Opinion ID: 215442
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Astrue v. Ratliff

Text: The majority relies heavily for its interpretation of the CAFRA attorney fees provision on Astrue v. Ratliff, ___ U.S. ___, 130 S.Ct. 2521, 177 L.Ed.2d 91 (2010). Ratliff held that attorney fees under a particular statute, the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA), 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d), are paid directly to the client. Although I agree that Ratliff is helpful as an interpretive guide, its guidance leads, in my view, down quite a different path than the one the majority follows. The interpretative method used in Ratliff is heavily textual, concentrating on the precise wording of EAJA. There is no mention in Ratliff of any presumption that fees are usually awarded to the attorney or to the client. Instead, the only presumption is that the terms, structure, and history of each statute should govern. On examination, none of the factors that the Court found persuasive in Ratliff as to why EAJA directs fees to the client are present in CAFRA. And some of the factors relied on in Ratliff support the conclusion that fees awarded under CAFRA need not always be paid to the client. First, and most importantly, the text of EAJA directs that courts shall award to a prevailing party ... fees and other expenses... incurred by that party .... 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d)(1)(A) (emphasis added). The Court in Ratliff held that prevailing party refers to the prevailing litigant, and so concluded that the text of EAJA, literally read, directs that fees must be paid to the litigant, meaning the client. 130 S.Ct. at 2525. CAFRA contains no such express direction. The CAFRA attorney fees provision states only that the United States shall be liable for ... reasonable attorney fees .... 28 U.S.C. § 2465(b)(1). It doesn't say to whom the United States must pay the fees. Given the substantial weight that the Court in Ratliff placed on the phrase to a prevailing party, the absence of a parallel phrase in CAFRA is sufficient to subvert any comparison to EAJA or reliance on Ratliff in this case. [1] Second, other textual differences between EAJA and CAFRA further undermine the majority's reliance on Ratliff's interpretation of EAJA. The Court's interpretation was buttressed by subsections of EAJA that distinguish the party who receives the fees award (the litigant) from the attorney who performed the work that generated the fees. Id. at 2525-26. For instance, EAJA requires a prevailing party to submit an itemized statement from any attorney,  id. at 2526, implying that the term prevailing party is not a reference to the attorney. In contrast, no subsection of CAFRA differentiates between the claimant and the claimant's attorney. Similarly, the text of EAJA award[s] to a prevailing party `the reasonable expenses of expert witnesses' and `any study, analysis, engineering report, test, or project,' yet no party in Ratliff suggested that those costs were payable directly to the vendors who provide[d] the relevant services. Id. at 2527 (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d)(2)(A)). In other words, the term prevailing party in EAJA could not be read as including the prevailing litigant's attorney without creating the anomaly that prevailing party would also include other vendors involved in the litigation. Thus, the Court held that the term prevailing party referred to the prevailing litigant, and that the text of EAJA treats attorneys on par with other service providersthey all must recover their fees from the litigant. Id. CAFRA, unlike EAJA, does not use language awarding expert expenses to a prevailing party or to the claimant. Instead, CAFRA simply provides that the United States shall be liable for ... attorney fees and other litigation costs .... 28 U.S.C. § 2465(b)(1)(A). So the anomaly identified in Ratliff that would arise if EAJA were interpreted to award fees directly to the attorney doesn't arise in CAFRA. Third, the Court contrasted the language of EAJA to that of the Social Security Act (SSA), which expressly authorizes payment of fee awards directly to attorneys. Id. at 2527-28 (citing 42 U.S.C. § 406(b)(1)(A) (allowing for the payment to such attorney of attorney fees)). The Court took this statutory difference to suggest that Congress knows how to make fees awards payable directly to attorneys where it desires to do so. Id. That comparison is consistent with the notion that a provision including statutory text different from both EAJA and SSA connotes different results. In other words, Congress has made fees payable directly to attorneys (SSA) and directly to prevailing parties (EAJA), but CAFRA does neither, so neither course should follow. Finally, the textual differences between CAFRA and EAJA are especially pertinent given that, prior to the passage of CAFRA, forfeiture claimants had to rely on EAJA to seek fee awards in forfeiture cases. See, e.g., United States v. 22249 Dolorosa St., 190 F.3d 977, 981-82 (9th Cir.1999). As Congress was presumably aware of the text of EAJA, the textual divergence in CAFRA should be given some import. See, e.g., Corley v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 1558, 1567, 173 L.Ed.2d 443 (2009) (applying presumption that meaning should be ascribed to differences in statutory texts). In sum, the Court's analysis in Ratliff was a textual one, a mode of analysis that points to a different result under CAFRA than under EAJA. The Court made no mention of a presumption that fees are ordinarily awarded to either the party or the attorney. Nor is any such presumption discernible in other caselaw. The majority's observation that statutes ordinarily bestow fees on parties (not attorneys) might be correct as a descriptive matter, see Maj. Op. at 755-57, but the text of the statutes identified by the majority specifically direct payment to parties, and so cases interpreting those provisions provide no guidance here. For example, the majority relies on a statement in United States ex rel. Virani v. Jerry M. Lewis Truck Parts & Equipment, 89 F.3d 574 (9th Cir.1996) that [t]he Supreme Court has made it clear that, in general, statutes bestow fees upon parties, not upon attorneys. Id. at 577. To support that proposition, the Virani court cited cases that interpreted the attorney fees provision in 42 U.S.C. § 1988. Id. (citing Evans v. Jeff D., 475 U.S. 717, 731-33, 106 S.Ct. 1531, 89 L.Ed.2d 747 (1986); Venegas v. Mitchell, 495 U.S. 82, 88, 110 S.Ct. 1679, 109 L.Ed.2d 74 (1990); Willard v. City of Los Angeles, 803 F.2d 526, 527 (9th Cir.1986)). The text of § 1988, unlike CAFRA, directs fees to the prevailing party. See 42 U.S.C. § 1988(b) ([T]he court, in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party ... a reasonable attorney's fee. (emphasis added)). [2] Likewise, the majority points to cases holding that fee awards in antitrust cases go to successful plaintiffs, not plaintiffs' counsel. See Maj. Op. at 755-57 (citing Image Technical Serv., Inc. v. Eastman Kodak Co., 136 F.3d 1354, 1357 (9th Cir.1998)). But the text of the fees provisions pertinent to antitrust cases direct fees to the person who shall be injured... by reason of anything forbidden in the antitrust laws, meaning the plaintiff, not the plaintiffs attorney. 15 U.S.C. § 15(a); id. § 26 ([T]he court shall award the cost of suit, including a reasonable attorney's fee, to such plaintiff.). In other words, the cases identified by the majority simply interpret provisions that expressly direct fees to plaintiffs rather than to plaintiffs' attorneys; they apply no presumption of such a result. And, in fact, Virani itself (in which we observed that statutes generally bestow fees on parties) did not apply any such presumption. Instead, it held that the payment of fees under the False Claims Act must be made directly to the plaintiffs counsel, even though the text of the provision at issue could be read as directing that fees be paid to the client. See 89 F.3d at 578 (interpreting 31 U.S.C. § 3730(d)(1), which provides that qui tam plaintiff[s] shall also receive an amount for reasonable expenses which the court finds to have been necessarily incurred, plus reasonable attorneys' fees and costs). I therefore cannot agree with the majority that after Ratliff, a clear expression of congressional intent to create a direct fee award to counsel is necessary. Maj. Op. at 756. Instead, Ratliff counsels a statute-specific approach to the question, devoid of any universal rule, presumption, or clear statement requirement.