Court Opinion

ID: 9478225
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:43:23.571409+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:18.481197
License: Public Domain

FRIEDMAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the result.
If the Board had held that because Pa-dorr already had received $5,846.24 from Jensen, Padorr was entitled to receive from the government only the difference between that amount and the $16,423.53 that the Board found was a reasonable fee, I would have upheld that ruling. The Board’s statutory obligation is to “require payment by the agency involved of reasonable attorney fees incurred by an employ*725ee....” 5 U.S.C. § 7701(g)(1) (1982). I see no reason why, because of an agreement by which the client has assigned to the attorney a percentage of any fee that may be awarded, the government should be required to pay the attorney the full amount the Board determined is a reasonable fee, when the result is that the attorney receives more than the reasonable fee. In my view, the government satisfies its obligation under the statute to pay a reasonable attorney fee when it pays the attorney an amount that, when added to the fee the client already has paid the attorney, equals that reasonable fee.
The Board, however, did not place its decision on that ground. Instead, it awarded the full amount it determined to be a reasonable fee to the attorney, but only on condition that the attorney refund to the client the amount the client previously had paid the attorney. When the attorney refused to do so, the Board then deducted that amount from the fee and paid it directly to the client’s estate.
I agree with the court that the Board has no authority either to require an attorney who applies for a fee to refund part of that fee to the client or to pay a portion of the attorney fee directly to the client. Since we review the Board’s decision on the ground the agency gave for it, see Securities and Exch. Comm’n v. Chenery Corp., 332 U.S. 194, 196, 67 S.Ct. 1575, 1577, 91 L.Ed. 1995 (1947); Turner v. Merit Sys. Protection Bd., 806 F.2d 241, 246 (Fed.Cir.1986), I agree with the court that the Board’s decision cannot stand. I therefore join in the court’s decision to reverse and remand.