Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-98-05049/USCOURTS-caDC-98-05049-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued November 12, 1998 Decided August 24, 1999

No. 98-5048

Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Inc.,

an Indiana not-for-profit corporation;

American Council for Health Care Reform,

a Virginia not-for-profit corporation;

National Legal & Policy Center,

a District of Columbia not-for-profit corporation,

Appellees

v.

Hillary Rodham Clinton,

wife of the President of the United States;

Donna E. Shalala, Secretary of the Department of

Health & Human Services, et al.

Appellants

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No. 98-5049

Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Inc.,

an Indiana not-for-profit corporation;

American Council for Health Care Reform,

a Virginia not-for-profit corporation;

National Legal & Policy Center,

a District of Columbia not-for-profit corporation,

Appellees

v.

Hillary Rodham Clinton,

wife of the President of the United States, et al.

Ira C. Magaziner, White House Advisor,

Appellant

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 93cv00399)

Jacob M. Lewis, Attorney, United States Department of

Justice, argued the cause for appellants Hillary Rodham

Clinton, et al. Frank W. Hunger, Assistant Attorney General, and William Kanter and Michael S. Raab, Attorneys,

United States Department of Justice, were on brief.

Irvin B. Nathan, James L. Cooper and Nancy L. Perkins

were on brief for appellant, Ira C. Magaziner.

Thomas R. Spencer argued the cause for the appellees.

Robert C. Gill was on brief.

Before: Ginsburg and Henderson, Circuit Judges, and

Buckley, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the court filed per Curiam.

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Per Curiam: The appellants, officials of the Executive

Branch of the United States Government, including presidential advisor Ira C. Magaziner, (collectively referred to as the

government) challenge the district court's December 22, 1997

award of attorney's fees to the appellees, Association of

American Physicians and Surgeons, American Council for

Health Care Reform and National Legal & Policy Center,

(collectively referred to as AAPS). The court awarded fees

under the common law on the ground that the government

litigated in bad faith and under the Equal Access to Justice

Act, 28 U.S.C. s 2412, (EAJA) on the ground that the government's litigating position was not "substantially justified."

Because we conclude the district court's bad faith findings are

clearly erroneous, we reverse the fee award

and remand for further consideration.

I.

AAPS filed this action on February 24, 1993 alleging that

the government violated the Federal Advisory Committee

Act, 5 U.S.C. app. II, ss 1-15, (FACA) by failing to file an

advisory committee charter for the "President's Task Force

on National Health Care Reform" (Task Force) and by

denying access to meetings of both the Task Force and an

"interdepartmental working group" overseen by Task Force

member Magaziner. On March 3, 1993, in opposition to

AAPS's motion for preliminary injunction, the government

filed a declaration by Magaziner (Magaziner Declaration,

Declaration) which averred, inter alia, that "[o]nly federal

government employees serve as members of the interdepartmental working group." Joint Appendix (JA) 135. The

Declaration explained that membership included approximately 300 "full-time, permanent employees, who work for

the Executive office of the President, for federal agencies, for

members of Congress or for Senate or House committees,"

and 40 "special government employees" who "have been

employed by an agency or the Executive Office of the President for less than 130 days in a 365-day period, either with or

without compensation." JA 135-37. In addition, the DeclaUSCA Case #98-5049 Document #458829 Filed: 08/24/1999 Page 3 of 15
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ration noted that the working group had "retained a wide

range of consultants, who attend working group meetings on

an intermittent basis, either with or without compensation."

JA 137.

On March 10, 1993 the district court issued a memorandum

opinion and order granting AAPS's preliminary injunction

motion. AAPS v. Clinton, 813 F. Supp. 82 (D.D.C. 1993).

