Opinion ID: 489491
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the independent analysis requirement

Text: 8 While the EAJA is designed to encourage relatively impecunious private parties to challenge abusive or unreasonable governmental behavior by relieving such parties of the fear of incurring large litigation expenses, United States v. 1,378.65 Acres of Land, 794 F.2d 1313, 1315-16 (8th Cir.1986) (citing Spencer v. NLRB, 712 F.2d 539, 549 (D.C.Cir.1983), cert. denied, 466 U.S. 936, 104 S.Ct. 1908, 80 L.Ed.2d 457 (1984)), it does not allow the automatic shifting of fees. If the government can demonstrate that its position was substantially justified or that unusual circumstances existed which would make an award unjust, then the fee tree does not flower, notwithstanding that the applicant is a prevailing party within the meaning of the statute. In surveying this terrain, the court must examine both the position of the federal sovereign in the underlying litigation and the governmental conduct which led to that litigation. See 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2412(d)(2)(D) (1985). Despite earlier uncertainty, it is by now well settled that the position which must be justified comprises both the position of the agency and the litigation position of the government. United States v. Yoffe, 775 F.2d 447, 449 (1st Cir.1985). 9 The government has the burden of proving substantial justification by a preponderance of the evidence. Id. at 450. In order to carry the devoir of persuasion, the government must show that it had a reasonable basis for the facts alleged, that it had a reasonable basis in law for the theories it advanced, and that the former supported the latter. Id. That the government lost in the underlying litigation does not create a presumption that its position was not substantially justified. But, there is a flip side to the coin: the sovereign is not exempted from liability under the EAJA merely because it prevailed at some interim point in the judicial process. Id. See also Martin v. Heckler, 754 F.2d 1262, 1264 (5th Cir.1985). 10 Viewed through such a glass, it becomes readily apparent that the test of reasonableness in the precincts patrolled by the EAJA is different from that applied for purposes of determining whether agency action or inaction is reasonable or unreasonable, i.e., arbitrary and capricious, under, say, the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. Secs. 701 et seq. As Emerson said of nature, reasonableness is a mutable cloud, which is always and never the same. R.W. Emerson, Essays: First Series (1841). Congress was painstaking in creating a distinct legal standard substantially justified--for EAJA use, rather than merely echoing the familiar arbitrary and capricious refrain. 4 We have equated that standard with a test of reasonableness, United States v. Yoffe, 775 F.2d at 450--but it remains, nonetheless, a test tailored to the dictates of the EAJA. 11 To be sure, these disparate ways of assessing reasonableness will, at times, overlap--indeed, a factfinder must take into account essentially the same underlying facts and legal arguments in discerning what is reasonable for either purpose. Nevertheless, because of the definitional differences, the district court must carefully refrain from treating every reversal of agency action as the functional equivalent of an unreasonable position in the EAJA sense. Cf. Riddle v. Secretary of Health and Human Services, 817 F.2d 1238 (6th Cir.1987) (LEXIS, Genfed library, U.S.App. file); Federal Election Comm'n v. Rose, 806 F.2d at 1089-90. An exercise of independent judgment is essential to determine whether an EAJA award is warranted; the answer is not wedded to the underlying judgment on the merits. Id. at 1087. Though both roads may in a given instance lead to Rome, that will not always be the case. At times, they will lead to different destinations. Any other approach would demean the precise language of the Act. As the Federal Circuit has said: Making the outcome of the case determinative would virtually eliminate the 'substantially justified' standard from the statute. Broad Avenue Laundry & Tailoring v. United States, 693 F.2d 1387, 1391 (Fed.Cir.1982). Accord Washington v. Heckler, 756 F.2d 959, 961 (3d Cir.1985). We defer to Congress's judgment that a separate yardstick should be employed to measure the propriety of fee-shifting as against the federal sovereign. Thus, after the merits of a case have been adjudicated, fresh and distinctive inquiry is needed to determine whether a fee entitlement vests under EAJA.