Court Opinion

ID: 9481692
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:28:42.475684+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:30.935005
License: Public Domain

K.K. HALL, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Because the district court’s ruling is clearly at odds with prior decisions of this court, I conclude that it abused its discretion in denying EAJA attorney’s fees.
Before 1980, the Secretary applied a standard of “medical improvement” to continuation of disability benefits. A claimant was entitled to a presumption of continuation of disability unless there was evidence of medical improvement. In 1980, allegedly in reliance upon the Social Security Disability Amendments of 1980,4 the Secretary abandoned the old standard in favor of a so-called “current disability” test. In practice, the “current disability” test was a de novo review at which the claimant had to prove his disability all over again. Thousands of longstanding disability claimants had their benefits terminated, including appellant Crawford.
Inevitably, the Secretary’s change in policy was challenged in the courts. The Secretary lost uniformly. Patti v. Schweiker, 669 F.2d 582 (9th Cir.1982); Simpson v. Schweiker, 691 F.2d 966 (11th Cir.1982); Kuzmin v. Schweiker, 714 F.2d 1233 (3d Cir.1983); Haynes v. Secretary of Health and Human Services, 734 F.2d 284 (6th Cir.1984). When the issue came before this court, I wrote the opinion on behalf of the same panel that has heard this appeal. This excerpt sums up our holding:
The Secretary contends that [the claimant] had the burden of proving disability at all times. At oral argument, the Secretary urged us to adopt his contention so that if a mistake had been made in awarding benefits, the Secretary could have another physician review the medical evidence, that was previously held to be sufficient to support an award of benefits, and interpret that same evidence to support a later determination that the claimant’s disability had ceased. The Secretary conceded that if a mistake had been made in denying benefits, the claimant could not rely on past evidence. In short, the Secretary argues he should be allowed as many “bites of the apple” as he wants. We reject the Secretary’s contention as patently unfair.
Dotson v. Schweiker, 719 F.2d 80, 81 (4th Cir.1983).
The Secretary argues that he cannot be faulted for taking a position contrary to Dotson before Dotson was announced. He convinces the majority that his post-Dotson answer and motion for summary judgment were inadvertantly caused by delays in mailing and the slow trickling down of newly-announced opinions. I find this assertion incredible. Dotson was no obscure case, and we no petty court. The Secretary was a party in Dotson. Every government attorney handling social security cases should have known about it by the time the answer was filed in this case.5
In any event, the Secretary’s argument misses the point. In Dotson, this court, indeed this panel, described the Secretary’s position as “patently unfair.” The same position was every bit as “patently unfair” in appellant’s case, whether it were taken before or after Dotson was announced. Once this governmental position forced Crawford to initiate litigation, his ultimate entitlement to an EAJA fee award for the entire litigation was established. Commis*660sioner, I.N.S. v. Jean, — U.S. -, 110 5.Ct. 2316, 110 L.Ed.2d 134 (1990).6 Whether the Secretary’s conduct in this case was reasonable in light of Dotson is irrelevant, because it was not reasonable to begin with. EAJA fee eligibility “properly focuses on the governmental misconduct giving rise to the litigation.” Id. 110 S.Ct. at 2323.
Crawford asserts, I believe with ample cause, that the issue presented by this case was squarely decided by this court in Rhoten v. Bowen, 854 F.2d 667 (4th Cir.1988). In Rhoten, this very same attorney was denied EAJA attorney’s fees by the same district court judge, and this court reversed. The claimants in Rhoten are indistinguishable from Crawford. Their benefits had been terminated; Dotson caused a remand from their district court actions; DIBRA was enacted; ultimately, they were awarded benefits.
In Rhoten, the Secretary argued that the claimants were not “prevailing parties” because they had received reinstatement of benefits after DIBRA, rather than directly under Dotson. The Secretary conceded that his position had not been substantially justified. This court rejected the Secretary’s argument, held that the claimants were “prevailing parties,” and awarded EAJA attorney’s fees.
With the “prevailing party” issue dead, the Secretary now asserts that he conceded the lack of “substantial justification” only for purposes of the Rhoten case, and that his pre-Dotson position was actually substantially justified.
There is nothing in Rhoten to indicate that the Secretary’s concession was anything other than unequivocal. Indeed, in light of this court’s characterization of the “currently disabled” test as “patently unfair,” this concession bordered on the obligatory. Incredibly, the Secretary has now reneged on all of this, and argues that his “currently disabled” test was reasonable. The Secretary’s ever-shifting postures leave me exasperated.
Appellant Crawford was forced to vindicate his rights in court because the government took a “patently unfair” position in terminating his disability benefits. He is entitled to EAJA attorney’s fees, and the district court’s denial of them was an abuse of discretion. I would reverse.
I respectfully dissent.

. These amendments required the Secretary to conduct a periodic review of all disability claims. They did not, however, require or even authorize the Secretary to change the standard of review.

. The Secretary’s conjecture that Dotson somehow crept up unseen or unheard seems even less conceivable when one considers that three circuits had already condemned the "current disability” test. The fact is, when the Secretary *660filed his answer and motion for summary judgment in this case, he had not surrendered on the Dotson issue. He petitioned for rehearing of Dotson, which was denied January 11, 1984. In light of the petition for rehearing, I believe that the Secretary's defense in this case was calculated to preserve his position in case Dotson were overturned en banc.

. The majority's quote (at 657) from Jean is misleading. Though an unjustified "position of the United States” can include misconduct during the litigation, the very holding of Jean, stated later in the same sentence the majority partially quotes, is "that only one threshold determination for the entire civil action is to be made.” 110 S.Ct. at 2319. "EAJA ... favors treating a case as an inclusive whole rather than as atomized line-items." Id. at 2320.