The court held that the Task Force was an advisory committee and that it did not come within FACA's exemption for a

"committee that is composed wholly of full-time, or permanent part-time, officers or employees of the Federal Government," 5 U.S.C. app. II, s 3(2)(iii), because First Lady Hillary

Clinton, who chaired the Task Force, was not a federal

employee. The court also concluded, however, that the working group was not a FACA committee because it worked on

behalf of the Task Force and did not directly advise the

President. See 813 F. Supp. at 88-89 (finding interdepartmental working group (1) "directly compares" to task forces

found exempt from FACA in National Anti-Hunger Coalition v. Executive Committee, 557 F. Supp. 524 (D.D.C.), aff'd,

711 F.2d 1071 (D.C. Cir. 1983), because it performed purely

"staff" functions and (2) "fully meets" regulatory exemption

from FACA in 41 C.F.R. s 101-6.1004(k), which "exclude[s]

from the Act's coverage '[m]eetings of two or more advisory

committee or subcommittee members convened solely to

gather information or conduct research for a chartered advisory committee, to analyze relevant issues and facts, or to

draft proposed position papers for deliberation by the advisory committee or a subcommittee of the advisory committee' ").

On appeal this court reversed and remanded, concluding (1)

"[t]he question whether the President's spouse is 'a full-time

officer or employee' of the government is close enough for us

properly to construe FACA not to apply to the Task Force

merely because Mrs. Clinton is a member," AAPS v. Clinton,

997 F.2d 898, 910-11 (D.C. Cir. 1993), (AAPS I) and (2) the

record was insufficiently developed to determine whether all

of the working group's members were full-time federal employees or whether the working group was sufficiently strucUSCA Case #98-5049 Document #458829 Filed: 08/24/1999 Page 4 of 15
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tured so as to constitute a committee under FACA, id. at 915.

The court explained:

When we examine a particular group or committee to

determine whether FACA applies, we must bear in mind

that a range of variations exist in terms of the purpose,

structure, and personnel of the group. Perhaps it is best

characterized as a continuum. At one end one can

visualize a formal group of a limited number of private

citizens who are brought together to give publicized

advice as a group. That model would seem covered by

the statute regardless of other fortuities such as whether

the members are called "consultants." At the other end

of the continuum is an unstructured arrangement in

which the government seeks advice from what is only a

collection of individuals who do not significantly interact

with each other. That model, we think, does not trigger

FACA.

Id. at 915.1 While the working group "seem[ed] more like a

horde than a committee," this court also noted that it had

been created "with a good deal of formality and [is] perhaps

better understood as a number of advisory committees." Id.

at 914.

Taking its cue from this court's language in AAPS I, the

government, in its first submission to the district court following remand, adopted what came to be known as the "wandering horde" theory of the case. Accordingly, the government

proposed that discovery be limited to whether the working

group's "structure, personnel and purpose" were such that it

was a FACA committee, regardless whether it fell within the

__________

1 The AAPS I court rejected the district court's determination

that the working group was not a FACA committee because its

members acted merely as advisory staff to the Task Force and did

not directly advise the President. The court reasoned that because

the Task Force was not itself a FACA Committee, the working

group was "the point of contact between the public and the government" and could therefore not be exempt from FACA based on its

subsidiary relationship to the Task Force. AAPS I, 997 F.2d at

912-13.

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full-time employee exemption. The discovery that followed

was contentious and, in response to a motion to compel that

AAPS filed, the district court set out what it viewed as the

issues before it. The first issue was whether the "formality

and structure of the working group ... [was such that] there

are advisory committees within the working group, even if the

working group itself is not an advisory committee." AAPS v.

Clinton, 837 F. Supp. 454, 456 (D.D.C. 1993). Although, as

we note below, the government had not argued that the

working group was exempt from FACA because it was composed only of full-time government employees, the other

issues the district court thought relevant to discovery involved the "truth of the government's claim that all members

of the working groups are full-time officers or employees of

the government." Id. The district court then issued an

order (dated November 9, 1993) granting the motion to

compel and holding AAPS entitled to sanctions against the

government under Fed. R. Civ. P. 37, although no sanctions

were ever assessed.

