Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-89-04037/USCOURTS-ca10-89-04037-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Hazel Elbert
Appellant
Haskell Levi Chapoose
Appellee
Manuel Lujan
Appellant
Pat Ragsdale
Appellant

Document Text:

. FILED 

Umted Srares Cou,r of Appeals 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

HASKELL LEVI CHAPOOSE, as Guardian Ad ) 

Litem for and on behalf of his minor ) 

children, to-wit: SHAUN THOMAS ) 

CHAPOOSE, JaNAE LYN CHAPOOSE, DIXON ) 

LEVI CHAPOOSE, MICHELLE QUITTA ) 

CHAPOOSE, and CONNOR CHARLES CHAPOOSE; ) 

DORTHEA UNCA SAM GARCIA, as a Guardian ) 

Ad Litem for and on behalf of her minor ) 

children, to-wit: MAUREEN GARCIA, ) 

MURITA GARCIA, PHILLIPE THEODORE GARCIA,) 

and LORA LYNN GARCIA, who are minors, ) 

and JOHNNIE CHRIS GARCIA, who is now an) 

adult; MARIETTA CHAPOOSE REED, as ) 

mother of INA CHARLENE REED and LORI ) 

ANN REED who are now adults; and ) 

RAYMOND WISSIUP, as Guardian Ad Litem ) 

for and in behalf of his minor ) 

children, to-wit: RAYLENE JAMIE ) 

WISSIUP, RAYMOND WISSIUP II, and ) 

CYNYELLA MONDA RAE WISSIUP; et al. ) 

(class action), ) 

v. 

Plaintiffs-Appellees, 

Cross-Appellants, 

MANUEL LUJAN, Secretary of the 

Interior of the United States of 

America, PAT RAGSDALE, as Acting 

Assistant Secretary of the Interior, 

HAZEL ELBERT, as Deputy Assistant 

Secretary/Indian Affairs, and/or 

their successors in office, 

Defendants-Appellants, 

Cross-Appellees. 

) 

) 

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MAY 9 1990 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

Nos . 89-4037 

& 

89-4045 

(D.C. No. 83-C-1145W) 

(D. Utah) 

Appellate Case: 89-4037 Document: 01019970082 Date Filed: 05/09/1990 Page: 1 
ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

Before McKAY, BARRETT, Circuit Judges, and KANE,* District Judge. 

*Honorable John L. Kane, 

District Court for 

designation. 

Senior District 

the District of 

Judge, United States 

Colorado, sitting by 

This appeal and cross-appeal concern an award of attorneys' 

fees and expenses under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA), 

28 U.S.C. § 2412(d)(l)(A) (Supp. IV 1986). This statute provides 

that "a court shall award to a prevailing party fees and 

other expenses, ... incurred by that party in any civil action, 

.. brought by or against the United States in any court having 

jurisdiction of that action, unless the court finds that the 

position of the United States was substantially justified or that 

special circumstances make an award unjust." Id. Once a court 

determines that these prerequisites have been met and that the 

EAJA claimant is thus entitled to an award for reasonable fees and 

expenses, it then determines the proper amount of that award based 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall 

not be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, 

except for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of 

the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 

36.3. 

2 

Appellate Case: 89-4037 Document: 01019970082 Date Filed: 05/09/1990 Page: 2 
on the amount and character of the work performed and expenses 

incurred. 

In this appeal, the government 

challenge only the latter determination, the 

defendants-appellants 

amount of an EAJA 

award made to Haskell Levi Chapoose, as guardian ad litem for his 

minor children, and other Ute Indian children (the Children) who 

were the plaintiffs below. In particular, the government claims 

that the district court improperly awarded fees for work performed 

on claims on which the Children did not prevail and that it 

otherwise failed to account for various inadequacies and errors in 

the fees and expenses claimed by the Children. The Children 

cross-appeal, claiming entitlement under EAJA to fees and expenses 

incurred in first applying for and then defending their EAJA 

award. We affirm the district court's calculation of the 

Children's EAJA award as against the government's challenges, but 

reverse and remand this action to that court for determination of 

additional amounts due the Children for litigating the fee issue 

in this court and below. 

