Opinion ID: 489491
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: the cost of living increase

Text: 22 Having determined that the appellee was deserving of an EAJA garland, we turn next to the prong of the primary appeal which questions the computation of the fee award. In order to understand the government's lamentation that the district court improperly adjusted counsel's hourly rate to account for the increased cost of living since 1981, it is useful to scan the history of the statute. 23 The EAJA was initially conceived as an experiment in using fee-shifting as a means of ensuring administrative accountability and concomitantly, of lessening the financial burden on those who victoriously pursued that accountability through litigation. As first enacted, the EAJA had a lifespan of only three years--from October 1, 1981 to October 1, 1984. The experiment proved sufficiently beneficial to merit retention--but renewal proved to be no simple matter. It was only after a number of clarifying amendments were devised that the EAJA was salvaged by the Congress on August 5, 1985. See Pub.L. No. 99-80, Sec. 6, 99 Stat. 183 (1985). Its provisions were given retroactive effect to ameliorate the effects of the temporary hiatus which existed from October 1984 to August 1985. See id. at 186. 24 The original EAJA contained a provision limiting attorneys' fees to $75 per hour unless the court determines that an increase in the cost of living or a special factor, such as the limited availability of qualified attorneys for the proceedings involved, justifies a higher fee. 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2412(d)(2)(A)(ii) (1980). This language remained unchanged in the 1985 reenactment. 7 Pursuant thereto, the Sierra Club urged that a higher hourly rate be applied to its fees application, citing an increase in the consumer price index between September 1981 and September 1985. The district court acceded to this request, and the award reflected such an increment. Sierra III, 639 F.Supp. at 1221-22. The government argues that the district court erred in granting fees in excess of $75 per hour on the basis of this calculation. 8 It concedes, however, that the cost of living rose between 1981 and 1985, and that the incremental portion of the award properly reflected the extent of the hike. Accordingly, the challenge reduces to a pure question of statutory construction: once we resolve whether the district court was empowered to consider inflation during this interval (1981-1985), we need go no further. 25 As we have noted, the 1985 EAJA amendments did not change either the $75 hourly cap on attorneys' fees or the language which ceded judicial discretion to augment that rate due to inflation. The government contends that since the ceiling was not modified, Congress must have intended that all increases in the cost of living prior to reenactment in August 1985 were subsumed therein and to be ignored in future fee-setting. While some courts have agreed with this tightfisted interpretation, see, e.g., Chipman v. Secretary of Health and Human Services, 781 F.2d at 547; Dubreuil v. Secretary of Health and Human Services, No. 84-2262 Mc, slip op. at 4 (D.Mass. February 20, 1987) ; Trahan v. Regan, 625 F.Supp. 1163, 1168 (D.D.C.1985), we decline to join them. To be sure, section 2412 is a limited waiver of sovereign immunity [and as such] it is to be narrowly construed and strictly observed. Lane v. United States, 727 F.2d 18, 20-21 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 829, 105 S.Ct. 113, 83 L.Ed.2d 57 (1984). Nevertheless, after giving due weight to this precept, we find that settled rules of statutory construction and the purpose and underlying public policy of the statute conduce to a more expansive reading of the EAJA than the government admits. And, we believe that the better-reasoned caselaw accords with our view. 26 Prior to its renewal, the EAJA's inflation escalator was generally interpreted as allowing upward adjustment in hourly rates based on the cumulative increases in the cost of living which had transpired from 1981 onward. E.g., Continental Webb Press, Inc. v. NLRB, 767 F.2d 321, 323-24 (7th Cir.1985); Action on Smoking and Health v. CAB, 724 F.2d 211, 218 (D.C.Cir.1984); Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. v. EPA, 703 F.2d 700, 713 (3d Cir.1983). There is nothing in either the 1985 EAJA amendments or in the legislative history underlying them to indicate that Congress intended--or even contemplated in passing--courts thenceforth to ignore inflation which had occurred between 1981 and 1985. In light of the past (uncontested) interpretation favoring the allowance of cumulative increases, the normal expectation would be that, if Congress desired to change the rules, it would do so explicitly. See Bush v. Oceans International, 621 F.2d 207, 211 n. 4 (5th Cir.1980); cf. Devine v. White, 697 F.2d 421, 431 n. 42 (D.C.Cir.1983). Given the historical record, congressional silence is strong evidence of a legislative policy that, after reenactment, the escalator continued to operate exactly as before. 27 The appellants ask us, in effect, to conclude that the statute was amended by implication. Yet, amendments by implication are disfavored. See United States v. Welden, 377 U.S. 95, 103 n. 12, 84 S.Ct. 1082, 1087 n. 12, 12 L.Ed.2d 152 (1964). As the district court recognized, the gist of the applicable canon of statutory construction is that: 28 [p]rovisions of the original act or section which are repeated in the body of the amendment, either in the same or equivalent words, are considered a continuation of the original law ... 