Opinion ID: 184888
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Attorney Fees for Work Performed by Kooritzky

Text: 10 DOL argues that the district court erred in awarding attorney fees to Kooritzky since he was acting pro se. In particular, DOL contends that the district court mistakenly relied upon this court's decision in Jones v. Lujan, 887 F.2d 1096 (D.C.Cir.1989), allowing recovery of attorney fees by a pro se attorney-litigant under the EAJA. See Kooritzky I, 6 F.Supp.2d at 3. DOL submits that our decision in Jones was implicitly overruled by the Supreme Court in Kay v. Ehrler, 499 U.S. 432, 111 S.Ct. 1435, 113 L.Ed.2d 486 (1991), disallowing recovery of attorney fees to pro se plaintiffs under the fee-shifting provision found in 42 U.S.C. § 1988. Kooritzky contends that the district court correctly relied on this court's decision in Jones, which he asserts remains the controlling law of this circuit despite the Supreme Court's subsequent decision in Kay. He argues that the Kay opinion was limited to cases brought under the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act and that, while Kay resolved a statutory ambiguity by examining the specific legislative history of that Act, the Jones holding was based on the clear and unambiguous language of the EAJA. Upon review, we conclude that the fee-shifting provision of EAJA does not differ in any material way from the statutes construed by the Supreme Court in Kay and by this court in Burka. We therefore hold that our decision in Jones has been overruled by the Supreme Court, and that the district court erred in awarding fees to the pro se litigant under EAJA. 11 In the United States, fee shifting is a departure from the norm. In the general run of litigation, the American rule dictates that each party to a lawsuit bears his own attorney fees. Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 429, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983); Alyeska Pipeline Serv. Co. v. Wilderness Soc'y, 421 U.S. 240, 247, 95 S.Ct. 1612, 44 L.Ed.2d 141 (1975). Congress has specified exceptions to this American rule in a number of statutory schemes in the form of feeshifting provisions which allow recovery of attorney fees by a prevailing party. See West Virginia Univ. Hosps., Inc. v. Casey, 499 U.S. 83, 89, 111 S.Ct. 1138, 113 L.Ed.2d 68 (1991) (noting that [a]t least 34 statutes in 10 different titles of the United States Code explicitly shift attorney's fees and expert witness fees). The governing fee-shifting statute for EAJA awards is 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d)(1)(A): 12 Except as otherwise specifically provided by statute, a court shall award to a prevailing party other than the United States fees and other expenses, in addition to any costs awarded pursuant to subsection (a), incurred by that party in any civil action (other than cases sounding in tort), including proceedings for judicial review of agency 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. 13 The EAJA elsewhere defines fees and expenses to include the reasonable expenses of expert witnesses, the reasonable cost of any study, analysis, engineering report, test, or project which is found by the court to be necessary for the preparation of the party's case, and reasonable attorney fees. Id. § 2412(d)(2)(A). 14 In Kay v. Ehrler, the Supreme Court considered the entitlement to fees of a lawyer litigating pro se in a civil rights action. The Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act provided that in such an action, the court, in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party, other than the United States, a reasonable attorney's fee as part of the costs. 42 U.S.C. § 1988(b). After noting that it was already fixed law that a pro se litigant who is not a lawyer is not entitled to attorney's fees, Kay, 499 U.S. at 435 (emphasis in original), a unanimous Supreme Court held that the same rule applied to a pro se litigant who is a lawyer. While the Court allowed that neither the text nor the legislative history of the statute provided a clear answer, it firmly declared that the word 'attorney' assumes an agency relationship, and it seems likely that Congress contemplated an attorney-client relationship as the predicate for an award under § 1988. Id. at 435-36. In so declaring, the Court cited the definition of the word attorney as  '[O]ne who is legally appointed by another to transact business for him; specif: a legal agent qualified to act for suitors and defendants in legal proceedings.'  Id. at 436 n. 6 (quoting Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary 73 (1975)). The Court therefore concluded that the pro se litigant, even though a qualified lawyer, is not entitled to attorney fees for his own time, but may only collect fees for work performed by third parties employed to act as his attorneys at law in the litigation. 