Hajro v. Barrett et al

Filing 76

ORDER by Judge Maria-Elena James granting 74 Motion re: Attorney's Fees Payment (cdnS, COURT STAFF) (Filed on 4/8/2014)

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1 2 3 4 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 5 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 6 7 MIRSAD HAJRO, Case No. 10-cv-01772-MEJ Plaintiff, 8 ORDER RE: MOTION FOR CLARIFICATION OF ORDER GRANTING ATTORNEY’S FEES v. 9 10 ROBIN BARRETT, et al., Re: Dkt. No. 74 Defendants. United States District Court Northern District of California 11 12 13 On September 18, 2012, this Court granted Plaintiff’s Motion for Attorneys’ Fees and 14 Costs pursuant to the Equal Access To Justice Act (“EAJA”), 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d). Dkt. No. 73. 15 Now before the Court is Plaintiff’s Motion for Clarification of Order Granting Attorney’s Fees. 16 Dkt. No. 74. In his Motion, Plaintiff states that he executed an agreement assigning attorney’s 17 fees to his attorney, Kip Evan Steinberg, but Defendants insisted that the fees must be paid to 18 Plaintiff despite the assignment agreement. Mot. at 2. Plaintiff states that the attorney’s fees 19 award has been reported to the Internal Revenue Service as his own income, which has 20 unnecessarily complicated Plaintiff’s tax situation. Id. at 2-3. Plaintiff now seeks a Supplemental 21 Order from the Court clarifying the original attorney’s fee Order and requiring Defendants to 22 accept the assignment of fees agreement and issue an amended and corrected Form 1099. Id. at 3. 23 In response, Defendants argue that attorney’s fees awarded under the EAJA belong to the 24 prevailing litigant, not to the attorney, and Plaintiff’s Motion should therefore be denied. Opp’n at 25 1, Dkt. No. 75. In support of their argument, Defendants cite to Astrue v. Ratliff, 560 U.S. 586 26 (2010). In that case, the United States Supreme Court “resolved a longstanding circuit split on the 27 question of whether fee awards under EAJA were payable to the party or the attorney by holding 28 that EAJA awards are to be paid to the prevailing litigant.” United States v. $186,416.00 in U.S. 1 Currency, 642 F.3d 753, 755 (9th Cir. 2011) (citing Astrue v. Ratliff, 560 U.S. at 591). The 2 Supreme Court based its decision, in part, on the specific language in EAJA directing payments to 3 the “prevailing party, which is a ‘term of art’ that refers to the prevailing litigant.” Ratliff, 560 4 U.S. at 591. But as the Ninth Circuit has explained: The Court’s decision in Ratliff did not stop there, however. It went on to highlight the absence of language in EAJA explicitly directing fees to attorneys. Comparing EAJA with a provision in the Social Security Act making fee awards payable “to such attorney,” see 42 U.S.C. § 406(b)(1)(A), the Court concluded that “given the stark contrast between the SSA’s express authorization of direct payments to attorneys” and the absence of such language in EAJA, it would not interpret EAJA to “contain a direct fee requirement absent clear textual evidence supporting such an interpretation.” Ratliff, 130 S.Ct. at 2527–28. As the Court noted, Congress “knows how to make fees awards payable directly to attorneys where it desires to do so.” Id. at 2527. 5 6 7 8 9 10 United States District Court Northern District of California 11 Ratliff counsels that in the absence of explicit instructions from Congress awarding fees to the attorney, direct payment to the attorney should not be presumed. Id. 12 13 14 $186,416.00 in U.S. Currency, 642 F.3d at 755-56. 15 Here, the Court agrees with other judges in this district that read Ratliff be read as 16 “confirm[ing] the common practice that an EAJA fee award is payable to the litigant and not the 17 attorney unless the party does not owe a debt to the government and assigns the right to receive 18 fees to the attorney.” Palomares v. Astrue, 2012 WL 6599552, at *9 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 18, 2012) 19 (awarding fees to be paid directly to plaintiff’s counsel, “subject to any administrative offset due 20 to [plaintiff’s] outstanding federal debt, if any exists”); see also Coffey v. Astrue, 2013 WL 21 120030, at *4 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 8, 2013) (directing attorney’s fees be awarded to attorney, subject to 22 any debt offset, where plaintiff had assigned the right to receive fees). Accordingly, the Court 23 GRANTS Plaintiff’s Motion and directs that the attorney’s fees award, subject to any debt offset, 24 shall be paid directly to Kip Evan Steinberg.1 Defendants shall have the government issue an 25 26 27 28 1 The undersigned recognizes that courts in this district are divided on whether a valid assignment alters the general rule that fees are awarded to the party. Compare, Smith v. Astrue, 2012 WL 3114595, at *5-6 (N.D. Cal. July 31, 2012) (ordering fees to be paid directly to plaintiff, regardless of fee assignment). Thus, Defendants’ opposition to Plaintiff’s request is not without merit, and any request for additional attorney’s fees for bringing this Motion is DENIED. 2 1 amended and corrected Form 1099 listing Mr. Steinberg as the payee with Mr. Steinberg’s social 2 security number or the Federal Employment Identification Number (“FEIN”) of Mr. Steinberg’s 3 law firm within 45 days. 4 IT IS SO ORDERED. 5 6 7 8 Dated: April 8, 2014 ______________________________________ MARIA-ELENA JAMES United States Magistrate Judge 9 10 United States District Court Northern District of California 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 3

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