

CAROLYN W. COLVIN, *

Commissioner of Social *

Security, *

*

Defendant. *

REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION

This action is before the undersigned Magistrate Judge on 

Petitioner William T. Coplin, Jr., Esq.’s Motion for Attorney’s 

Fees in connection with his representation of Plaintiff, Patricia 

Vaughn, who brought an action before this Court seeking 

disability insurance benefits and supplemental security income,

under Titles II and XVI of the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 

401 et seq., and 1381, et seq. (Doc. 28). This action was 

referred to the undersigned Magistrate Judge for report and 

recommendation pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B) and Local 

Rule 72.2(c)(3). Upon consideration of the motion, the 

Commissioner’s lack of opposition thereto (Doc. 30), and all 

other pertinent portions of the record, it is the recommendation 

of the undersigned that Petitioner’s motion be GRANTED and that 

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Petitioner should receive a reasonable fee in the amount of 

$3,744.10 under the Social Security Act.

I. Findings of Fact 

Petitioner, William T. Coplin, Jr., Esq. was hired by 

Plaintiff to represent her in connection with her claim for a 

period of disability, disability insurance benefits, and 

supplemental security income on August 18, 2008. (Doc. 28-1, 

“Attorney Fee Agreement”). The Attorney Fee Agreement entered 

into by Plaintiff and her counsel in August 2008 provides, 

in pertinent part, that if Plaintiff receives a favorable

decision from the Social Security Administration after the 

decision of a federal court, Plaintiff will pay her attorney a 

fee equal to 25% of all past-due benefits. (Id. ¶4).

On October 26, 2012, this Court granted the Commissioner’s 

unopposed motion to remand pursuant to sentence four of 42 

U.S.C. § 405(g) for further administrative proceedings to allow

the Administrative Law Judge the opportunity to further 

evaluate Plaintiff’s mental impairments and residual functional 

capacity. (Docs. 19, 20, 21). Thereafter, on January 30, 

2013, the Court granted Plaintiff’s motion for attorney’s fees 

under the Equal Access to Justice Act (“EAJA”), 28 U.S.C. §

2412(d) in the sum of $1,241.88. (Docs. 25, 26, 27). 

On May 22, 2015, following remand, an Administrative Law

Judge rendered a fully favorable decision, finding that

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Plaintiff is disabled and that she was entitled to benefits 

commencing May 2007. (Docs. 28-2, 28-3). Pursuant to Section 

206 of the Social Security Act, codified at 42 U.S.C. § 406, 

the Administration withheld 25% of Plaintiff’s past-due 

benefits in order to pay for approved attorney’s fees. (Doc. 

28-3). According to Petitioner, he petitioned the Social 

Security Administration for a fee (for representation of 

Plaintiff before the Administration) and received $6,000. 

(Doc. 28 at 1). In addition, he received EAJA fees in the 

amount of $1,241.88. (Id.). Based on the information provided 

to Plaintiff by the Social Security Administration in a letter 

dated August 4, 2015, the Administration is also withholding 

$10,985.98, which represents 25% of past-due benefits owed to 

the Plaintiff. (Doc. 28 at 1; Doc. 28-3).

In the present petition, Petitioner seeks to have the 

remainder of the 25% of Plaintiff’s past-due benefits, 

$3,744.10, be awarded as an additional attorney’s fee under § 

406(b). (Doc. 28 at 1). Petitioner asserts that this request 

is consistent with the contingency agreement that Plaintiff

executed upon retaining Petitioner and that, once he reimburses

Plaintiff the amount of attorney’s fees previously awarded by 

the Court under the EAJA ($1,241.88), the attorney’s fees 

received will not exceed the allowable 25% of past-due benefits

awarded to Plaintiff.

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In response to Petitioner’s request, the Commissioner

states that she does not object to the requested fee but agrees

that an attorney who has received attorney’s fees under both 

§406 and EAJA must refund the lesser amount to his client. 

(Doc. 30 at 1).

II. Conclusions of Law

There are three statutory provisions under which attorneys 

representing claimants in Social Security Disability cases may 

be compensated: 42 U.S.C. §§ 406(a) and 406(b) and 28 U.S.C. § 

2412(d). Section 406(a) provides the exclusive avenue for 

attorneys seeking fees for work done before the Commissioner at 

the administrative level. The fees awarded under Section 406(a) 

are paid out of the claimant’s past-due benefits awarded and are 

capped at twenty-five percent of past-due benefits awarded or a 

lesser fixed amount. 42 U.S.C. § 406(a)(2)(A) and (B).

