Opinion ID: 186402
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Fee Enhancement

Text: 51 EAJA provides that attorney fees shall not be awarded in excess of $125 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. § 2412(d)(2)(A)(ii). Here, the District Court concluded that a special factor justified an enhancement in the hourly rates awarded to attorneys Yale and Barnes for one-third of the time they spent working toward obtaining the preliminary injunction. We review the District Court's enhancement award for abuse of discretion. See Pierce v. Underwood, 487 U.S. 552, 571, 108 S.Ct. 2541, 101 L.Ed.2d 490 (1988). We conclude that the District Court abused its discretion in awarding the enhanced fee, because Milk Producers failed to establish that either Yale or Barnes had `some distinctive knowledge or specialized skill needful for the litigation in question.' Truckers United, 329 F.3d at 894 (quoting Underwood, 487 U.S. at 572, 108 S.Ct. 2541). 52 In Underwood, the Supreme Court explained that the reference to the limited availability of qualified attorneys in § 2412(d)(2)(A)(ii) must refer to attorneys `qualified for the proceedings' in some specialized sense, rather than just in their general legal competence. Underwood, 487 U.S. at 572, 108 S.Ct. 2541. To qualify for compensation at enhanced hourly rates under this standard, an attorney must possess some distinctive knowledge or specialized skill needful for the litigation in question, which can include an identifiable practice specialty such as patent law, or knowledge of foreign law or language. Id. The Court further explained that the other `special factors' envisioned by the exception [to EAJA's normal maximum hourly rate] must be such as are not of broad and general application. Id. at 573, 108 S.Ct. 2541. The difficulty or undesirability of the case, the work and ability of counsel, and the results obtained do not qualify as special factors under the statute. Id. 53 Applying Underwood, we have made clear that an attorney cannot be awarded enhanced fees under the special factor exception based solely on expertise the lawyer acquired through practice in a specific area of administrative law. As we stated in F.J. Vollmer Co. v. Magaw, 102 F.3d 591, 598 (D.C.Cir.1996), while lawyers practicing administrative law typically develop expertise in a particular regulated industry, whether energy, communications, railroads, or firearms... they usually gain this expertise from experience, not from the specialized training justifying fee enhancement. Emphasizing that nothing in the text or legislative history of EAJA suggests that Congress intended to make all lawyers practicing administrative law in technical fields eligible for a fee enhancement, we concluded that expertise acquired through practice was not a special factor that could warrant an enhanced fee. Id. at 598-99. 54 In this case, the District Court found that attorneys Yale and Barnes had specialized knowledge of the extremely complex federal milk marketing regime. Select Milk, 304 F.Supp.2d at 55-56. The District Court further found that this specialized knowledge was needful for the litigation in question with respect to one-third of the hours that Yale and Barnes spent working toward obtaining the preliminary injunction. The court thus held that Yale and Barnes were entitled to compensation at enhanced rates for those hours. Id. at 57. The fundamental flaw in this analysis is that the justification the District Court offered for concluding that Yale and Barnes had specialized knowledge was the expertise the attorneys had acquired through practice. See id. at 57 (Attorney Yale specializes in the representation of dairy farms and dairy cooperatives.... Attorney Barnes has spent over three decades representing dairy cooperatives on issues relating to the AMAA.). As explained above, under the clear precedent of this circuit, such expertise acquired through practice in a particular field of administrative law is insufficient to justify an enhanced fee award under the special factor exception to EAJA's normal cap on attorney's fees. See F.J. Vollmer, 102 F.3d at 598. 55 The District Court did also note that Yale worked in the dairy industry prior to becoming an attorney. Select Milk, 304 F.Supp.2d at 57. But the District Court merely mentioned this fact, failing to explain how any knowledge that Yale acquired from his previous work in the dairy industry was needful for the litigation in question — a precondition for a court to find that a special factor exists warranting fee enhancement under EAJA. See Truckers United, 329 F.3d at 896. Because the only relevant expertise identified by the District Court was expertise Yale and Barnes acquired through years of practice in a field of administrative law, there was no justification for an enhanced fee award under EAJA. The District Court's contrary conclusion was an abuse of discretion. See id. at 894.