On April 11, 1994 AAPS filed a summary judgment motion

accompanied by a list of individuals who it claimed were

members of the working group but who did not meet the

requirements of FACA's federal employee exemption. The

government filed a cross-motion for summary judgment on

May 4, 1994 and argued that the working group was not a

FACA "committee" because it lacked " 'an organized structure, a fixed membership, and a specific purpose' " and was

not operated "with 'formality.' " Cross-Motion Memorandum

at 2 (quoting AAPS, 997 F.2d at 914). In addition, the

government stated in a footnote:

Defendants do not argue here that the interdepartmental

working group qualified for the FACA's exemption for

groups comprised wholly of full-time federal employees.

As defendants have stated, the "members" of the working group were either regular employees of the Executive Branch or Congress or special government employees. In light of the Court of Appeals' discussion of the

term "full-time," see AAPS I, 997 F.2d at 914-15, howevUSCA Case #98-5049 Document #458829 Filed: 08/24/1999 Page 6 of 15
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er, it would be a substantial burden for defendants and

this Court to make a person-by-person assessment that

each such "member" worked "full-time." Because it is

clear that the interdepartmental working group and its

working groups lacked the features of FACA committees

identified by the court, it is not necessary for the defendants to attempt to prove the applicability of the FACA's

exemption in any event.

Id. at 2 n.1 (emphasis added).

On May 16, 1994 AAPS moved to hold Magaziner in

contempt for having "made false and misleading statements

under penalty of perjury in his March 3, 1993 Declaration,"

5/16/94 Memorandum in Support of Motion for Sanctions and

Rule for Contempt at 20, and for sanctions against the

government for "defending the case by asserting facts they

knew not to be true" (namely "that only full-time employees

of the federal government ... were participants on the Task

Force working groups"), id. at 18, 16, and for having "constantly refused to comply with Plaintiff's discovery requests

and [the district court's] November 9, 1993 Order compelling

discovery," id at 18.

At a hearing on July 25, 1994 the district court denied the

cross-motions for summary judgment and reserved ruling on

the contempt and sanctions motion. See JA 832-33. Thereafter the government made the then defunct working group's

documents available for inspection and as a consequence on

December 21, 1994 the district court issued an order declaring the merits, and the matter of civil contempt, moot.

AAPS v. Clinton, 879 F. Supp. 106 (D.D.C. 1994). In the

same order the court referred Magaziner's possible perjury

and criminal contempt to the United States Attorney for the

District of Columbia "for further development of the facts in

order to determine whether a criminal offense has been

committed." Id. at 108. The court also set a status conference "to schedule consideration of plaintiffs' collateral requests for other sanctions and attorneys' fees and costs." Id.

at 109.

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On August 3, 1995 then United States Attorney Eric H.

Holder, Jr. wrote the district court a letter stating: "The

results of our investigation demonstrate that there is no basis

to conclude that Mr. Magaziner committed a criminal offense

in this matter. There is no significant evidence that his

declaration was factually false, much less that it was willfully

and intentionally so." JA 1990. On August 30, 1995, after

reading a transcript of an August 11 status conference,

Holder again wrote the court, to "clarify" that he did not

intend to imply in the August 3 letter that he had found "a

willful or deliberate attempt to mislead the Court on the part

of the government." JA 2031.2

After additional briefing, the district court issued an order

and opinion dated December 18, 1997 (as amended December

27, 1997) finding the government's conduct "sanctionable" and

awarding AAPS attorney's fees and costs of $285,864.78 both

under the common law's "exception" to the "American rule"

against attorney fees "where the losing party has acted in

'bad faith,' " American Hosp. Ass'n v. Sullivan, 938 F.2d 216,

219 (D.C. Cir. 1991) (citations omitted), and under the EAJA,

which provides that "a court shall award to a prevailing party

other than the United States fees and other expenses ...