15 Although the definitional support for the holding might have been sufficient, the Court buttressed its conclusion with an examination of the purpose of the statute. While recognizing that the fee-shifting provision was no doubt intended to encourage litigation protecting civil rights, the Court further noted that it is also true that its more specific purpose was to enable potential plaintiffs to obtain the assistance of competent counsel in vindicating their rights. Id. at 436. There is no limiting language in the Kay opinion to make us believe that the Supreme Court intended its reasoning to apply only to the specific statute before it. Other fee-shifting statutes also speak of attorney's fees. The definitional implication of an agency relationship in the EAJA provision is therefore just as strong as in the Civil Rights Act. Therefore, in Burka, we had no difficulty in holding that the fee-shifting provision of the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(E) (1994), was governed by Kay and that a pro se attorney-litigant pursuing a remedy under FOIA, like his counterpart in a civil rights action, was not entitled to an award of attorney fees. As the Supreme Court had done in Kay, we noted in Burka that a contrary rule would be counter to one purpose of the statute--that is,  'to encourage potential claimants to seek legal advice before commencing litigation.'  Burka, 142 F.3d at 1289 (quoting Kay, 499 U.S. at 435 n. 4) (other citations and internal quotations omitted). 16 As both the Burka and Kay opinions further note, although a pro se attorney possesses legal expertise, he is unlikely to have the 'detached and objective perspective necessary to fulfill the aims of the Act.'  Burka, 142 F.3d at 1289 (quoting Kay, at 435 n. 4) (other internal quotations and citations omitted). Thus, Burka reflects a conviction that nothing in the Supreme Court's Kay opinion limits its reasoning to the specific facts or statute before it. Nor does anything in the reasoning of Kay or Burka draw a line excluding the EAJA from the analysis controlling the application of the other fee-shifting statutes. 17 The EAJA uses precisely the same wording--attorney's fees--construed to imply the necessity of an agency relationship in the other acts. Nothing in the statute defeats that implication. Not only does this similarity in wording suggest that the EAJA, like the FOIA, is controlled by the same reasoning applied by the Supreme Court to the Civil Rights Act, the Supreme Court itself has noted in the past the similarity between the fee-shifting provisions of the EAJA and Section 1988, observing that the EAJA is the counterpart to § 1988 for violation of federal rights by federal employees. See West Virginia Univ. Hosps., 499 U.S. at 89; see also Independent Fed'n of Flight Attendants v. Zipes, 491 U.S. 754, 758 n. 2, 109 S.Ct. 2732, 105 L.Ed.2d 639 (1989) ([F]ee-shifting statutes' similar language is 'a strong indication' that they are to be interpreted alike.). 18 The district court, faced with an apparently controlling precedent from this court in Jones compelling one result and a later decision of the Supreme Court arguably but not directly overruling that decision, concluded that Kooritzky presented a persuasive argument that the [EAJA] differs in both language and purpose from the attorneys' fee provisions of the Civil Rights Act and the Freedom of Information Act. Kooritzky I, 6 F.Supp.2d at 3. We cannot agree. The relevant fee-shifting provisions of the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act and the EAJA are the same in one controlling particular: both provide for recovery of attorney's fees. Thus, a straightforward analysis of the statutory text is sufficient to conclude that, as in the case of the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act provision, a pro se attorneylitigant may not recover attorney fees under the comparable fee-shifting provision of the EAJA. 19 Neither is there a difference of purpose in the statute that impels us toward any different result. In concluding that the plaintiff had presented a persuasive argument that the [EAJA] differs in both language and purpose from the attorneys' fee provision of the Civil Rights Act and the [FOIA] construed in Kay and Burka, the district court cited Spencer v. NLRB, 712 F.2d 539, 550 (D.C.Cir.1983), as enumerating purposes of the Equal Access to Justice Act. Kooritzky I, 6 F.Supp.2d at 3. We have reviewed the goals we set forth in Spencer: (1) to provide relief to victims of abusive governmental conduct without assuming enormous financial burdens; (2) to reduce the incidence of such abuse; and (3) to expos[e] a greater number of governmental actions to adversarial testing. 