Court Opinion

ID: 9439178
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 06:24:13.349908+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:26:12.366376
License: Public Domain

SENTELLE, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and concurring in the result:
I concur completely in the result reached by the majority, and in sufficient *99of its reasoning to support every part of it. However, I write separately only to distance myself from the majority’s determination that a pro se litigant is entitled to recover counsel fees for consultations with attorneys not appearing or connected with appearances in the pro se litigation, a resolution not necessary to the decision in the case, nor, in my opinion, a correct one. That portion of the decision is inconsistent with both the language and the policy of fee-shifting statutes, as determined by the Supreme Court.
Blazy’s claim arises under 5 U.S.C. § 552a(g)(3)(B), providing, inter alia, that “[t]he court may assess against the United States reasonable attorney fees ... reasonably incurred in any case” covered by the statute. The relevant language is the same or substantially the same as various other fee-shifting statutes. The Supreme Court construed one of those statutes, 42 U.S.C. § 1988, in Kay v. Ehrler, 499 U.S. 432, 111 S.Ct. 1435, 113 L.Ed.2d 486 (1991). That case, like this one, involved a plea for fees by a pro se litigant. The Supreme Court denied that plea and held that a pro se litigant was not entitled to recover counsel fees. In my view, Kay v. Ehrler is controlling of the present case. Concededly, the Supreme Court’s decision is distinguishable on two bases, but I submit that neither makes a difference in the appropriate result. First, and least importantly, Kay v. Ehrler did involve a different fee-shifting statute than the one before us. However, we have already held in Burka v. United States Department of Health and Human Services, 142 F.3d 1286 (D.C.Cir.1998), that its reasoning is applicable to other parallel fee-shifting statutes — in that case, FOIA. The more significant distinction, and the one which raises a legitimate question as to the applicability of Kay v. Ehrler, is that in that case the litigant, a licensed attorney, sought an award of fees for his own time, whereas in the present case, Blazy seeks an award for the fees of an attorney consulted by him who did not make an appearance in the cause and never represented. him as to the matters at issue. Despite this distinction, I think both the language and the rationale of Kay v. Ehrler are applicable.
As the Supreme Court notes, the statute’s use of the term “attorney” makes it “seem[ ] likely that Congress contemplated an attorney-client relationship as the predicate for an award under section 1988.” 499 U.S. at 436, 111 S.Ct. 1435. As the Court further noted in Kay, “the definition of the word ‘attorney’ in Webster’s Dictionary reads as follows: ‘[0]ne who is legally appointed by another to transact business for him; specif, a legal agent qualified to act for suitors and defendants in legal proceedings.’ ” Id. at n. 6, 111 S.Ct. 1435 (quoting WebstbR’s New Collegiate Dio-tionary 73 (1975)). That should remind us that, strictly speaking, having a law degree does not make one an attorney. A law school graduate may indeed be a “lawyer,” but he is not acting as an “attorney” until he acts as the agent for someone else. Simply counseling someone else does not .constitute acting as his agent and certainly does not constitute transacting business for him. The “lawyer” consulted by Blazy may have counseled him; but he did not transact business for him. He is not, therefore, an attorney as the term was construed by the Supreme Court in the context of fee-shifting in Kay v. Ehrler.
In addition to this semantic failure, Bla-zy’s claim falls outside the rationale of Kay v. Ehrler as well. In rejecting the award of counsel fees to a pro se litigant in that case, the Supreme Court noted that the policies underlying the fee-shifting statutes represent a congressional interest in “filtering out meritless claims,” and “ensuring the effective prosecution of meritorious claims.” The Court further recognized that these interests are furthered by the employment of a professional “independent third party in framing the theory of the case, evaluating alternative methods of presenting the evidence, cross-examining hostile witnesses, formulating legal argu*100ments, and in making sure that reason, rather than emotion, dictates the proper tactical response to unforeseen developments in the courtroom.” Id. at 437, 111 S.Ct. 1435. Consulting with an attorney outside the litigation, and before the litigation, furthered none of those goals.
In rejecting the claim of the pro se litigant in Kay v. Ehrler, the Supreme Court noted that a rule that would “authorized awards of counsel fees to pro se litigants ... would create a disincentive to employ counsel whenever such a plaintiff considered himself competent to litigate on his own behalf.” Id. at 438, 111 S.Ct. 1435. The rule adopted by the majority today provides less disincentive, but nonetheless provides an incentive to the pro se litigant who has received the advice and the professional function furthered by fee-shifting statutes to reject that advice and proceed as his own lawyer, “halving] a fool for a client.” Id.