Background 

The events giving rise to these cross-appeals began in 1977 

when the Tribal Business Committee of the Ute and Uintah 

Reservation, the governing body of the Ute Indian Tribe (Tribe), 

denied the Children enrollment in the Tribe because they did not 

possess 5/Bths Ute Indian blood. The Children challenged this 

determination in Ute Tribal Court and ultimately prevailed in 

their argument that their right to tribal membership was fully 

established under the Ute Tribal Constitution. The Children could 

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Appellate Case: 89-4037 Document: 01019970082 Date Filed: 05/09/1990 Page: 3 
not enforce this right and enroll in the Tribe, however, until the 

Bureau of Indian Affairs approved the Children's enrollment 

requests. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (the Bureau} refused to do 

so on the ground that the 1954 Ute Partition and Termination Act, 

as amended in 1956, 25 U.S.C. § 677d (the Act), superseded Tribal 

requirements and established membership criteria for the Tribe 

that did not permit the Children's enrollment. 

The Children challenged this result by filing suit against 

the Bureau and other government officials in the United States 

District Court for the District of Utah. In their October 11, 

1983 complaint, the Children sought injunctive and monetary relief 

on the basis of the following six causes of action: Count I: 

injunctive relief preventing the Bureau from denying enrollment to 

the Children; Count II: damages for denial of the Children's 

liberty and property rights; Count III: damages for violation of 

the Children's civil rights; Count IV: damages for denial of 

equal protection; Count V: punitive damages for the government's 

"wanton and willful'' misconduct and Count VI: attorneys' fees 

pursuant to "42 u.s.c. § 1983 of the Civil Rights Act, and/or any 

and all other applicable statutes and judicial precedents." 

The government moved to dismiss the Children's complaint, and 

on September 18, 1984, the district court granted this motion with 

respect to the Children's civil rights claims, Counts II-V of 

their complaint, leaving only the enrollment and attorneys' fees 

claims before the court. In a Memorandum Decision and Order 

entered April 10, 1985, the court ruled in favor of the Children 

on Count I of their complaint, the enrollment issue, holding that 

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Appellate Case: 89-4037 Document: 01019970082 Date Filed: 05/09/1990 Page: 4 
Congress intended the Tribe to retain control over its membership 

and that the Bureau's denial of Tribal membership to the Children 

on this basis was therefore plainly erroneous. 1 Chapoose v. 

Clark, 607 F. Supp. 1027, 1037 (D. Utah 1985). The court denied 

the Children's subsequent motion for attorneys' fees on the ground 

that they had failed to raise any legal basis for such an award 

other than section 1983, which was not applicable in this case 

after dismissal of the Children's civil rights claims. Order at 2 

(June 21, 1885). 

The Children appealed the court's dismissal of their civil 

rights claims and claim for attorneys' fees to this court. We 

affirmed dismissal of their civil rights claims, but remanded the 

attorneys' fees question to the district court for determination 

of whether the Children were entitled to an award under EAJA. 

Chapoose v. Hodel, 831 F.2d 931, 936-37 (10th Cir. 1987). 

On remand, the district court determined that the Children 

were the prevailing party on their claim that the Bureau 

improperly interpreted the Act when it refused to allow the 

Children to enroll in the Tribe. Memorandum Decision and Order 

at 2 (Jan. 26, 1988)(January Order). It also found that the 

government's interpretation of the Act was not reasonable and 

hence was not substantially justified. Id. at 4; see Hadden v. 

Bowen, 851 F.2d 1266, 1267 (10th Cir. 1988)(standard for 

determining substantial justification is whether government's 

1 In response to the district court's decision, the Bureau 

withdrew its objection to the Children's enrollment requests and 

the Children were enrolled in the Tribe. 