29 ... Words and provisions used in the original act or section are presumed to be used in the same sense in the amendment. Moreover, the legislature is presumed to know the prior construction of the original act, and if words or provisions in the act or section amended that had been previously construed are repeated in the amendment, it is held that the legislature adopted the prior construction of the word or provision. 30 Sierra III, 639 F.Supp. at 1221-22 (quoting IA C. Sands, Sutherland on Statutory Construction, Sec. 22.33 (4th ed. 1985)). Customarily, Congress is thought to be aware of an existing statutory construction. Absent some evidence of an attempt to change that construction, a substantial reenactment of the law incorporating its preexisting phraseology is usually the functional equivalent of codifying the earlier construction into the statute. Lorillard v. Pons, 434 U.S. 575, 580, 98 S.Ct. 866, 869, 55 L.Ed.2d 40 (1978); Saxbe v. Bustos, 419 U.S. 65, 74, 95 S.Ct. 272, 278, 42 L.Ed.2d 231 (1974); Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Estate of Noel, 380 U.S. 678, 682, 85 S.Ct. 1238, 1240, 14 L.Ed.2d 159 (1965). 31 In this instance, the appellants have not shown the faintest reason for a departure from this salutary tenet. If Congress had intended to limit the EAJA's cost of living provision in the dramatic way urged by the government, we believe that it would have done so plainly and in no uncertain terms. Inasmuch as this did not occur, the resultant gulf is simply too wide to be bridged by inferring such a limitation out of thin air. The very fact that the $75 per hour cap on attorneys' fees was not altered is, as we assess it, a powerful indication that Congress intended the courts to continue to exercise discretion to account for pre-1985, as well as post-1985, inflation. 32 Another principle, too, comes into play. Unless the language of a statute itself points in a contrary direction, courts are bound to interpret it consistent with the legislative intent, if discernible. Philbrook v. Glodgett, 421 U.S. 707, 713-14, 95 S.Ct. 1893, 1898, 44 L.Ed.2d 525 (1975); United States v. American Trucking Associations, Inc., 310 U.S. 534, 542, 60 S.Ct. 1059, 1063, 84 L.Ed. 1345 (1940). An interpretation such as the appellants presently urge would work to defeat the EAJA's manifest purpose. Congress hoped that the knowledge that federal agencies would have to pay sizable awards of attorneys' fees when they overstepped their authority and were challenged in court would induce administrators to behave more responsibly in the future. Spencer v. NLRB, 712 F.2d at 550. The cost of living provision was a part of this armamentarium; it was designed to provide a disincentive to agencies to prolong the litigation process. Natural Resources Defense Council v. EPA, 703 F.2d at 713. Shortstopping the escalator serves a precisely antipodal end. If the escalator were rigged to bypass several floors, its usefulness as a deterrent device would be considerably curtailed. 33 There is a final feather in the appellee's argument for relaxation of the cap. The alternative interpretation hawked by the government--that Congress wanted to use historical inflation effectively to shrink the maximum hourly rate from its original 1981 level--would mean that inflation-adjusted fees awarded prior to August 1985 for services rendered in the 1981-85 time frame, would be higher than comparable fees for the same time frame awarded after reenactment of the EAJA. That is to say, if twin lawyers, handling parallel cases, did exactly the same work at exactly the same time with exactly the same results, the one whose EAJA application was heard and decided under the original EAJA could receive the enhanced rate (commensurate with increases in the cost of living from 1981 forward), but the one whose application was processed under the reenactment would be paid at a lesser rate. As can readily be seen, such a paradoxical interpretation would make very little sense. Since we honor the rule that a statute should be construed so as to avoid unjust or absurd results, see Ciampa v. Secretary of Health and Human Services, 687 F.2d 518, 524 (1st Cir.1982); Massachusetts Financial Services, Inc. v. Securities Investor Protection, 545 F.2d 754, 756 (1st Cir.1976), cert. denied, 431 U.S. 904, 97 S.Ct. 1696, 52 L.Ed.2d 388 (1977), we correspondingly discount the appellants' reading of the law. 34 Mindful of the legislative goals which undergird the EAJA and the lack of any indication that Congress intended to change the role of the cost of living provision in furthering those goals, we conclude that the 1985 reenactment did not curb judicial authority to adjust EAJA fees for inflation in the same manner and to the same extent as under the original version of the Act. The federal courts remain able to augment hourly rates by considering changes in the cost of living which took place between October 1981 and August 1985, and thereafter. Accord Hirschey v. FERC, 777 F.2d 1, 5 (D.C. Cir.1985); Ruiz v. Bowen, No. 84 C 7395, slip op. (E.D. Ill. Feb. 20, 1987) (LEXIS, Genfed library, Dist. file); Jackson v. Heckler, 629 F.Supp. at 405; Trichillo v. Secretary of Health and Human Services, 647 F.Supp. at 127; Mayberg v. Heckler, No. 82-2982K, slip op. at 16 (D.Mass. Dec. 20, 1985). In our judgment, the district court acted within the lawful scope of its discretion when it granted the Sierra Club an increase in the statutory hourly rate based on climbing prices from and after 1981.