Opinion ID: 484315
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The 1985 Reauthorization of the EAJA

Text: 35 The House Report for the 1985 reauthorization of the EAJA issued by the Judiciary Committee also supports a broad construction of the term adjudication under section 554. H.R.Rep. No. 120, 99th Cong., 1st Sess., reprinted in 1985 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 132. The House Report repeatedly chastises the courts for our restrictive interpretation of the EAJA. The Judiciary Committee instructs us to take the expansive view of the Act and apply the broader meaning. Id., at 19, 9. 36 The Report, for instance, complains that [s]ome courts have construed the 'position of the United States' which must be 'substantially justified' in a narrow fashion which has helped the Federal Government escape liability for awards. Id., at 9, U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1985, p. 137. The new version of the EAJA, according to the Report, clarifies that the 'position of the United States' is not limited to the government's litigation position but [includes] the action--including agency action--which [leads] to the litigation. Id. 37 The House Report also criticizes courts that have taken substantial justification to mean merely reasonable. Especially puzzling, it declares, have been statements by some courts that an administrative decision may be substantially justified under the Act even if it must be reversed because it was arbitrary and capricious or was not supported by substantial evidence. Id., at 9, reprinted in 1985 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 132, 138 (footnote omitted). The Report emphatically rejects both such approaches and establishes that substantial justification means more than reasonableness and should be determined on a case by case basis. 38 Further on in the Report, the Judiciary Committee censures our holding in Auke Bay Concerned Citizen's Advisory Council v. March, 755 F.2d 717 (9th Cir.1985), superseded, 779 F.2d 1391 (9th Cir.1986), that parties may not file fee petitions before final judgment. H.R.Rep. No. 120, supra, at 18, n. 26. In the same footnote, the Report rejects the requirement that settlements produce a judicial order for the EAJA to operate. The Committee rejects both interpretations as overly technical. It warns against using the Act as a trap for the unwary resulting in the unwarranted denial of fees. Id. Making a procrustean technical requirement out of section 554 of the APA would, in fact, be tantamount to using the EAJA in that manner. 39 One of the comments on the original EAJA by the House Judiciary Committee sheds considerable light on the understanding of Congress regarding the proper interpretation of adversary adjudications. The Report discusses the applicability of the EAJA to Social Security Administration hearings at the administrative level. The Judiciary Committee notes that the EAJA covers such hearings. While, generally, Social Security administrative hearings remain outside the scope of [section 504], those in which the Secretary [of Health and Human Services] is represented are covered by the Act. Id., at 10, U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1985, p. 138. 40 What is important about the Judiciary Committee's comment is that the committee reached the conclusion that the EAJA applies to Social Security proceedings in which the government is represented by counsel even though the question whether section 554 of the APA directly governs those proceedings remains very much in doubt. The Committee was certainly aware that in Richardson v. Perales, the Supreme Court expressly refused to decide whether the APA has general application to social security disability claims. 402 U.S. 389, 409, 91 S.Ct. 1420, 1431, 28 L.Ed.2d 842 (1971). Apparently the Committee did not consider that the uncertainty as to the direct applicability of the APA to Social Security hearings was relevant to whether the EAJA applied to such hearings. Rather, it must have been concerned only with the fact that the hearings are of the type defined in section 554. According to the House Report, adversary Social Security hearings fall under the EAJA; they do so irrespective of whether such proceedings are technically or directly subject to section 554. By the same token, the EAJA applies to adversary deportation proceedings whether or not section 554 applies technically or directly to such proceedings. 41