5 

Appellate Case: 89-4037 Document: 01019970082 Date Filed: 05/09/1990 Page: 5 
position was reasonable in both law and fact). Accordingly, the 

court held that the Children were entitled to attorneys' fees 

under EAJA for fees incurred in challenging the Bureau's actions 

under the Act. January Order at 4-5. The district court 

disallowed recovery of any fees incurred in litigating the 

Children's civil rights claims, however, on the ground that the 

Children had not prevailed on these claims. Id. at 3. 

The court next referred the fees issue to a magistrate with 

directions to prepare a report and recommendation determining the 

hours reasonably worked by the Children's attorneys on the issues 

on which they prevailed. Id. at 7. In so doing, the court 

directed the magistrate not to consider expenses incurred in the 

partially successful appeal to this court because such expenses 

could only be awarded "if the Tenth Circuit feels the government's 

position on appeal was substantially unjustified." Id. 

After reviewing voluminous records, affidavits and memoranda 

submitted by the parties, and holding as many as three hearings on 

issues raised by these documents, the magistrate issued a Report 

and Recommendation that the Children be awarded fees for a total 

of 1780.79 hours worked by the three attorneys on the case and an 

additional 135.2 hours worked by a law clerk. Report and 

Recommendation (Oct. 25, 1988). These total reimbursable hours 

included time spent directly on the enrollment issue, on mixed 

issues or claims, on the fees issue on remand to the district 

court and on administrative proceedings that occurred after the 

Bureau had denied the Children's enrollment applications. Id. 

These totals did not include hours worked on issues on which the 

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Appellate Case: 89-4037 Document: 01019970082 Date Filed: 05/09/1990 Page: 6 
Children clearly did not prevail and also reflected a 20% 

reduction from the total hours submitted by the Children's 

attorneys. The magistrate found that this reduction was warranted 

because "not all hours were recorded, duplicative efforts were not 

always weeded out, and the description of the work performed [was] 

not always accurate." Id. at 5. The magistrate also recommended 

that the Children be awarded $6885.18 in miscellaneous expenses. 

Id. at 8. 

Both parties filed objections to the magistrate's report. 

The district court, after conducting its own de novo review of the 

record, approved and adopted the magistrate's report and 

recommendations. Order Accepting Report and Recommendation and 

Order Awarding Attorney's Fees (Dec. 13, 1988)(December Order). 

In so doing, the court found that the magistrate's 20% reduction 

of hours adequately addressed the government's concern that the 

Children not be awarded fees for time spent on their civil rights 

claims. Id. at 3-4. The court further found that the Children 

were not entitled to an award for attorney time that "was not 

documented" at the time of the magistrate's final hearing on 

August 31, 1988. Id. at 5. In summary, the court concluded, 

"considering all of the circumstances of this case, the court is 

of the opinion that the fees and expenses recommended by the 

magistrate are just and fair. II Id. at 4. 

Based on the hourly totals recommended in the magistrate's 

report and a rate of $75 per hour for worked performed by 

attorneys and half that amount for work done by the law clerk, the 

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Appellate Case: 89-4037 Document: 01019970082 Date Filed: 05/09/1990 Page: 7 
district court awarded the Children $128,489.25 in fees and 

$6885.18 in expenses. 2 

Children cross-appealed. 

The government timely appealed and the 

Discussion 

A. Government Challenges to the Amount of the Award 

The government's initial challenge to the amount of the award 

is that it improperly includes fees for work performed on claims 

unrelated to the enrollment and attorneys' fees issues on which 

the Children ultimately prevailed. In particular, the government 

asserts that the Children's award should be reduced by at least 

two-thirds because they only prevailed on two of the six claims 

made in their complaint and because the civil rights and 

constitutional claims on which they were unsuccessful were more 

complex than the issue on which the Children ultimately prevailed. 

