NOT FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

SCOTT TEUTSCHER, an individual,

 Plaintiff - Appellee,

 and

RIVERSIDE SHERIFFS’ ASSOCIATION,

 Defendant - Appellee,

and

RIVERSIDE SHERIFFS’ ASSOCIATION 

LEGAL DEFENSE TRUST; et al.,

 Defendants,

 v.

WILLIAM NATHANIEL WOODSON, III,

 Intervenor - Appellant.

No. 13-56411

D.C. No. 5:06-cv-01208-RHW-OP

MEMORANDUM*

 * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent 

except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.

FILED

AUG 26 2016

MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
2

SCOTT TEUTSCHER, an individual,

 Plaintiff - Appellee,

 v.

RIVERSIDE SHERIFFS’ ASSOCIATION,

 Defendant - Appellant.

No. 13-56659

D.C. No. 5:06-cv-01208-RHW-OP

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of California

Robert H. Whaley, Senior District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted January 5, 2016

Pasadena, California

Before: M. SMITH, WATFORD, and FRIEDLAND, Circuit Judges.

Intervenor-Appellant William N. Woodson, III, appeals from the district 

court’s order denying his motion for leave to intervene to seek a fee award directly 

from Defendant, Riverside Sheriffs’ Association (“RSA”). We address the district 

court’s judgment in favor of Plaintiff Scott Teutscher against RSA in a 

concurrently filed opinion. We now affirm the district court’s denial of 

Woodson’s motion.1

 1 Per Woodson’s unopposed request, this court takes judicial notice of two

unpublished orders on statutory attorney’s fees under California law in a different 

action, Alvarado v. Fed. Express Corp., No. C04-0098 (N.D. Cal. June 5, 2008),

and Alvarado v. Fed. Express Corp., No. C04-0098 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 9, 2009), and 

this court’s unpublished memorandum disposition affirming the district court’s 
3

Woodson represented Teutscher in an employment dispute with RSA from 

2005 until February 2013, when Woodson filed an ex parte application to withdraw 

as counsel of record. The district court granted Woodson’s motion over 

objections by RSA and Teutscher, and Teutscher obtained new counsel who 

successfully represented him through trial on his wrongful and retaliatory 

discharge claims under state law and his retaliatory discharge claim under section 

510 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”), 29 

U.S.C. § 1140. After Teutscher declined to seek attorney’s fees and costs for 

Woodson’s work on the case under section 502(g)(1) of ERISA, 29 U.S.C. 

§ 1132(g)(1), Woodson sought to intervene in order to seek fees from RSA on his 

own behalf. Because we agree with the district court that a fee award under 

ERISA’s discretionary fee-shifting provision belongs to the client rather than to his 

attorney, we affirm.

It is well-settled that a federal fee-shifting statute that bestows a 

discretionary fee award on a “party” vests the right to attorney’s fees solely in that 

party, not in the party’s attorney. See, e.g., Astrue v. Ratliff, 560 U.S. 586, 591-98 

 

judgment denying counsel standing to seek fees in that case, Alvarado v. Fed. 

Express Corp., Nos. 09-15415, 09-15417 (9th Cir. May 26, 2011). 
4

(2010) (holding that the prevailing litigant, rather than her lawyer, is entitled to 

fees under the fee-shifting provision of the Equal Access to Justice Act, 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2412(d)(1)(A)); Venegas v. Mitchell, 495 U.S. 82, 89 (1990) (“[W]e have already 

rejected the argument that the entitlement to a § 1988 award belongs to the 

attorney rather than the plaintiff.”); Evans v. Jeff D., 475 U.S. 717, 730 (1986)

(holding that “the language of [42 U.S.C. § 1988], as well as its legislative history, 

indicates that Congress bestowed on the ‘prevailing party’ (generally plaintiffs) a 

statutory eligibility for a discretionary award of attorney’s fees in specified civil 

rights actions” (footnote omitted)); Image Tech. Serv., Inc. v. Eastman Kodak Co., 

136 F.3d 1354, 1357 (9th Cir. 1998) (“Any fee award in an antitrust case goes to 

the successful plaintiff, not to plaintiff’s counsel.”). ERISA is such a statute. See 

29 U.S.C. § 1132(g)(1) (providing that “the court in its discretion may allow a 

reasonable attorney’s fee and costs of action to either party”) (emphasis added). 

We have also held that “[u]nless the statute specifies payment to the litigant’s 

attorney, payment to the attorney is not assumed.” United States v. Kim, 806 F.3d 

1161, 1173 (9th Cir. 2015) (quoting United States v. $186,416.00, 642 F.3d 753, 

756 (9th Cir. 2011)). Woodson fails to point to any language in ERISA giving a 

party’s attorney the power to demand fees for himself from the opposing side, and 
5

we have identified none. 

Woodson advances several arguments in an attempt to overcome these 

settled principles, none of which are availing. First, his reliance on the California 

Supreme Court decision in Flannery v. Prentice, 28 P.3d 860 (Cal. 2001), is 

misplaced because, as the district court recognized, it was a state court decision 

interpreting a state statute. Indeed, Flannery acknowledged that it was parting 

ways with federal cases that “have recognized the right of the client, rather than the 

attorney, to seek, recover, or waive statutory fees.” Id. at 864. Woodson also 

relies on our decision in United States ex rel. Virani v. Jerry M. Lewis Truck Parts

& Equip., Inc., 89 F.3d 574 (9th Cir. 1996), abrogation recognized by United 

States v. Kim, 806 F.3d 1161, 1174 (9th Cir. 2015), in which we held that once a 

fee application is made, the “client himself is not entitled to keep the fees which 

are measured by and paid on account of the attorneys’ services.” Id. at 577. But 

Virani itself recognized that only the plaintiff “has the power to demand that the 

defendant pay the fees of the plaintiff’s attorney,” id. at 578, and, regardless, the 

part of its holding on which Woodson relies has since been abrogated, see Kim, 

806 F.3d at 1174 (recognizing that “Ratliff abrogated Virani”). 

Finally, Woodson relies on our decision in Venegas v. Skaggs, 867 F.2d 527 
6

(9th Cir. 1989), aff’d sub nom. Venegas v. Mitchell, 490 U.S. 82 (1990), to argue 

that the court erred in denying him permissive intervention. This reliance is 

misplaced, because in Venegas we permitted an attorney to intervene solely to 

impose a lien on his client’s judgment pursuant to a contingent-fee contract with 

his client, not to collect fees directly from the opposing side. Our holding here 

does not prevent Woodson from similarly attempting to collect his fees directly 

from Teutscher. See Venegas v. Mitchell, 495 U.S. at 90 (explaining that a federal 

fee-shifting statute “controls what the losing defendant must pay, not what the 

prevailing plaintiff must pay his lawyer”).

Because Woodson had no right to seek attorney’s fees from RSA, and 

because that was the sole ground on which he sought to intervene, the district court 

properly denied his motion. See Willard v. City of Los Angeles, 803 F.2d 526, 527 

(9th Cir. 1986).

AFFIRMED.