Court Opinion

ID: 9490206
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:35:57.851419+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:57.071118
License: Public Domain

HILL, Senior Circuit Judge,
specially concurring:
Judge Black has analyzed the ease thoroughly and the judgment is, in my opinion, the only one available under the present state of controlling precedent. Therefore, I concur.
I add this. In August of 1993, the Secretary issued an order and remanded the case to the Administrative Law Judge to determine amounts to be awarded for back pay, benefits, and compensatory damages.
The employer appealed. The Secretary moved to dismiss the appeal as premature in view of the remand. We agreed and dismissed.
After the ALJ had acted on the remand, awarding damages for back pay, the Secretary upheld the ALJ’s order, but remanded for a determination of attorney’s fees.
The employer, guarding against the error of prematurity, withheld an appeal until the ALJ had acted on the remand. When this was done, and the Secretary had, finally, ended the proceedings by upholding the ALJ’s decision in its entirety, the employer appealed to us.
“Too late!” said the Secretary in the motion to dismiss this appeal. The employer should have appealed regardless of the remand to fix attorney’s fees.
We agree, the employer’s appeal is to be “dismissed if you do and dismissed if you don’t!”
Counsel will, I anticipate, file appeals whenever one might conceivably be available, and let the court sort it all out.