Bruce v. Commissioner Social Security Administration
Filing
27
ORDER granting 24 Motion for Attorney Fees. Signed by Honorable Bruce Howe Hendricks on 5/3/2016.(abuc)
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF SOUTH CAROLINA
ANDERSON/GREENWOOD DIVISION
Zachariah Wendell Bruce,
) Civil Action No. 8:15-261-BHH
)
Plaintiff, )
)
v.
)
)
ORDER
CAROLYN M. COLVIN,
)
Acting Commissioner of Social Security,
)
)
Defendant. )
___________________________________ )
Upon consideration of the Joint Stipulation for Attorney’s Fees pursuant to the Equal
Access to Justice Act (EAJA) 28 U.S.C. §2412(d), it is hereby,
ORDERED that Plaintiff, Zachariah Wendell Bruce, is awarded attorney fees under the
EAJA in the amount of Three Thousand Five Hundred Dollars ($3,500.00) in attorney fees.
These attorney fees will be paid directly to Plaintiff, Zachariah Wendell Bruce, and sent to the
business address of Plaintiff’s counsel. Full or partial remittance of the awarded attorney fees
will be contingent upon a determination by the Government that Plaintiff owes no qualifying,
pre-existing debt(s) to the Government. If such a debt(s) exists, the Government will reduce the
awarded attorney fees in this Order to the extent necessary to satisfy such debt(s).1
1
Counsel has submitted an assignment, by Plaintiff, of the fees in this case (ECF No. 24-3) and, therefore, requests
any award be made payable to her. In Astrue v. Ratliff, 560 U.S. 586, 598 (2010), the United States Supreme Court
held that the EAJA requires attorneys’ fees to be awarded directly to the litigant. Id. (holding that the plain text of
the EAJA requires that attorneys’ fees be awarded to the litigant, thus subjecting EAJA fees to offset of any preexisting federal debts); see also Stephens v. Astrue, 565 F.3d 131, 139 (4th Cir. 2009) (same). Neither Ratliff nor
Stephens addresses whether claimants may assign EAJA fees to their attorneys via contract. This district, however,
has fairly consistently found such assignments ineffective to require the Court to make payment directly to counsel.
See Williams v. Astrue, No. 2012 WL 6615130, at *4 (D.S.C. Dec. 19, 2012); Phillips v. Astrue, 2011 WL 5041751,
at *1 (D.S.C. Oct. 21, 2011); Tate v. Astrue, 2010 WL 4860356, at *2 (D.S.C. Nov. 23, 2010); Washington v.
Astrue, 2010 WL 3023028, at *5 (D.S.C. July 29, 2010) (holding that EAJA fees are payable to plaintiff even where
plaintiff has attached an affidavit assigning his rights in the fees award to counsel). At least one circuit court of
appeals has additionally expressed concern that such contracts would constitute an “endrun” around the plain text of
the EAJA, as interpreted in Ratliff. See Brown v. Astrue, 271 Fed. App’x 741, 743 (10th Cir. 2008) (stating, in dicta,
that claimant’s “assignment of his right in the fees award to counsel does not overcome the clear EAJA mandate that
IT IS SO ORDERED.
s/Bruce Howe Hendricks
United States District Judge
May 3, 2016
Greenville, South Carolina
the award is to him as the prevailing party . . . .”). The undersigned has on some previous occasion ordered payment
to counsel but only where the United States has accepted the assignment as valid; the government’s practice in this
regard has not been uniform. Here, the parties filed a Joint Stipulation (ECF No. 25) in which Defendant conditioned
its acceptance of the assignment upon Plaintiff having no outstanding federal debt.
Because Defendant has not accepted the assignment as valid without conditions, and in keeping with the
prudent decisions of this District, the Court declines to treat such an assignment as altering the Court’s obligation, in
payment, to Plaintiff directly. As the Court in Ratliff emphasized, the EAJA controls what the losing defendant must
pay, “not what the prevailing plaintiff must pay his lawyer.” Ratliff, 560 U.S. at 598.
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