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. s 2412(d)(1)(A). The district

court first found that Magaziner (as well as any staff and

counsel who participated in drafting the Magaziner Declaration) had acted in bad faith in four respects in making the allgovernment-employee assertion. The court further found

that the government acted in bad faith by failing (1) "to

correct or change" Magaziner's "factual representation to the

court" that "all 'members' of the working group were federal

employees" or (2) to "timely advise t[he] court that it was not

making the 'all-employee' argument attributed to the govern-

__________

2 Holder wrote specifically in response to the district court's

observation at the conference that " 'the thrust' " of Holder's August 3, 1995 letter was "that 'the government and the government's

lawyers have misled or misrepresented facts to the Court,' " JA

2030 (quoting district court).

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ment by the Court of Appeals and by plaintiffs." AAPS v.

Clinton, 989 F. Supp. 8, 11 (1997). Having thus "separately

determined that the United States in this case did not act in

good faith, and that its conduct is therefore sanctionable," the

district court stated that "[t]his same conduct leads the court

to conclude that the positions taken by the United States in

this litigation were not substantially justified." 989 F. Supp.

at 13. Having found "that the defendants acted in bad faith

until August 1994, when they determined to settle or moot

this case," 989 F. Supp. at 15, the court awarded fees for

work performed before that date in excess of the EAJA

hourly cap,3 noting: "The Court of Appeals affirmed this

court on the one prior occasion where this court granted an

award of attorney's fees against the government for acting in

'bad faith, vexatiously, wantonly, or for oppressive reasons,' "

id. at 15 (citing American Hospital Ass'n v. Sullivan, 938

F.2d 216 (D.C. Cir. 1991) (upholding fee award based on

common-law exception, notwithstanding plaintiff was ineligible for any fee under EAJA s 2412(d)(2)(B))). The government and Magaziner appeal the fee award and its underlying

findings of bad faith.4

II.

We review an EAJA fee award for abuse of discretion and

"will reverse the district court if its decision rests on clearly

erroneous factual findings or if it leaves us with a definite and

firm conviction that the court below committed a clear error

of judgment in the conclusion it reached upon a weighing of

__________

3 When the sanctioned conduct occurred, the EAJA capped fee

award rates at $75 per hour. See 28 U.S.C. s 2412(d)(2)(A) (1994).

In 1996 the hourly cap was raised to $125. See Pub. L. No.

104-121, s 232(b)(1), 110 Stat. 847, 863 (1996).

4 AAPS disputes Magaziner's standing to appeal the findings of

bad faith regarding the Magaziner Declaration. Because those

findings underlie the district court's finding of bad faith by the

government, whose standing is unchallenged, we must address them

in any event to resolve the government's appeal. Accordingly, we

need not decide whether Magaziner himself has standing.

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the relevant factors." F.J. Vollmer Co. v. Magaw, 102 F.3d

591, 595-96 (D.C. Cir. 1996). Similarly, "the question of bad

faith in the context of the common law exception to the

American rule on counsel fees ... is one of fact requiring a

clearly erroneous standard of review." American Hosp.

Ass'n v. Sullivan, 938 F.2d at 222. Nevertheless, the substantive standard for a finding of bad faith is "stringent" and

"attorneys' fees will be awarded only when extraordinary

circumstances or dominating reasons of fairness so demand."

Nepera Chem., Inc. v. Sea-Land Serv., Inc., 794 F.2d 688, 702

(D.C. Cir. 1986). Further, the finding of bad faith must be

supported by "clear and convincing evidence," see Shepherd v.

American Broadcasting Cos., Inc., 62 F.3d 1469, 1476-78

(D.C. Cir. 1995), which "generally requires the trier of fact, in

viewing each party's pile of evidence, to reach a firm conviction of the truth on the evidence about which he or she is

certain." United States v. Montague, 40 F.3d 1251, 1255

(D.C. Cir. 1994). Because we find insufficient evidence in the

record to satisfy the stringent bad faith standard, we hold

that the district court's bad faith findings are clearly erroneous.

