Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-1_14-cv-00825/USCOURTS-caed-1_14-cv-00825-5/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Commissioner of Social Security
Defendant
Patricia Irene Perry
Plaintiff

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

PATRICIA IRENE PERRY,

Plaintiff,

v.

CAROLYN W. COLVIN, Acting 

Commissioner of Social Security, 

Defendant.

Case No. 1:14-cv-00825-SMS

ORDER DENYING PLAINTIFF’S 

MOTION FOR ATTORNEY’S FEES 

UNDER THE EQUAL ACCESS TO 

JUSTICE ACT 

(Docs. 25, 29) 

This is a Social Security appeal. Before the Court is Plaintiff’s motion for attorney’s fees 

under the Equal Access to Justice Act (“EAJA”), 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d), and Defendant’s motion to 

strike certain portions of Plaintiff’s submissions thereof. Docs. 25, 29. No hearing was held as the 

Court found the matters suitable for submission on the papers. Local Rule 230(g). 

I. LEGAL AND FACTUAL BACKGROUND

On May 30, 2014, Plaintiff filed a complaint challenging the denial of her disability 

insurance benefits and supplemental security income by the Commissioner of Social Security 

(“Commissioner”). Doc. 1. The Court issued an order on September 23, 2015, remanding the 

action to the Commissioner for further administrative proceedings at step three of the five-step 

sequential process. 1 While finding in favor of the Commissioner on the issues of Plaintiff’s 

 

1

 The Court will not recount in detail all of the facts of this case; instead, it incorporates by reference 

the “Factual Background” section from its September 23, 2015, order. 

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subjective complaints, third party statements, and treating physicians, the Court reasoned that 

failure to consider whether Plaintiff’s mental impairments met or equaled one of the listed 

impairments, intellectual disability, under 20 C.F.R. Part 404, Subpart P, Appendix 1, section 12.05

(“listing 12.05C”), was not harmless error. Doc. 23, pp. 23-25.

On December 23, 2015, Plaintiff filed a motion under EAJA seeking $7,342.52 in 

attorney’s fees for 38.7 hours (5 hours at a rate of $190.06 and 33.7 hours at a rate of $189.68) 

expended on this case. Attached to the motion are: (1) an itemized statement of the hours expended 

by Plaintiff’s counsel, Jacqueline A. Forslund, (2) Ms. Forslund’s declaration, and (3) the 

contingency agreement between Plaintiff and the Dellert Baird Law Offices, PLLC, through which 

Ms. Forslund is employed. Doc. 25. Plaintiff avers the criteria of section 2412(d)(1)(B)—she is 

the prevailing party, she is entitled to an award under EAJA, she has provided an itemized 

statement of the actual time spent and expenses incurred,

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and the government’s positions in the 

case at the agency and litigation levels were not substantially justified—are met. Plaintiff requests 

that the award of attorney’s fees be payable to the Dellert Baird Law Offices, PLLC, and mailed to 

her counsel. Doc. 25.

On January 13, 2016, the Commissioner filed an opposition, contending her positions were

substantially justified at the agency and litigation levels. As to the agency level, she argues the 

ALJ’s decision not to consider listing 12.05C was justified in law because it was Plaintiff’s burden 

to raise it, which she did not do at the hearing or before the Appeals Council. She points to 

evidence which allegedly show Plaintiff could not have met the listing and argue they show the 

ALJ’s decision was justified in fact. As to the litigation level, the Commissioner avers her position 

 

2

 Plaintiff’s itemized statement sets forth the time spent but not “the rate at which fees and other 

expenses were computed.” See 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d)(1)(B). Rather, the rates are stated in Plaintiff’s

brief. Doc. 25.

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was substantially justified because she could not defend against an argument not raised by Plaintiff. 

Further, she contends that a substantial reduction in the award is warranted, if the Court grants 

Plaintiff’s request, because the time expended by counsel were excessive, redundant, and resulted 

in limited success. Finally, as to the proper payee, the Commissioner asserts that the law mandates 

EAJA fees be awarded to Plaintiff and not her counsel. Doc. 27. Thereafter, Plaintiff filed a reply 

on January 20, 2016, wherein she recounted the Court’s September 23, 2015 order and discussed 

the ALJ’s duty to protect Plaintiff’s interest by considering listing 12.05C. Plaintiff also addressed 

the reasonableness of her fees and requested additional attorney’s fees in the amount of $417.16 

(2.2 hours at a rate of $189.62) for the time spent preparing the reply. Doc. 28. 

II. DISCUSSION

As the Supreme Court has explained: 

eligibility for a fee award in any civil action requires: (1) that the 

claimant be a “prevailing party”; (2) that the Government’s position 

was not “substantially justified”; (3) that no “special circumstances 

make an award unjust”; and, (4) pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d)(1)(B), 

that any fee application be submitted to the court within 30 days of 

final judgment in the action and be supported by an itemized statement. 

Comm’r, I.N.S. v. Jean, 496 U.S. 154, 158, (1990). 

“Substantial justification means ‘justified in substance or in the main—

that is, justified to a degree that could satisfy a reasonable person.’ ” Id.

(quoting Pierce v. Underwood, 487 U.S. 552, 565 (1988)) (internal 

quotation marks omitted). “Put differently, the government’s position 

must have a ‘reasonable basis both in law and fact.’ ” Id. (quoting 

Pierce, 487 U.S. at 565). “The ‘position of the United States’ includes 

both the government’s litigation position and the underlying agency 

action giving rise to the civil action.” Id. Thus, if “the government’s 

underlying position was not substantially justified, we [must award fees 

and] need not address whether the government’s litigation position was 

justified. 

