Court Opinion

ID: 9481401
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:17:56.1267+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:17.619071
License: Public Domain

RUTH BADER GINSBURG, Circuit Judge,
concurring in principal part, but dissenting as to fees for INS processing following the district court’s decision.
I agree with my colleagues that judicial review EAJA, 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d)(3), does not entitle Full Gospel to fees for the pre-litigation visa proceedings or the deportation hearing. See Per Curiam Opinion at 630-631. I agree also that civil action EAJA, 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d)(1)(A), does not accommodate a fee award for proceedings at the administrative level prior to the commencement of suit for judicial relief. I dissent, however, from the court’s denial of fees for the post-litigation proceedings before INS. Sullivan v. Hudson, 490 U.S. 877, 109 S.Ct. 2248, 104 L.Ed.2d 941 (1989), is the path-marking decision. That decision, I conclude, supports a fee award, under civil action EAJA, for the thirteen hours counsel devoted, after the litigation, to fulfillment of the court’s judgment.
In Hudson, the Supreme Court held that civil action EAJA permits a federal court to award a prevailing Social Security Act claimant fees, not only for representation in court, but also for representation at the administrative level following a court-ordered remand. It is true, as my colleagues point out, that in Hudson, the Court emphasized the “uncommon” scheme of the Social Security Act. It is also true that here, unlike Hudson, the district court did not formally remand the case or retain jurisdiction while INS implemented the court’s declarations concerning Kim’s visa status.
Hudson, however, invoked a more general principle; the Court’s decision, which linked the post-remand administrative proceedings to the “civil action,” did not simply detail and rely on the “somewhat unusual judicial review prescriptions of the Social Security Act. See Hudson, 109 U.S. at 885, 109 S.Ct. at 2254. Rather, the Court wrote:
Our past decisions interpreting other fee-shifting provisions make clear that where administrative proceedings are intimately tied to the resolution of the judicial action and necessary to the attainment of the results Congress sought to promote by providing for fees, they should be considered part and parcel of the action for which fees are sought.
Hudson, 490 S.Ct. at 888, 109 S.Ct. at 2255 (emphasis added).
My colleagues, nonetheless, regard as controlling, i.e., essential to Hudson’s holding, the remand-retention of jurisdiction pattern present in Hudson. See Per Cu-riam Opinion at 632. The “past decisions” featured by the Hudson Court, however, most prominently Pennsylvania v. Delaware Valley Citizens’ Council for Clean Air, 478 U.S. 546, 106 S.Ct. 3088, 92 L.Ed.2d 439 (1986), and New York Gaslight Club, Inc. v. Carey, 447 U.S. 54, 100 S.Ct. 2024, 64 L.Ed.2d 723 (1980), did not involve an administrative proceeding on remand in a case over which the district court retained jurisdiction. Yet the Supreme Court described the principles advanced in those decisions as “controlling.” See Hudson, 490 U.S. at 889, 109 S.Ct. at 2256 (“[T]he principles we found persuasive in Delaware Valley and Carey are controlling here.”). I therefore read Hudson as applying a general principle in a particular instance; in the Court’s words, civil action EAJA encompasses administrative proceedings that are “intimately tied to the resolution of the judicial action and necessary to the attainment of the results Congress sought to promote by providing for fees.” Accord Pollgreen v. Morris, 911 F.2d 527, 536 n. 10 (11th Cir.1990) (“The test espoused by the Supreme Court is not how similar the statute governing a particular administrative proceeding is to the Social Security Act, but rather, whether the administrative proceedings are ‘intimately tied to the resolution of the judicial action.’ ”).
In determining whether a given administrative proceeding should count as part of the “civil action” for fees purposes, the Hudson Court indicated, the pivotal ques*634tion is whether “the administrative proceedings on remand ... were ‘crucial to the vindication of [the private party’s] rights.’ ” Hudson, 490 U.S. at 889, 109 S.Ct. at 2256 (quoting Delaware Valley Citizens’ Council, 478 U.S. at 561, 106 S.Ct. at 3096). The Court further observed:
Where a court finds that the [agency’s] position on judicial review was not substantially justified within the meaning of the EAJA, ... it is within the court’s discretion to conclude that representation on remand was necessary to the effectu-ation of its mandate and to the ultimate vindication of the [complainant’s] rights....
Hudson, 490 U.S. at 890, 109 S.Ct. at 2257. In addition, the Court commented:
That Congress carved the world of EAJA proceedings into “adversary [administrative] adjudications" and “civil actions" does not necessarily speak to, let alone preclude, a reading of the term “civil action” which includes administrative proceedings necessary to the completion of a civil action.
Id. at 892, 109 S.Ct. at 2258.
In the present case, while the district court did not formally remand or retain jurisdiction, that court did rule definitively on Kim’s qualification for third and sixth preference visas, and it ordered INS to abide by the court’s determinations “in any matter relating to the adjustment of Ms. Kim’s status.” Merits Op. (Order). The follow-up processing at INS thus complemented the district court’s judgment, served to effectuate the court’s mandate, and ultimately vindicated the rights of the party who prevailed in court. See Hudson, 490 U.S. at 890, 109 S.Ct. at 2257. The thirteen hours in question involved constant calls, correspondence; and office visits by Full Gospel’s attorney; as the district court indicated, those hours were diligently and reasonably spent in view of INS’s persistence in what the district court called “inexcusable bureaucratic inattention” and “disregard of plain facts.” See Fees Op. Counsel’s post-litigation efforts to propel final action by INS, it seems to me, were thus “intimately tied to the resolution of the judicial action” within the tenor of the Supreme Court’s decision in Hudson.
My colleagues suggest that post-litigation fee liability, like fee liability for pre-lit-igation administrative proceedings, would be irreconcilable with EAJA’s scheme. See Per Curiam Opinion at 632. I agree that if administrative proceedings were considered part of a “civil action” simply because judicial review occurred at one point, then civil action EAJA would totally displace judicial review EAJA: on no occasion would an EAJA claimant who prevailed on judicial review need to invoke judicial review EAJA, with its “adversary adjudication” limitation. If civil action EAJA thus blanketed the territory, Congress’ provision for judicial review EAJA would be rendered superfluous. But court-awarded fees for post-litigation proceedings, because of their confined scope and linkage to the court’s judgment, do not similarly undermine EAJA’s structure. Far from encompassing all administrative proceedings judicially reviewed, court awards would cover precisely and only time reasonably spent by an attorney to prevail in court and, thereafter, to achieve agency action consistent with the court’s decree. Judicial review EAJA, as this case illustrates, would remain vital: the panel is unanimous in holding that the “adversary adjudication” limitation attending judicial review EAJA rules out fees for the pre-litigation visa proceedings (93 hours) and the deportation hearing (13 hours).
Finally, I cannot agree with my colleagues that the availability of fees for administrative proceedings in the wake of a court’s judgment would occasion “enormous expansion of the government’s fee liability.” See Per Curiam Opinion at 632. As Full Gospel maintained in the supplemental briefing we requested,* if an agency’s subordinate officers are instructed to carry out a court’s order promptly, the EAJA claimant’s attorney will need to spend little time on post-decision proceedings and should not accrue substantial fees. See Appellees’ Supplemental Memorandum at 6. If, however, an agency faces *635no fee liability, then the impetus on the agency’s side to proceed expeditiously will be diminished, and the incentive for the claimant’s counsel to devote time to the matter may be reduced. See id. at 7; cf. Hudson, 490 U.S. at 890, 109 S.Ct. at 2256 (absent fees for follow-up administrative proceedings, there would be an “incentive ... for attorneys to abandon claimants after judicial remand”). Post-litigation fee liability, as the Supreme Court stated in Hudson, would thus be “ancillary” to the civil action for judicial review, id. at 892, 109 S.Ct. at 2258, and would further the statutory “purpose ‘to diminish the deterrent effect of seeking review of, or defending against, government action.’ ” Id. at 890, 109 S.Ct. at 2257 (quoting 94 Stat. 2325).
In sum, guided by Hudson, I would read the term “civil action” in 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d)(1)(A) to include administrative proceedings prompted by, and in aid of expeditious agency recognition and enforcement of, a court’s judgment. On that ground, I would affirm the district court’s award of $1263.60 for “after litigation” administrative proceedings.

 By order filed December 5, 1990, we directed the parties to brief, discretely, this question:
Does 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d)(1)(A) provide for an award of fees for time spent on administrative *635proceedings subsequent to the district court’s decision on the merits?
We further stated that the briefs should take account, particularly, of Sullivan v. Hudson, 490 U.S. 877, 109 S.Ct. 2248, 104 L.Ed.2d 941 (1989), and Pollgreen v. Morris, 911 F.2d 527 (11th Cir. 1990).