We review the district court's calculation of the award and its 

response to these concerns for abuse of discretion. Jean v. 

Nelson, 863 F.2d 759, 769 (11th Cir. 1988), cert. granted, 

110 S. Ct. 862 (1990); see Hadden, 851 F.2d at 1268. 

We hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion 

in refusing to limit the EAJA award as suggested by the 

government. As we noted in the first appeal arising out of this 

2 The Children originally requested somewhere between $300,000 

and $750,000 in fees and expenses based on reimbursement for all 

of the hours submitted at hourly rates of $85 to $90 per hour as 

multiplied by 1.5. This district court refused to approve an 

hourly rate in excess of the $75 per hour cap set by Congress, see 

28 U.S.C. § 2412(d)(2)(A), or a multiplier in the absence of any 

exceptional circumstances. See Memorandum and Order at 5-6 

(Jan. 26, 1988). 

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Appellate Case: 89-4037 Document: 01019970082 Date Filed: 05/09/1990 Page: 8 
case, the substance or thrust of the Children's complaint was "to 

establish their right to tribal membership." Chapoose, 831 F.2d 

at 936. The Children achieved this goal by prevailing on the 

enrollment issue and hence substantially prevailed in this action. 

See id.; Devine v. Sutermeister, 733 F.2d 892, 898 (Fed. Cir. 

1984). It was reasonable, therefore, for the district court to 

determine that the Children's attorneys spent the bulk of their 

time working on issues that were necessary to this result. This 

is particularly so given that the four civil rights claims on 

which the government prevailed were dismissed relatively early in 

the underlying action. 

In addition, the district court properly recognized that the 

Children had not prevailed on all of their claims and adjusted 

their fee award accordingly to eliminate work performed directly 

on the four unsuccessful civil rights claims. It then further 

reduced the award by 20%, partly in response to the government's 

concern that the Children had understated the amount of time that 

was properly attributable to these unsuccessful claims. This is 

an appropriate method of accounting for an EAJA applicant's 

partial success in an action. See Jean, 863 F.2d at 771 

("[Because] there is no precise rule or formula for making these 

determinations[,] [t]he district court may attempt to identify 

specific hours that should be eliminated or it may simply reduce 

the award to account for the [claimant's] limited success."); see 

also Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 434-37 (1983)(EAJA award 

may properly 

interrelated). 

be reduced even where the plaintiff's claims are 

Accordingly, we hold that the district court did 

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Appellate Case: 89-4037 Document: 01019970082 Date Filed: 05/09/1990 Page: 9 
not abuse its discretion in determining that the reductions 

described above adequately limited the Children's recovery to 

those claims on which they prevailed. 

The government also challenges the amount of the Children's 

EAJA award as determined by the district court on the grounds that 

it does not include sufficient reductions to compensate for the 

Children's inadequate documentation of their fees and expenses, 

improperly reimburses the Children for duplicative efforts by 

their attorneys, permits recovery for excessive work on particular 

issues and tasks, arbitrarily assigns an excessive hourly rate to 

work performed by a law clerk and improperly compensates the 

Children for time spent in administrative proceedings in which the 

government was not a party and in lobbying efforts in Congress. 

To the extent that any of these complaints are justified, we 

believe that they were adequately addressed by the district 

court's decision to reduce the Children's overall award by 20%. 

We hold, therefore, that the district court did not abuse its 

discretion in awarding the Children $128,489.25 for attorneys' 

fees and $6885.18 for expenses. 

B. The Children's Claim to "Fees for Fees" 

In their cross-appeal, the Children assert that EAJA entitles 

them to an additional award for fees and expenses incurred in 

preparing and litigating their fee application in the district 

court and in this and the prior appeal to this court. The 

district court apparently recognized their right to recover such 

"fees for fees" for work performed in its court, but limited this 

recovery to work performed, documented and filed before the 

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Appellate Case: 89-4037 Document: 01019970082 Date Filed: 05/09/1990 Page: 10 
magistrate's August 31, 1988 hearing on the amount of the 

Children's award. See Order Accepting Report and Recommendation 

and Order Awarding Attorney's Fees at 5 (Dec. 13, 1988). We 

review this limitation of the fee award for abuse of discretion. 

