Court Opinion

ID: 9456844
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:03:54.076226+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:07.145973
License: Public Domain

McCREE, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. I agree with the majority’s delineation of the issues, but I do not agree that § 206(a) of the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. § 406(a), which provides that “the Secretary may, by rule and regulation, prescribe the maximum fees which may be charged for services performed in connection with any claim before the Secretary under this subchapter, * * *” is one of those “statutes [which] preclude [s] judicial review” under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 701(a).
Clearly § 206 gives the Secretary discretion to set the maximum fees, but I do not read it as barring judicial review of his exercise of that discretion. The Administrative Procedure Act was enacted to provide uniformly for limited judicial superintendence of administrative agencies’ discretionary powers. In accordance with the usual rule for statutory construction, the exceptions to this broad principle should, I believe, be construed narrowly, in order to accomplish the major purpose of the Act. This approach produces a result consistent with the view that judicial review “[r]ests on the congressional grant of general jurisdiction to the article III courts. It is a basic right; it is a traditional power and the intention to exclude it must be made specifically manifest”. Jaffe, L., The Right to Judicial Review, 71 Harv.L.Rev. 401, 432 (19—). See also Schilling v. Rogers, 363 U.S. 666, 667-668, 80 S.Ct. 1288, 4 L.Ed.2d 1478 (1960) (dissent). Here it seems to me that Congress has not explicitly and clearly indicated that it intended determination of attorney’s fees in Social Security disability cases to be exempt from judicial review.
I am aware that this position is contrary to that taken in Chernock v. Gardner, 360 F.2d 257 (3d Cir. 1966), and other cases cited in the majority opinion. I observe, however, that Chernock was decided under a previous version of § 206, and that the Congress has since amended the statute in accordance with a policy of allowing higher fees. P.L. 90-248, § 173 (1968), 81 Stat. 821; U.S.Code, Cong. & Admin.News, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., at pp. 993-994. Moreover, the authorities cited by the Chernock court were not, in my opinion, apposite to the problem of statutory construction with *1322which we are faced.1 I observe that three of the four cases cited in the majority opinion as following Chernock (Fenix v. Finch, 436 F.2d 831 (8th Cir. 1971); Conner v. Gardner, 381 F.2d 497 (4th Cir. 1967); Gardner v. Menendez, 373 F.2d 488 (1st Cir. 1967)) were concerned with the question whether attorney’s fees for work done in connection with judicial review of the Secretary’s decision on disability claims could be set by the District Court. The seeming acceptance of the Chernock holding in these cases was thus dictum.
Of course, I do not suggest that we have the power to consider de novo the administrative decisions of the Secretary. Only a clear abuse of discretion can justify our setting aside his decision. Here, in my judgment, appellant has made allegations which, if true, would require a finding of clear abuse. Appellant’s client had made a previous application for disability benefits and it had been denied. Appellant devoted 14 hours of legal work to this case, and converted what had been a worthless claim to one which netted his client approximately $11,000 in disability benefits.2 For this result the Secretary granted him a fee of $500—an amount roughly equal to the State Bar of Michigan’s suggested minimum fee for hourly performance. But attorney’s fees should represent not only the amount of time expended but also the nature and extent of the result achieved. Taking this into account, the award seems to me arbitrary and hence an abuse of the Secretary’s administrative discretion. Accordingly, I would remand the case to the District Court for entry of an order requiring the Secretary to set a reasonable fee.

. Three cases were cited. 360 F.2d at 259. Schilling v. Rogers, 363 U.S. 666, 80 S.Ct. 1288, 4 L.Ed.2d 1478 (1960), holds that the language and legislative history of the Trading With the Enemy Act show that Congress intended to preclude judicial review of the administrative disposition of claims by non-resident enemy aliens. Panama Canal Co. v. Grace Line, Inc., 356 U.S. 309, 78 S.Ct. 752, 2 L.Ed.2d 788 (1958), holds that the Canal Zone Code limits the reassessment of tolls to the exclusive discretion of the Panama Canal Company. This case involved a highly technical cost-accounting determination, not a matter like the setting of attorney’s fees with which courts have great familiarity. Ferry v. Udall, 336 F.2d 706 (9th Cir. 1964), holds that the Isolated Tracts Act grants the Secretary of the Interior the sole right to cancel bids for the purchase of public lands. These cases, with which I have no quarrel, clearly hold that Congress may grant administrative agencies unreviewable discretion to make certain kinds of technical and almost political determinations. See Panama Canal Co., supra, 356 U.S. at 317-318, 78 S.Ct. 752. But they cast little light on the question whether Congress intended to place the Secretary’s discretion in setting attorney’s fees in Social Security disability cases beyond judicial review.

. It is undisputed that appellant specializes in representing personal injury, workmen’s compensation, and social security claimants, and a legal task requiring 14 hours of his time might require a lawyer of less experience to expend considerably more time.