Court Opinion

ID: 9479003
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:05:53.569293+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:46.435939
License: Public Domain

BALDWIN, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring in the result.
I concur in the result reached by the majority, but I cannot join in the majority’s sweeping statements concerning Sebock’s failure to “raise with specificity the agency actions meeting the criteria of the Allen categories or to direct the Board’s attention to any evidence supporting an award of attorney fees.”
Sebock’s ability to recover attorney fees required him to prove two things: 1) that he was the prevailing party; and 2) that an award of attorney fees was in the interest of justice. Sterner v. Department of the Army, 711 F.2d 1563, 1567 (Fed.Cir.1983).
The parties did not dispute that Sebock was the prevailing party. In order to show that an award of fees was in the interest of justice, Sebock needed to meet any one of the five criteria outlined in Allen v. United States Postal Service, 2 MSPB 582, 593, 2 M.S.P.R. 420, 434 (1980), which criteria were approved by this court in Sterner. As the majority notes, and the administrative judge stated, Sebock presented “no evidence or argument concerning the interest of justice issue.” However, presenting no argument or additional evidence to satisfy the interest of justice standard should not, as the court today holds, be an absolute requirement for the recovery of attorney fees.
Section 7701(g) of Title 5 permits an award of attorney fees in “any case in which the agency’s action was clearly without merit.” 5 U.S.C. § 7701(g)(1). That section also provides that the fees may be awarded if the “Board, administrative law judge, or other employee (as the case may be) determines that payment by the agency is warranted in the interest of justice.” Id. This statutory requirement is not predicated on the prevailing party’s presentation of additional evidence or argument. Rather, the reviewing authority is obliged to consider the record before it, and determine whether an award of fees is in the interest of justice. It does not require any great stretch of the imagination to come up with a scenario where the agency’s action is so clearly without merit that the prevailing party will be entitled to attorney fees based on a cursory review of the decisions and record available. I see no value in requiring the presentation of additional evidence or argument where a party determines that it is not necessary. Similarly, one can easily envision circumstances where a review of the record will reveal that the agency knew or should have known that it would not prevail.
At the same time, if a party decides to rest on the record in his request for attorney fees, additional arguments, such as those raised by Sebock here, should not be heard at the appellate level. See Synan v. Merit Systems Protection Board, 765 F.2d 1099 (Fed.Cir.1985). Clearly, if a party de*804cides to rely solely on the record below, it cannot be heard on new arguments when that reliance proves ill-advised.
Nor do I agree that the language in Allen, quoted by the majority, requires the test enunciated by the majority. The Board’s instruction to litigants should not be read, or adopted, as a warning to litigants who fail to present additional argument or evidence that their fee petitions will automatically be denied. Instead, the Board’s statement should be recognized for what is was, an instruction to litigants that any arguments or evidence beyond the record already developed which they desire the Board or the administrative judge to consider must be presented with the fee petition. The Board’s parenthetical request that petitions not include evidence or affidavits concerning questions of fact already litigated indicates its intent to include in its determination the entire record already developed.
Of course, it is always beneficial for a litigant to provide the deciding body or official with a roadmap of the evidence and arguments upon which it relies for its assertions. However, I cannot agree with the majority’s conclusion that without such a roadmap the Board will wade aimlessly through the record, unable to conclude whether or not an award of attorney fees is in the interest of justice.
The administrative judge apparently recognized her responsibility to consider the record presented. She stated clearly that Sebock had presented no evidence or argument on the interest of justice issue, yet she reviewed the record thoroughly and determined that the agency’s position was not clearly without merit and that Sebock failed to prove that the agency knew or should have known that it would not prevail.
By its action today the majority suggests that those portions of the administrative judge’s decisions are dicta. In reality, those portions constitute the administrative judge’s fulfillment of her statutory requirement to make the necessary determinations before denying Sebock’s fee request. Although I agree that Sebock's reliance on the record to establish that an award of attorney fees is in the interest of justice was unavailing here, I cannot join the majority’s decision to establish a bright-line test to cover cases not presented, and to deprive litigants of their right to receive attorney fees where the record alone amply supports such an award.