See Hadden, 851 F.2d at 1268. 

appellate fees de novo. 3 

We consider both claims for 

The government argues that EAJA does not permit the Children 

to recover fees arising out of the two appellate proceedings 

because the government's position in both appeals was and is 

substantially justified. In the district court, the government 

also opposed an award of "fees for fees" on this ground. 4 The 

Children argue, however, that a per se rule applies in shifting 

fees incurred in successfully litigating the amount of or 

entitlement to an EAJA award, see Powell v. Commissioner, 

891 F.2d 1167, 1171 (5th Cir. 1990); McDonald v. Secretary of 

Health & Human Servs., 884 F.2d 1468, 1480 (1st Cir. 1989); Jean, 

863 F.2d at 780; Trichilo v. Secretary of Health & Human Servs., 

3 Although the district court also considered the Children's 

claim for fees and costs incurred in the first appeal to this 

court, it declined to decide this claim on the ground that we must 

first determine whether the Children were a "prevailing party" in 

this first appeal. See January Order at 7 n.3. Accordingly, we 

decide this issue de novo. The Children's claim for fees incurred 

in this appeal is,of course, raised for the first time here and 

is also considered de novo. 

4 On appeal, the government has not raised this substantial 

justification defense in opposing the Children's claim for 

additional fees incurred in the district court fee litigation as 

opposed to the appellate fee litigation. In order to decide the 

Children's cross-appeal for these additional district court fees, 

however, we must address this issue. 

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Appellate Case: 89-4037 Document: 01019970082 Date Filed: 05/09/1990 Page: 11 
832 F.2d 743, 745 (2d Cir. 1987), and that they are thus entitled 

to "fees for fees" for every level of the fee litigation at which 

they prevailed. 

As a general rule, time reasonably spent by attorneys on 

successful fee applications is reimbursable under fee-shifting 

statutes. See, e.g., Love v. Mayor, City of Cheyenne, 

620 F.2d 235, 237 (10th Cir. 1980)(§ 1988); Cinciarelli v. Reagan, 

729 F.2d 801, 809 (D.C. Cir. 1984)(citing cases); Prandini v. 

National Tea Co., 585 F.2d 47, 53-54 (3d Cir. 1978}(citing cases). 

Because EAJA adds the element of "substantial justification" to 

its fee-shifting scheme, however, we hold that EAJA does not 

permit application of this general per se fee-shifting rule. See 

28 U.S.C. § 2412(d)(l}(A}; Cornella v. Schweiker, 741 F.2d 170, 

171 (8th Cir. 1984)(EAJA fees for fees application denied because 

government's position in resisting fee award was reasonable and 

therefore substantially justified); Rawlings v. Heckler, 

725 F.2d 1192, 1196 (9th Cir. 1984}(same); Continental Web Press, 

Inc. v. N.L.R.B., 767 F.2d 321, 324 (7th Cir. 1985) (same). -----------

Instead, an EAJA fee litigant may only recover attorneys' fees for 

successful fee litigation if the government's position in that 

litigation was substantially unjustified. See id. This standard 

is met, and "fees for fees" will be awarded, if the government 

fails to prove that its position in the fee litigation had a 

reasonable basis in law and in fact. See Hadden v. Bowen, 

851 F.2d 1266, 1267 (10th Cir. 1988). 

Applying this rule to the fee litigation in this case, we 

agree with the district court that the government was not 

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substantially justified in opposing the Children's fee application 

in that court and that the Children are therefore entitled to 

recover all fees and expenses reasonably incurred in the fee 

litigation in the district court. To the extent that these fees 

and expenses were included in the district court's fee award, we 

affirm that award. To the extent that these fees and costs were 

not considered because of an arbitrary cutoff date for submitting 

appropriate documentation, 5 however, we reverse and remand this 

matter to the district court so that it may determine the amount 

of any additional award due to the Children for this litigation. 6 

After a careful review of the government's position in each 

of the two appeals to this court on the fee issue, we also hold 

5 The government argues that the district court acted properly 

and within its discretion in establ ishing a cutoff date for the 

Children to submit documentation in support of its fees claims. 

