Court Opinion

ID: 9481988
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:37:11.981374+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:42.114600
License: Public Domain

FRIEDMAN, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting in part.
I would affirm the decision of the district court in its entirety.
The court’s careful analysis of the record convincingly shows that the appellant was not a responsible person of All Pro between April 10 and August 5, 1985. The question in awarding attorney fees, however, is not whether the record shows that she was not such a person, but whether the government’s contrary position was substantially justified.
The answer to that question necessarily turns upon what basis the government had for taking the position it did in the litigation. The court, however, seems to focus upon the facts that were developed at a hearing held after the government already had taken its position. Those facts related to the correctness of the government’s position, not its reasonableness. To be sure, the reasonableness of the government’s position depends upon what basis it had for taking the position, but the answer should not depend upon an objective analysis of the evidence relating to the merits.
In my view, the district court correctly ruled that the government’s position that the appellant was a responsible person of All Pro during the entire period from April 10 to December was substantially justified.