Tobeler v. Colvin, 749 F.3d 830, 832 (9th Cir. 2014) (quotations omitted and emphasis added). It is 

the government who bears the burden of showing its position was substantially justified. Id. “The 

nature and scope of the ALJ’s legal errors are material in determining whether the Commissioner’s 

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decision to defend them was substantially justified.” Sampson v. Chater, 103 F.3d 918, 922 (9th 

Cir. 1996).

In dispute here is whether the Commissioner’s positions at the agency and litigation levels 

were substantially justified. Turning first then to the Commissioner’s position at the agency level:

Here, that position was the ALJ’s failure to consider listing 12.05C, which the Commissioner does 

not dispute. The question then is whether the ALJ was substantially justified in failing to consider 

Listing 12.05C. 

In its September 23, 2015 order, the Court addressed the question of waiver and declined to 

apply the waiver rule. That the Court remanded for the ALJ to re-evaluate the evidence with an eye 

toward listing 12.05C does not mean, however, that the Commissioner’s agency position was not 

substantially justified. See Pierce, 487 U.S. at 566 n. 2 (“a position can be justified even though it 

is not correct, and we believe it can be substantially (i.e., for the most part) justified if a reasonable 

person could think it correct”). The Court agreed with the Commissioner that Plaintiff did not 

explicitly raise Listing 12.05C at the hearing before the ALJ. And because “[a]n ALJ is not 

required to discuss the combined effects of a claimant’s impairments or compare them to any listing 

in an equivalency determination, unless the claimant presents evidence in an effort to establish 

equivalence,” the ALJ had a reasonable basis in law not to discuss the listing. Burch v. Barnhart, 

400 F.3d 676, 683 (9th Cir. 2005). 

Under the circumstances, the ALJ’s decision also had a reasonable basis in fact. To find 

that Plaintiff’s impairment(s) met or equaled listing 12.05C, the evidence needed to show Plaintiff 

had: “(1) subaverage intellectual functioning with deficits in adaptive functioning initially 

manifested before age 22 [i.e., the evidence demonstrates or supports onset of the impairment 

before age 22]; (2) an IQ score of 60 to 70; and (3) a physical or other mental impairment causing 

an additional and significant work-related limitation.” Kennedy v. Colvin, 738 F.3d 1172, 1176 

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(9th Cir. 2013); 20 C.F.R. pt. 404, subpt. P, app. 1, § 12.05. As stated in the September 23, 2015 

order, the ALJ had before him the following evidence: 

Plaintiff’s twelfth-grade school record which reflected her academic 

performance, her claim that she read at a third grade level, Dr. 

Cushman’s test results which showed Plaintiff’s had an IQ at 63 and an 

academic achievement range between that of a first and third grader, 

and statements from Mses. Teske and Ms. [sic] Burns regarding 

Plaintiff’s intellectual functioning.

He also heard Plaintiff testify that her mental conditions “started when [she] was 22.” Doc. 23, p. 

24. Objectively viewed, one could reasonably conclude they undermined a finding that onset of 

Plaintiff’s mental impairment began before age 22. Specifically, Dr. Cushman completed his 

examination of Plaintiff on or before February 8, 2012. This means the IQ result reflected his view 

of Plaintiff’s intellectual functioning at age 36, long after Plaintiff turned 22 years old. See, e.g., 

Oviatt v. Comm’r of Soc. Sec. Admin., 303 F. App’x 519, 523 (9th Cir. 2008) (agreeing the 

impairments did not meet or equaled listing 12.05C because claimant “failed to satisfy her burden 

because . . . the IQ tests were administered twelve to fourteen years after the relevant time period 

under the statute”).

3

 Similarly, the Third Party Function Reports completed by Mses. Teske and 

Burns on December 11, 2011, and October 3, 2013, respectively, indicate that both women knew

Plaintiff since she was 35 and 28, respectively. Their observations and opinions of how Plaintiff’s 

conditions affected her are therefore relevant only to the time period after Plaintiff turned 22 years 

old. Combined with Plaintiff’s express testimony that her mental conditions began at age 22, the 

Court is hard pressed, as would be a reasonable person, to conclude the ALJ did not have a basis in 

fact in not considering listing 12.05C. See Pierce, 487 U.S. at 566 n. 2. The Court therefore finds 

the Commissioner’s position at the agency level substantially justified. 

And because the Commissioner had basis in law and fact for her agency position, her 

 

3

This unpublished decision is citable under Rule 32.1 of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure. 

See also 9th Cir. R. 36–3(b).

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decision to defend that position before this Court was, by extension, also substantially justified. 

Based on the record, “a reasonable person could think [the Commissioner] correct” in arguing that 

Plaintiff’s failure to raise the issue of listing 12.05C amounted to a waiver and that nonetheless the 

evidence shows she could not meet or equal the listing. Id. The Commissioner’s positions at the 

agency and litigation levels were therefore substantially justified. 

Finding an award of attorney’s fees under EAJA unwarranted, the Court need not address 

the Commissioner’s positions concerning the reasonableness of the fee requested and the proper 

payee. 

III. CONCLUSION

Accordingly, the Court DENIES Plaintiff’s motion for attorney’s fees under EAJA. The 

Commissioner’s motion to strike is thus moot. 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: June 1, 2016 /s/ Sandra M. Snyder 

UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

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