For fees incurred representing claimants in federal court, 

claimants and their attorneys may seek fees under two statutory 

provisions, 42 U.S.C. § 406(b) and 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d). Under 

Section 406(b), upon entry of judgment in favor of a claimant, 

the Court may award a reasonable fee for work performed before 

the Court, which are paid out of the claimant’s past-due 

benefits awarded. 42 U.S.C. § 406(b)(1)(A). Section 406(b) 

imposes a cap on the total amount of fees that may be awarded, 

providing that a Court may not award fees “in excess of 25 

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percent of the total of the past-due benefits to which the 

claimant is entitled.” 42 U.S.C. § 406(b)(1)(A). 

Section 406(b) thus “provides for contingent fees to be 

charged to the client, with the amount to be set by the district

court subject to a statutory maximum.” Watford v. Heckler, 765 

F.2d 1562, 1566 (11th Cir. 1985) (citation omitted; emphasis in 

original); see Meyer v. Sullivan, 958 F.2d 1029, 1035 n.12 

(11th Cir. 1992) (the total amount of attorney’s fees that may 

be awarded under the Social Security Act is limited to 25% of 

the past-due benefits awarded).

The Supreme Court has held that “§ 406(b) does not 

displace contingent-fee agreements within the statutory 

ceiling; instead, § 406(b) instructs courts to review for

reasonableness fees yielded by those agreements.” Gisbrecht

v. Barnhart, 535 U.S. 789, 808-09 (2002) (“Congress has 

provided one boundary line: Agreements are unenforceable to 

the extent that they provide for fees exceeding 25 percent of

the past-due benefits. . . . Within the 25 percent boundary, 

as petitioners in this case acknowledge, the attorney for

the successful claimant must show that the fee sought is 

reasonable for the services rendered.”).

Courts that approach fee determinations by looking 

first to the contingent-fee agreement, then testing 

it for reasonableness, have appropriately reduced the

attorney’s recovery based on the character of the

representation and the results the representative

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achieved. . . . If the attorney is responsible for 

delay, for example, a reduction is in order so that 

the attorney will not profit from the accumulation of 

benefits during the pendency of the case in court. . 

. . If the benefits are large in comparison to the 

amount of time counsel spent on the case, a downward

adjustment is similarly in order. . . . In this

regard, the court may require the claimant’s attorney 

to submit, not as a basis for satellite litigation, 

but as an aid to the court’s assessment of the 

reasonableness of the fee yielded by the fee 

agreement, a record of the hours spent representing 

the claimant and a statement of the lawyer’s normal

hourly billing charge for noncontingent-fee cases.

Id. at 808 (internal citations omitted).

In line with Gisbrecht, therefore, this Court need begin 

with the contingency fee agreement and should only reduce the

amount called for by the agreement upon a determination that

this amount is unreasonable. In adopting this approach, the 

Supreme Court rejected the Eleventh Circuit’s adoption of the

lodestar calculation of fees in Kay v. Apfel, 176 F.3d 1322, 

1323 (11th Cir. 1999), in favor of the contingency fee approach

of other Circuits, including the Second Circuit, in Wells v.

Sullivan, 907 F.2d 367, 371 (2d Cir. 1990) (district courts

must begin with the contingency fee agreement and may only 

“reduce the amount called for by the contingency 

agreement [] when it finds the amount to be unreasonable”); see

also Gisbrecht, 535 U.S. at 799, 808-09.

By contrast, the EAJA permits a claimant to seek an award 

of fees against the government for work that is done before the 

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Court if the claimant prevailed and the position of the 

Commissioner is not substantially justified. 28 U.S.C. § 

2412(d)(1)(A). The EAJA contains a Savings Provision that 

provides that “where the claimant’s attorney receives fees for 

the same work under both [406(b) and the EAJA], the claimant’s 

attorney refunds to the claimant the amount of the smaller fee.”

Jackson v. Commissioner of Soc. Sec., 601 F.3d 1268, 1271 (11th 

Cir. 2010) (quoting 28 U.S.C. 2412 note). 