While we agree with this general statement and its application to 

documentation concerning litigation of the Children's substantive 

claims and preparation of the fee application itself, we cannot 

agree that it can reasonably be applied to bar the Children's 

claim to all other fees incurred in litigating the fee issue in 

district court. This work could not be documented and claimed 

until it was performed and it could not be fully performed until 

the magistrate and district court had completed their 

consideration of the fees issue as it was remanded by this court. 

Accordingly, it was an abuse of discretion for the district court 

to arbitrarily limit the Children's recovery of fees for 

litigating the fees issue to work documented and filed with the 

court months before the fee issue was finally decided. 

6 On remand, the district court should also take into 

consideration the 73 hours of work attorney Machelle Fitzgerald 

performed on the fee issue before the August 31, 1988 hearing and 

cutoff date. The district court apparently denied any recovery 

for this time on the ground that it was not filed with the court 

before the August 31 deadline. The record shows, however, that 

documentation for this time was filed several weeks before the 

hearing, see Doc. 60 (Affidavit of Machelle Fitzgerald and 

attached time records (Aug. 9, 1988)), and thus should have been 

considered in calculating the amount of the Children's award. 

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that the government was not substantially justified in its fee 

position in these instances. Accordingly, on remand the district 

court shall determine and award the Children whatever reasonable 

attorneys' fees and costs they have incurred in connection with 

this appeal and their litigation of the fee issue in the prior 

appeal. 

The government also challenges an award of fees to the 

Children for the prior appeal on the ground that the Children did 

not prevail on any issue in that appeal. Rather, the government 

contends, the Children were unsuccessful in their bid to reverse 

the district court's dismissal of their civil rights claim and 

gained only a remand, not an award or declaration of entitlement, 

on the fee issue. While we agree that the Children are not 

entitled to recover fees relating to their unsuccessful appeal of 

the district court's dismissal of their civil rights claims, they 

were still a prevailing party in the prior appeal if they 

"'succeed[ed] on any significant issue in the litigation which 

achieves some of the benefits which the parties sought in bringing 

suit."' Chapoose, 831 F.2d at 936 (quoting Lummi Indian Tribe v. 

Oltman, 720 F.2d 1124, 1125 (9th Cir. 1983)). In this case, one 

of the significant issues that ultimately resulted in a benefit to 

the Children was their claim for attorneys' fees. The Children's 

status as a "prevailing party" on the first appeal of this issue 

was, moreover, established upon the district court's holding on 

remand that they were entitled to a fee award. Cf. Sullivan v. 

Hudson, 109 S. Ct. 2248, 2254-55 (1989)("where a court's remand to 

the agency ••• does not necessarily dictate the receipt of 

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• 

benefits, the claimant will not normally attain 'prevailing party' 

status within the meaning of § 2412(d)(l)(A) until after the 

result of the administrative proceeding is known."). Accordingly, 

the Children are entitled to recover reasonable attorneys' fees 

and costs specifically relating to their appeal of the district 

court's initial denial of fees. Cf. Cinciarelli, 729 F.2d at 809 

(partial fees awarded for work specifically relating to one of two 

government defenses in an action). As stated above, this issue is 

remanded to the district court for determination of the proper 

award. 

The judgment of the United States District Court for the 

District of Utah is AFFIRMED in part and REVERSED and REMANDED in 

part for additional proceedings in accordance with this decision. 

ENTERED FOR THE COURT 

PER CURIAM 

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