Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-4_05-cv-02021/USCOURTS-cand-4_05-cv-02021-9/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Jo Anne B. Barnhart
Defendant
Dana L. Suttice
Plaintiff

Document Text:

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 The letter also notified Plaintiff that the cost portion of the award would not be paid by SSA 1

and that Plaintiff should, instead, contact the United States Attorney's Office. The remaining discussion

in this Order thus relates only to the fee portion of the award and not to costs. 

1

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

DANA L. SUTTICE,

Plaintiff, No. C 05-02021 WDB

v. ORDER DENYING MOTION TO 

AMEND COURT ORDER 

JO ANNE B. BARNHART, 

Commissioner of Social Security, 

Defendant.

___________________________________/

On December 1, 2006, this Court filed an Order granting Plaintiff Dana L.

Suttice's application for an award of attorney's fees and costs pursuant to the Equal

Access to Justice Act (“EAJA”), 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d). Plaintiff was the prevailing party

in an underlying Motion for Summary Judgment on a disability benefits claim and, thus,

was entitled to a fee award under the EAJA. Id. The Court awarded Plaintiff fees in the

amount of $5,761.26 and costs of $257.40 for a total of $6018.66. Thereafter, on

December 27, 2006, the Social Security Administration ("SSA") sent a letter to Plaintiff

notifying him that they would pay him the fee award as ordered by the Court. On 1

January 18, 2007, Plaintiff received a check from the United States Department of the

Treasury in the amount of $4171.08, which reflected this Court's fee award of $5,761.26

Case 4:05-cv-02021-WDB Document 37 Filed 04/19/07 Page 1 of 3
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minus debts totaling $1590.18 that Mr. Suttice owed to the Internal Revenue Service and

the Office of Revenue Service for Contra Costa County. See 31 U.S.C. § 3701 and 31

C.F.R. § 285.5(a)-(d) (2006) (statutory and regulatory authority for Treasury to collect

delinquent debts by intercepting payments made by a federal agency). Plaintiff's counsel,

Mr. Harvey Sackett, now files this Motion to Amend Court Order, asserting that the Court

erred in its Order of December 1, 2006, by awarding fees to Plaintiff and, instead, should

have awarded fees directly to Mr. Sackett. Mr. Sackett has cited no legal authority for

this proposition in his papers. He failed to file a reply brief at all, perhaps because he

came to understand that his position is contradicted by clear United States Supreme Court

precedent. 

The United States Supreme Court has made clear in more than one opinion that in

fee-shifting statutes entitling a "prevailing party" to an award of attorney's fees, the

award, indeed, belongs to the prevailing party, and not to the party's attorney. See

Venegas v. Mitchell, 495 U.S. 82, 87 (1990) (holding in a §1988 case that where a

"prevailing party" is eligible for a discretionary award of attorney's fees, "it is the party,

rather than the lawyer, who is so eligible."); see also Evans v. Jeff D, 475 U.S. 717, 731-

32 (1986). While neither the Supreme Court nor the Ninth Circuit has addressed this

exact question in an EAJA case — likely because there was no need after the clear

pronouncement in Venegas — the Supreme Court has been explicit that the standards in

its opinions in this subject area are "generally applicable in all cases in which Congress

has authorized an award of fees to a 'prevailing party.'" Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S.

424, 433 & n.7 (1983). Indeed, though the identical part of the statute was not at issue,

the Supreme Court subsequently relied on Hensley in an EAJA fee-shifting case, stating

that "once a private litigant has met the multiple conditions for eligibility for EAJA fees,

the district court's task of determining what fee is reasonable is essentially the same as

that described in Hensley." See INS v. Jean, 496 U.S. 154, 161 (1990). 

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Following this clear guidance, the Ninth Circuit held in a § 1988 case that

attorney's fees should be awarded to a party, rather than to the party's lawyer. See

Gilbrook v. City of Westminster, 177 F.3d 839, 872-875 (9th Cir. 1999). And, in a case

addressing the identical question posed here, consistent with all other authority, the

Eleventh Circuit concluded that fees in an EAJA case are awarded to a "prevailing party,"

not to counsel. Panola Land Buying Ass'n v. Clark, 844 F.2d 1506, 1509-1511 (11th Cir.

1988). 

Accordingly, under all relevant precedent, the Court properly awarded attorneys'

fees to Plaintiff, and not to Mr. Sackett. That the Department of the Treasury then

lawfully deducted from the fee award monies owed by Plaintiff does not change the

result. As the Supreme Court stated in Venegas, the fee-shifting provision "controls what

the losing defendant must pay, not what the prevailing plaintiff must pay his lawyer." 495

U.S. at 90. Mr. Sackett's Motion to Amend Court Order is DENIED. The Court also

directs Mr. Sackett to read Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. 

IT IS SO ORDERED

Dated: April 19, 2007 _________________________

WAYNE D. BRAZIL 

 United States Magistrate Judge 

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