We first conclude there is an inadequate basis for the

court's finding that the government acted in bad faith by not

"timely advis[ing]" the court that "it was not making the 'allemployee' argument attributed to the government by the

Court of Appeals and by plaintiffs." 997 F. Supp. at 11.

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Assuming that the government affirmatively invoked the exemtion

in the district court as a defense of working group documents, a

fact that is not at all clear from the record 5 government informed the

court, albeit in a footnote, in its May 4, 1994 memorandum in

support of summary judgment, quoted supra pp. 6-7, that it

was not claiming the federal employee exemption for the

working group. At worst the government's failure to do so

earlier demonstrates only that it wanted to keep its options

open--and so it remained silent.

The government was under no "clear" duty before then

to disavow it and therefore its silence, while apparently

misleading, does not amount to bad faith. See American

Hosp. Ass'n v. Sullivan, 938 F.2d at 222 ("[B]ad faith may be

found where a party has violated a 'clear [legal] duty.' ")

(Ginsburg, J., dissenting, quoting majority opinion, 938 F.2d

at 219).

We also find no bad faith in the government's failure "to

correct or change" the Magaziner Declaration's representation to the court that all members of the working group were

federal employees. Given that the government did not press

the federal employee exemption, the representation, if false,

was not material and therefore cannot be characterized as

made in bad faith. Cf. Whitney Bros. Co. v. Sprafkin, 60

F.3d 8, 14-15 (1st Cir. 1995) (rejecting "bad faith" finding

based on alleged perjury where district court "neither explained why it concluded that the [defendants] had perjured

themselves nor explained why any allegedly untrue statements were material"). Further, this finding cannot stand

because the district court's subsidiary findings of bad faith in

drafting the Magaziner Declaration, on which the court rested

__________

5 The government's only explicit reference to the exemption's

application to the working group was in a footnote in its March 3,

1993 memorandum opposing temporary injunctive relief. See JA

117 n.26 ("If plaintiffs are concerned that working group members

have met with Mr. Magaziner, such meetings would not be covered

by FACA. All working members, like Mr. Magaziner, are federal

employees."). The Magaziner Declaration described the working group as made 

up exclusively

of "federal government employees" but it made no mention of the FACA federal 

employee

exemption and did not claim the employee members were "full-time, or permanent

part-time" government employees, a necessary element of the exemption.

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the finding, are not supported by clear and convincing evidence.

The court first found that the Declaration "clearly implies

that consultants are a category completely distinct from that

of special government employees" but that Magaziner (as well

as "his staff and the government's lawyers") must have

known that those terms " 'were used loosely and inconsistently among and between the different agencies, and not everyone agreed in their definitions.' " 989 F. Supp. at 11 (quoting

8/3/95 Holder letter at 12 (JA 2000)). The court cited no

evidence, however, that at the time the Declaration was

drafted Magaziner disbelieved the distinction between employees and consultants (only the former of which he characterized as working group "members") based on the degree of

their participation or, alternatively, that such a distinction

was objectively unreasonable. Cf. Whitney Bros. Co., 60 F.3d

at 14 (rejecting bad faith finding based on "frivolous" defenses because district court did not explain "how these defenses

are frivolous or why they were objectively or subjectively

unreasonable at the time they were advanced"). In fact, in

AAPS I, this court concluded that the level of the consultants'

involvement was a "key issue" in determining whether the

consultants were members of the working group, although it

found there was insufficient record evidence then to resolve

it. 997 F.2d at 915. We therefore cannot say that the

Declaration's characterization of the "consultants" as "intermittent" attendants at working group meetings, as distinct

from the more frequently involved members (including special

government employees), manifested bad faith. Cf. Johnson

Controls, Inc. v. United Ass'n of Journeymen & Apprentices

of Plumbing & Pipe Fitting Indus. of U.S. & Can., 39 F.3d

821, 826 (7th Cir. 1994) (upholding denial of attorney's fee

award because "this case presents at least a colorable question of law" and court "c[ould] not conclude, therefore, that

[the plaintiff's] arguments before the district court and on

appeal were frivolous or in bad faith").

