Court Opinion

ID: 9480210
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:41:12.005803+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:32.719890
License: Public Domain

ENGEL, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Although I agree in the main with the analytical approach taken by Judge Guy in his majority opinion, I respectfully dissent in its application to this case. The opinion thereby seems to fulfill its own prophesy that Rodriquez “... will mean different things to different persons.... ”
*983My initial point of disagreement is that, as pointed out in the majority opinion itself at footnote 2, the contract language involved here does not involve a specific agreement to pay a flat twenty-five percent contingent fee.1 It seems to me that the plain language says that the client agrees to pay “up to twenty-five (25%) percent of the accrued benefits” but “as shall be determined by the Division, Agency Branch or Court authorized to set such fees.” (Emphasis added). While the fee agreement is contingent in that counsel foregoes any effort to collect an attorney fee in case he is not successful,2 it is not an absolute agreement by the client to pay twenty-five percent. I find it at least interesting to note that in a companion case the contract, employed by the same law firm, but after Rodriquez, calls unequivocally for a twenty-five percent fee, thus representing what the same counsel must have conceived were the increased prospects of exacting that full amount as a result of our en banc decision in Rodriquez. I did, of course, join with Judge Guy in the dissent to Rodriquez and I have no intention here to flog a dead horse. At the same time, it seems to me that Rodriquez contemplated the existence of a firm agreement that the attorney might collect his twenty-five percent. See id. at 746 (“[I]f the agreement states that the attorney will be paid twenty-five percent of the benefits awarded, it should be given the weight ordinarily accorded a rebuttable presumption.”). It therefore seems to me that the majority here reads more into Rodriquez than was intended. Although, as the majority recognizes, most or nearly all attorney fee contracts in Social Security appeals provide for a fixed percentage of any benefits awarded, nothing in the statute, 42 U.S.C. § 406(b)(1), requires that they do so. Thus, in contrast to the agreement involved in the post-Rodriquez appeal which we also decide today, McGuire v. Bowen (Secretary of HHS), 900 F.2d 984 (6th Cir.1990) (per curiam), the contract in the present case appears to be an ordinary contract for the employment of services, but with counsel conceding that compensation is contingent on a successful recovery and subject to judicial approval as reasonable within the twenty-five percent cap set by statute. The reference in the contract to that figure appears simply to recognize the realities of the statutory limitation in the event of recovery. If this premise is correct, then it would seem that no presumption under Rodriquez arises and that we should simply review the trial judge’s award of fees to determine whether it did or did not constitute an abuse of the discretion apparently vested in him by the parties themselves.3 In sum, I do not believe that the rationale *984of Rodriquez would necessarily apply to the facts of this case insofar as that decision seeks to interpret agreements to pay twenty-five percent of any award because that was not the agreement of the parties here.
My second difficulty with the majority opinion is in the vagueness of its instructions to the trial court on remand. Although the trial • judge’s reduction in the actual hours allowed from 34 hours and 45 minutes to 28 hours has been contested in this court, the majority does not purport to review one way or the other the appropriateness of the reduction or intimate the applicable standard. Further, as a practical matter I have difficulty in reconciling the holding of the majority that Rodriquez “was not an attempt to eliminate the discretion which Congress placed in the first instance in the district court” with its observation but two short paragraphs later that “... it appears safe to say that it [Rodriquez] was intended to eliminate the intuitive approach to the resolution of fee requests.” Rather obviously, the exercise of discretion means that there is room for difference of opinion and that such differences alone are not sufficient to upset such an exercise at the trial court. Put another way, what one court is willing to accept as an exercise of “discretion” by the trial court another panel, reviewing it and disagreeing, may conclude that it is only an “intuitive approach.” I would myself be quite deferential in reviewing the exercise of judgment in cases such as this. The district judge or magistrate will normally be in a better position to understand the amount of effort which has gone into the case, to understand the reasonableness of the fees in the light of the attorney’s own capabilities and efficiency and in light of the standards of the community. I do not believe that either Rodriquez or the Social Security Act requires that a precise methodology must be rigorously chiseled into marble. There remains always the danger that if we allow too little rein in the exercise of discretion in the district court we shall only be encouraging the proliferation of litigation in our own, a concern which was specifically expressed by Judge Peck in Rodriquez: “The courts as well as the Social Security Administration are sometimes spending almost as much time reviewing and setting fees as they are in dealing with the merits of the benefits determination.” Id., 865 F.2d at 746.
In conclusion I find myself generally comfortable with the observations in the body of the majority opinion.4 The general advice there provides a useful, if somewhat vague, guide for the judge to determine the weight to be given to a classical contingent fee contract. The only difficulty here is that this is not such a case.

.The relevant language of the agreement to represent, which was entered into June 24, 1987 and therefore prior to Rodriquez, is as follows:
That said ATTORNEYS agree with the CLIENT to represent said CLIENT in any and all dealings with the Social Security Administration with regard to the collection of any Social Security benefits, (including but not limited to Social Security Disability Benefits, Widow’s Benefits, "Black Lung” Benefits, and "Old Age” Benefits), and, in consideration for these services, it is agreed that said ATTORNEYS shall receive a sum of money up to twenty-five (25%) percent of the accrued benefits awarded to said Client as a result of said ATTORNEYS representation, as shall be determined by the Division, Agency Branch or Court authorized to set such fees.
It is understood and agreed between the CLIENT and said ATTORNEYS that the payment of the above mentioned fee is subject to review and approval by the Social Security Administration. Said ATTORNEYS agree to accept as their total fee for representation the fee which is authorized by the Social Security Administration. In addition, it is agreed between the herein referred to CLIENT and ATTORNEYS that any sums advanced in payment of medical report charges will be reimbursed to said ATTORNEYS if authorization for same is received from the Social Security Administration.
Jt.App. at 12.

. There is at least some authority which suggests that a claimant and his attorney could contract for the payment of fees on an hourly basis in event of an unsuccessful result and that such would be a fully enforceable contract. See Hutchinson v. Bowen, 676 F.Supp. 72, 74 (D.N.J.1988) (ruling that section 406(b) on its face applies only to successful appeals).

. A fact sheet appended to plaintiffs brief on appeal reports an "hourly rate requested” at $151.51 based upon the total fee requested, $5,265.12, divided by the 343/t hours reported spent. This is characterized in plaintiffs brief *984as the "effective hourly rate." If the trial judge properly reduced to 28 hours the allowable time on the appeal, the “effective hourly rate” so revised would rise to over $188.

. I do, however, have difficulty in understanding the purpose of the majority’s observation that the trial judge never saw attorney Benjamin’s actual time records. See footnote 3 majority opinion. His detailed time record appears item by item at pages 9-11 of the joint appendix and there is nothing to suggest that the factual data therein is different from the actual records in attorney Benjamin's books.