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

Heading: Expert Witness Expenses

Text: 24 Not content to rest on his argument that this court's decision in Jones is controlling, however, Kooritzky further claims that he is entitled to recover fees under 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d)(2)(A) for time he spent acting as an immigration law expert in his own case. Kooritzky contends that the district court correctly found that he played a dual role in the litigation and that he both participated in the advocacy role of an attorney and participated as an expert in immigration law as a supporter of his colleagues in the 'study ... and analysis' of the specialized immigration law and policy issues presented by this litigation. Kooritzky I, 6F.Supp.2d at 4. Kooritzky extrapolates from this finding to the conclusion that he is entitled to recover fees for his work as an expert witness even if he is not entitled to recover attorney fees for the same work. 25 DOL argues that Kooritzky should not be allowed to sidestep his preclusion from recovering attorney fees by characterizing the fees as expert expenses. DOL observes that the district court agreed that this was a routine APA case and contends that therefore no expert studies were required and that the substantial amounts of time wasted by plaintiff hardly qualify him for compensation as an expert. DOL Reply Brief at 2, 10. DOL also maintains that Kooritzky characterized the fees he claimed as attorney fees and that he cannot now claim that these amounts represent compensation for time he spent preparing the case as an expert witness. 26 We agree that a pro se attorney-litigant may not evade the prohibition against recovery of attorney fees under the EAJA by seeking to characterize himself as an expert witness. The EAJA provides that litigants may recover fees and other expenses incurred in pursuing claims regarding alleged violations of various federal rights. Elsewhere, this phrase is defined as follows: 27 fees and other expenses includes 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. 28 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d)(2)(A). On its face, therefore, the statutory language provides for the recovery of reasonable expenses of expert witnesses in addition to reasonable attorney's fees. Unlike the term attorney, the phrase expert witness arguably does not connote as readily the sort of agency relationship that would support a reading of the statute requiring that the litigant and expert witness be separate individuals before expenses may be awarded. 29 However, it is not at all unlikely that Congress intended that expert witnesses, like attorneys, should be distinct from litigants. EAJA with its net worth threshold, see 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d)(2)(B), apparently contemplates placing less solvent litigants facing the government as an adversary on a basis similar to the multimillionaire engaged in the same type of litigation. Appellee has shown us no precedent for a litigant, wealthy or otherwise, receiving witness fees, expert or plain, for his own litigation. Indeed, it would seem a strange incentive to provide witness fees not for the purpose of reimbursing a litigant for his out-of-pocket costs, but as salary for time spent as a witness in his own litigation. Moreover, as the Supreme Court noted in Kay [e]thical considerations may make it inappropriate for [a pro se lawyer] to appear as a witness. Kay, 499 U.S. at 437 n. 9 (citing the ABA Model Code of Professional Responsibility: [t]he roles of an advocate and of a witness are inconsistent; the function of an advocate is to advance or argue the cause of another, while that of a witness is to state facts objectively.). We find decidedly uncompelling an argument that we should enter a novel holding providing an incentive to tread that questionable ethical ground. 30 The rationale of Kay further counsels in favor of barring recovery of expenses incurred by a litigant acting as his own expert. The Court in Kay noted that Congress in enacting various fee-shifting provisions sought to encourage plaintiffs to hire objective outside counsel: 31 A rule that authorizes awards of counsel fees to pro se litigants--even if limited to those who are members of the bar--would create a disincentive to employ counsel whenever such a plaintiff considered himself competent to litigate on his own behalf. The 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. 32 499 U.S. at 436. By analogy, the same congressional policy is served by a rule that encourages plaintiffs to retain objective outside experts. Thus, Kooritzky's claim for fees, whether characterized as attorney fees or expert expenses must fail. 33 In any event, the statutory language also makes plain that attorney fees and expert witness expenses are separate and distinct items of expense. See West Virginia Univ. Hosps., 499 U.S. at 92 (concluding that under the background against which Congress enacted the fee-shifting provision of the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act, [e]xpert fees were regarded not as a subset of attorney's fees, but as a distinct category of litigation expense). Allowing a pro se attorneylitigant to recover fees for legal services rendered during the course of litigation by characterizing them as expenses of expert witnesses or the reasonable cost of various studies, rather than attorney fees would vitiate the holding of Kay as applied to the EAJA and would make the determination of fee eligibility rest solely on the semantics of the litigant's fee petition. Therefore, we hold that a lawyer-litigant acting pro se may not recover fees for acting as an expert witness in his own case, at least, where the expertise possessed by the litigant is essentially legal in nature. 34 Such a rule is particularly warranted in a case such as this where the legal expertise claimed by the litigant is of limited relevance to the subject matter of the underlying suit. Kooritzky's alleged legal expertise consists of his knowledge of immigration law. His suit, however, challenged a DOL regulation on the ground that it was promulgated in violation of the notice and comment provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act--an issue of administrative, not immigration, law. Moreover, the record contains evidence that Kooritzky lacked the very expertise that was most required in this case--experience trying administrative law cases in the federal courts. Indeed, the district court observed that Kooritzky admitted [his] absence of court experience. Kooritzky, 6F.Supp.2d at 8. Such circumstances demonstrate the danger of a holding that would allow attorney-litigants to evade the Court's pronouncement in Kay by proclaiming themselves legal experts and thereby allowing them to recover attorney fees relabeled as expert expenses. 35