Second, the district court found that the Magaziner Declaration was "dishonest" in representing that "people are employees when there was never a piece of paper created that

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said they were employees--with or without pay." 997

F. Supp. at 11. Again there is an insufficient basis for a bad

faith finding. The Declaration did not claim employment

paperwork had been created and there is no evidence in the

record that Magaziner knew at the time of his Declaration

whether it had been. He described a "special government

employee" simply as one who had been "employed" by the

government "for less than 130 days in a 365-day period,

either with or without compensation," with no mention of

employment formalities such as paperwork. As the government notes, such paperwork, while perhaps the norm, is not a

condition of special government employment as statutorily

defined. See 18 U.S.C. s 202(a) ("[T]he term 'special Government employee' shall mean an officer or employee of the

executive or legislative branch of the United States Government, of any independent agency of the United States or of

the District of Columbia, who is retained, designated, appointed, or employed to perform, with or without compensation,

for not to exceed one hundred and thirty days during any

period of three hundred and sixty-five consecutive days,

temporary duties either on a full-time or intermittent basis, a

part-time United States commissioner, a part-time United

States magistrate ...").

Third, the district court found that the Declaration, "in an

effort to avoid discovery and block live testimony, improperly

represented as a fact that all 'members' of the working group

were federal employees." 997 F. Supp. at 11. As we noted

above, there is no clear and convincing evidence that the

Declaration's drafters did not reasonably believe the representation to be true when made.

Fourth, the district court found bad faith in that the

Declaration "was actually false because of the implication of

the declaration that 'membership' was a meaningful concept

and that one could determine who was and was not a 'member' of the working group." 997 F. Supp. at 11. It is not

clear on what basis the district court found that membership,

either when the Declaration was written or through the life of

the working group, was not a meaningful concept. Holder

found only that membership was a "fuzzy" concept. In its

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discovery responses the government conceded simply that

membership was not a "significant" or "operative" concept,

but never that it was not meaningful (in the sense that one

could not distinguish members from non-members). Although the concept of membership may not have been crystal

clear, it did have meaning--indeed, the district court applied

the concept in choosing the government's list of 630 members

over the list of 1000 alleged members presented by AAPS.

See AAPS, 879 F. Supp. at 105. The Declaration may have

given the impression that determining membership was easy;

nevertheless, because there is insufficient evidence that, in

distinguishing between members and non-members, the Declaration's drafters intended to mislead the court, it was

clearly erroneous for the court to find bad faith based on the

distinction.

For the preceding reasons, we hold that the district court's

findings of bad faith, both in the Magaziner Declaration's

drafting and in the government's litigation conduct, are without clear and convincing evidentiary support and that the

attorney's fee award therefore cannot be upheld insofar as it

rests on bad faith. We further hold that the court's award

cannot be sustained under the EAJA on the basis that the

government's litigation position was not substantially justified

because the court expressly based the award on its predicate,

and inadequately supported, bad faith findings. Accordingly, we reverse the attorney's fee award and remand for further consideration by the district court. While our decision forecloses an

award based on the government's alleged assertion of the

federal employee exemption (whether for bad faith or under

the EAJA), the district court may, if it finds the evidence so

warrants, award fees under the EAJA or Fed. R. Civ. P. 11

based on another asserted defense (such as the government's

argument that the working group was not a FACA committee

because it "d[id] not offer advice or recommendations directly

to the President," JA 120, which the record suggests may not

be true, see, e.g., JA 2262). In addition or in the alternative,

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the district court may consider assessing the sanctions (under

Fed. R. Civ. P. 37) to which the court found AAPS was

entitled in its November 9, 1993 order granting AAPS's

motion to compel. See AAPS, 837 F. Supp. at 354.

So ordered.

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