This Circuit has held that “the aggregate of the attorney’s 

fees awarded under § 406(a) and § 406(b) may not exceed 25% of 

the claimant’s past due benefits.” Bookman v. Commissioner of 

Soc. Sec., 490 Fed. Appx. 314, 316 (11th Cir. 2012). “As the 

total fee under Sections 406(a) and (b) cannot exceed 25% of 

the past-due benefits and ‘double dipping’ under the EAJA is 

not allowed, the Court generally needs to know the amount 

awarded under § 406(a) (if any), amounts paid under EAJA (if 

any), and the total amount of past due benefits calculated by 

the agency, in order to evaluate the § 406(b) motion.” Bibber 

v. Commissioner of Soc. Sec., 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 181660, *4 

(M.D. Fla. Oct. 29, 2014), adopted by 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 

14048, 2015 WL 476190, *4-5 (M.D. Fla. Feb. 5, 2015).

As previously stated, based on the information provided to 

Plaintiff by the Social Security Administration (Doc. 28-3), 

25% of Plaintiff’s past-due benefits is $10,985.98 (making the 

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total amount of past due benefits $43,943.92). (Doc. 28 at 1; 

Doc. 28-3). The contingency agreement, which Plaintiff

entered into on August 18, 2008 (Doc. 28-1, “Attorney Fee 

Agreement”), contemplates attorney’s fees of as much as 25% of 

the claimant’s past-due benefits following a favorable decision

after a federal court remand. (Id. ¶ 4). It is apparent to 

the Court that the amount requested by Petitioner herein 

($3,744.10), added to the statutory attorney’s fees already 

paid by the Administration ($6,000) (Doc. 28 at 1), and the 

attorney’s fees already paid under the EAJA ($1,241.88), does 

not exceed 25% of the past-due benefits that Plaintiff has 

been awarded in this case.1 Moreover, there is no evidence that 

Petitioner delayed this case in any manner, nor can the Court

find that the requested amount is so large as to be a windfall 

to Petitioner. Given the length of Petitioner’s relationship 

with the claimant and the favorable results achieved by 

 1 Counsel has the choice to refund the EAJA award to Plaintiff or 

deduct the amount of the EAJA award from his § 406(b) fee 

request. Baggett v. Colvin, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 59175, *12 

n.5, 2014 WL 1686544, *4 n.5 (N.D. Fla. Apr. 29, 2014) (citing 

Jackson v. Commissioner of Soc. Sec., 601 F.3d 1268, 1274 (11th 

Cir. 2010) (“Although an attorney who receives fees under both 

the EAJA and 42 U.S.C. § 406(b) must refund the smaller fee to 

his client, the attorney may choose to effectuate the refund by 

deducting the amount of an earlier EAJA award from his 

subsequent 42 U.S.C. § 406(b) fee request.”)). Petitioner has 

chosen the latter option in this case. 

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Petitioner for the claimant, the Court considers the requested 

amount reasonable.

III. Conclusion

Based on the foregoing, it is the recommendation of the 

undersigned that Petitioner’s motion be GRANTED and that 

Petitioner William T. Coplin, Jr., Esq., receive, as an 

attorney’s fee pursuant to § 406(b) for services rendered at the 

federal court level, the sum of $3,744.10. This total is equal 

to twenty-five (25%) percent of the total past-due benefits 

awarded to Plaintiff, minus the administrative amount previously 

paid ($6,000), minus the amount previously awarded pursuant to 

the EAJA ($1,241.88).

Notice of Right to File Objections

A copy of this report and recommendation shall be served on 

all parties in the manner provided by law. Any party who 

objects to this recommendation or anything in it must, within 

fourteen (14) days of the date of service of this document, file 

specific written objections with the Clerk of this Court. See

28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1); Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b); S.D. Ala. L.R.

72.4. The parties should note that under Eleventh Circuit 

precedent, “the failure to object limits the scope of [] 

appellate review to plain error review of the magistrate judge’s 

factual findings.” Dupree v. Warden, Attorney General, State of 

Alabama, 715 F.3d 1295, 1300 (11th Cir. 2011). In order to be 

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specific, an objection must identify the specific finding or 

recommendation to which objection is made, state the basis for 

the objection, and specify the place in the Magistrate Judge’s 

report and recommendation where the disputed determination is 

found. An objection that merely incorporates by reference or 

refers to the briefing before the Magistrate Judge is not 

specific.

DONE this 25th day of September, 2015.

 /s/ SONJA F. BIVINS 

 UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

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