712 F.2d at 550. We find none of these to be inconsistent with the corresponding goals of the Civil Rights Act underlying the fee-shifting provision of 42 U.S.C. § 1988. Indeed, we must echo the Supreme Court's declaration in West Virginia University Hospitals that EAJA is in a sense a counterpart of the civil rights statute. In neither instance does the general goal of encouraging vindication of rights warrant an award of attorney fees where no attorney-client relationship exists and where the goal of the filtering of litigation through an independent professional is not met. 20 In Kay, the Court determined that a lawyer who appears pro se is deprived of the judgment of an independent third party in framing the theory of the case, evaluating alternative methods of presenting the evidence, cross-examining hostile witnesses, formulating legal arguments, and in making sure that reason, rather than emotion, dictates the proper tactical response to unforeseen developments in the courtroom. 499 U.S. at 437. Thus, the Court concluded that [t]he statutory policy of furthering the successful prosecution of meritorious claims is better served by a rule that creates an incentive to retain counsel in every such case. Id. at 438. 21 The same policy goals undergird the EAJA. As this court has observed, [b]oth the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Award Act ... and the EAJA were designed to supplement a host of more specific provisions allowing for the award of attorneys' fees in suits brought under statutes granting or protecting various federal rights. Spencer, 712 F.2d at 545 n. 18; see also Celeste v. Sullivan, 988 F.2d 1069, 1070 (11th Cir.1992) (The fee shifting provisions in section 1988 and in the EAJA serve the same purposes.). Like the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act, the policy goals underlying the fee-shifting provision found in the EAJA support the conclusion that Congress sought to encourage the procurement of objective counsel to pursue claims against the government for violation of various federal rights. See H.R.Rep. No. 1418, 96th Cong., 2d Sess. 9 (1980) (fee-shifting enacted to aid citizens for whom the inability to recover attorney fees preclude[d] resort to the adjudicatory process); id. at 12 (noting that under the EAJA, fee shifting becomes an instrument for curbing excessive regulation and the unreasonable exercise of Government authority). In doing so, Congress contemplated that attorney and client would be distinct individuals. See id. at 15 ([T]he computation of attorney fees should be based on prevailing market rates without reference to the fee arrangements between the attorney and client.). Thus, as in Kay, our interpretation of the EAJA is consistent with underlying policy goals and congressional purpose. 22 Our prior applications of the Supreme Court's decision in Kay further support our ruling in this case. We have already held that the Supreme Court's holding in Kay extends beyond the Section 1988 context. In Burka v. United States Department of Health and Human Services, 142 F.3d 1286 (D.C.Cir.1998), we ruled that pro se plaintiffs could not recover attorney fees under the fee-shifting provision in FOIA. In doing so, we concluded that Kay overruled prior decisions of this court holding that a pro se attorney-litigant was entitled to recover attorney fees under the fee-shifting provisions of FOIA. Id. at 1288 (citing Cuneo v. Rumsfeld, 553 F.2d 1360, 1366 (D.C.Cir.1977)). As a result of our analysis of the Kay decision, we concluded that the Supreme Court intended its ruling to apply beyond section 1988 cases to other similar feeshifting statutes, particularly the one in FOIA. It is, in short, impossible to conclude otherwise than that pro se litigants who are attorneys are not entitled to attorney's fees under FOIA. Id. at 1289; see also Benavides v. Bureau of Prisons, 993 F.2d 257, 259 (D.C.Cir.1993) (denying attorney fees under FOIA to a pro se non-attorney on the grounds that the Supreme Court believes that the word 'attorney,' when used in the context of a fee-shifting statute, does not encompass a lay-person proceeding on his own behalf). Thus, in Burka, we stated the position of this court that the Supreme Court's decision in Kay applies outside of the Section 1988 context, extending to all similarly-worded fee-shifting provisions. We reaffirm that holding today. 23 In so ruling, we join a number of other circuits that have ruled that Kay compels the conclusion that pro se plaintiffs may not recover attorney fees under the EAJA. In SEC v. Waterhouse, the Second Circuit applied Kay to bar recovery of attorney fees by a pro se attorney-litigant, observing that the agency relationship [is absent] in the pro se context. 41 F.3d 805, 808 (2d Cir.1994). Similarly, in Celeste v. Sullivan, the Eleventh Circuit concluded that because the fee-shifting provisions in the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act and the EAJA serve the same purposes, the Supreme Court's decision in Kay barred recovery of attorney fees under the EAJA by a pro se non-attorney. 988 F.2d 1069, 1070 (11th Cir.1992). Finally, in Demarest v. Manspeaker, the Tenth Circuit denied attorney fees under the EAJA to a pro se litigant, concluding that, like the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act, the EAJA attempts to enable meritorious litigation to take place, not to reward individuals who obtain legal redress. 948 F.2d 655, 656 (10th Cir.1991).