Court Opinion

ID: 9480212
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:41:12.249235+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:32.721492
License: Public Domain

ENGEL, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring.
While I dissented in the companion case of Royzer v. Secretary of HHS, 900 F.2d 981, decided this case date, I concur in the reversal here. The first most obvious difference in my judgment is in the specific language of the contract here, which fixes the rate at twenty-five percent of the recovery and evidences the wage earner's specific written consent to that amount. More important, I agree that where there is such a contract in effect, the sense of Rodriquez v. Bowen, 865 F.2d 739 (6th Cir., 1989) en banc and, indeed, the language of the majority opinion in Royzer leads to the *986conclusion that the trial judge abused his discretion in seeking to affix a flat $100 per hour rate for all Social Security cases regardless of the increment used to compute time billed, of the result, and of the efficiency of the attorney involved. It is no secret that some attorneys can accomplish in one hour more benefit for their client than other attorneys can achieve in five. The calculation of a flat across-the-board fee to apply to all cases and to all attorneys simply represents judicial legislation rather than the exercise of judicial discretion which is tailored to the facts of each case. That exercise, informed by the deference which Rodriquez holds is due to executed contingent fee contracts, is the function of the trial court in fixing attorney fees in this type of case.