Young v. Berryhill ( 2021 )

1 2 3 4 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 5 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 6 7 MARY ANN YOUNG, Case No. 18-cv-01721-DMR 8 Plaintiff, ORDER ON MOTION FOR 9 v. ATTORNEYS’ FEES 10 NANCY A. BERRYHILL, Re: Dkt. No. 27 11 Defendant. 12 Plaintiff Mary Ann Young filed a complaint seeking to reverse the Commissioner of the 13 Social Security Administration’s administrative decision to deny her application for benefits under 14 Title II of the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. § 401 et seq. The court granted Plaintiff’s motion for 15 summary judgment and remanded the case for further proceedings. [Docket No. 21.] Following 16 remand, an Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) found that Plaintiff is disabled and entitled to past- 17 due disability benefits. Plaintiff’s counsel Katherine Siegfried now moves for an award of attorneys’ 18 fees under 42 U.S.C. § 406(b). [Docket Nos. 27 (“Mot.”), 29 (“Reply).] The Commissioner filed 19 an analysis of the fee request. [Docket No. 28 (“Response”).] 20 Having carefully considered the parties’ submissions, the court grants the motion. 21 I. BACKGROUND 22 Plaintiff applied for Social Security Disability Insurance (“SSDI”) benefits on January 28, 23 2014. Her application was initially denied on June 3, 2014 and again on reconsideration on August 24 19, 2014. Following a hearing, an ALJ issued a decision finding Plaintiff not disabled. After the Appeals Council denied Plaintiff’s request for review, she appealed to this court. The court granted 25 Plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment and remanded the case for further administrative 26 proceedings. [Docket No. 21.] An ALJ issued a favorable decision and Plaintiff was awarded 27 1 The retainer agreement between Plaintiff and Siegfried permits Siegfried to request an 2 attorneys’ fees award of up to 25% of any past-due benefits awarded. [Docket No. 27-3, Retainer 3 Agreement.] Siegfried is requesting an award of attorneys’ fees in the amount of $38,673, which is 4 25% of Plaintiff’s total award of benefits. See Notice of Award at 3. Of this amount, Plaintiff will 5 be refunded $6,800 for the Equal Access to Justice Act (“EAJA”) fees this court approved on 6 December 9, 2019. See Docket No. 26. 7 The Commissioner does not oppose Siegfried’s request for fees. Instead, he presents an 8 analysis of the requested fees in his role “resembling that of a trustee” for Plaintiff. See Response 9 at 2. 10 II. LEGAL STANDARD 11 Under the Social Security Act, an attorney who successfully represents a claimant before a 12 court may seek an award of attorneys’ fees not to exceed 25 percent of any past-due benefits eventually awarded. 42 U.S.C. § 406(b). While contingency fee agreements are permissible in 13 Social Security cases, section 406(b) “calls for court review of such arrangements as an independent 14 check, to assure that they yield reasonable results in particular cases.” Gisbrecht v. Barnhart, 535 15 U.S. 789, 807 (2002). In deciding whether a fee agreement is reasonable, courts must consider “the 16 character of the representation and the results the representative achieved.” Crawford v. Astrue, 586 17 F.3d 1142, 1151 (9th Cir. 2009) (quoting Gisbrecht, 535 U.S. at 808). The court “first look[s] to 18 the fee agreement and then adjust[s] downward if the attorney provided substandard representation 19 or delayed the case, or if the requested fee would result in a windfall.” Id. While a court may 20 consider an attorney’s lodestar in deciding whether an award of fees under section 406(b) is 21 reasonable, “a lodestar analysis should be used only as an aid (and not a baseline) in assessing the 22 reasonableness of the fee.” Laboy v. Colvin, 631 F. App’x 468, 469 (9th Cir. 2016). 23 An award of fees under section 406(b) must be offset by any award of fees under EAJA. 24 Gisbrecht, 535 U.S. at 796. 25 III. DISCUSSION 26 In this case, Siegfried reports that she spent 34.6 hours litigating this case, not including the 27 hours she expended at the administrative level. See Docket No. 27-1, Declaration of Katherine 1 Siegfried ¶ 10; see also Docket No. 27-2, Timesheet. Therefore, granting Siegfried’s request of 2 $38,673 in attorneys’ fees would result in an effective hourly rate of $1,117.71.1 3 Upon considering the record and arguments, the court finds that fees requested are 4 reasonable. First, the requested fee amount does not exceed the statutory maximum of 25%. 5 Although Siegfried’s timesheet lacks detail, the hours she expended on this case appear to be 6 reasonable. 7 Second, although Siegfried’s effective hourly rate is high, Gisbrecht and Crawford makes 8 clear that lodestar methodology should not drive fee awards under section 406(b). This is because 9 “the lodestar method under-compensates attorneys for the risk they assume in representing SSDI 10 claimants and ordinarily produces remarkably smaller fees than would be produced by starting with 11 the contingent-fee agreement.” Crawford, 586 F.3d at 1149; see also Gisbrecht, 535 U.S. at 806 12 (emphasizing that the lodestar calculation is intended to govern in fee-shifting cases, not fee awards under section 406(b)). Indeed, after Gisbrecht, “district courts generally have been deferential to 13 the terms of contingency fee contracts in § 406(b) cases, accepting that the resulting de facto hourly 14 rates may exceed those for non contingency-fee arrangements.” Hearn v. Barnhart, 262 F. Supp. 15 2d 1033, 1037 (N.D. Cal. 2003) (Infante, J.). 16 Third, California district courts have awarded comparable or greater fees under section 17 406(b), including to Siegfried. See, e.g., Anthony B. v. Berryhill, No. 18-cv-03640-JSC, 2020 WL 18 7625436, at *1 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 22, 2020) (awarding Siegfried attorneys’ fees in the amount of 19 $23,748, representing 25% of the total past-due benefits award); Truett v. Berryhill, 2017 WL 20 21 1 The court calculates the effective hourly rate based on the requested fee award under section 406(b) 22 without first deducting the EAJA fee award that will be refunded to Plaintiff. This is because section 406 establishes the “exclusive regime for obtaining fees for successful representation of Social 23 Security benefits claimants.” Gisbrecht, 535 U.S. at 795-96. An attorney may receive fee awards under both EAJA and section 406(b) but because section 406(b) fees are exclusive, the attorney 24 must refund to the claimant the smaller of the fee awards. Id. at 796. In other words, the fee awards under those statutes are independent of each other and the court must determine whether the total 25 section 406(b) award is itself reasonable. See Parrish v. Comm’r of Soc. Sec. Admin., 698 F.3d 1215, 1217 (9th Cir. 2012) (“[A]n award under § 406(b) compensates an attorney for all the 26 attorney’s work before a federal court on behalf of the Social Security claimant in connection with the action that resulted in past-due benefits.” (emphasis added)); see also Ainsworth v. Berryhill, 27 No. 16-cv-03933-BLF, 2020 WL 6149710, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 20, 2020) (calculating the effective 1 3783892, at *2 (S.D. Cal. Aug. 31, 2017) (awarding an attorney 24.9% of the plaintiff’s past-due 2 benefits, which resulted in an effective hourly rate of $1,788.62); Harrell v. Berryhill, No. 16-cv- 3 2428-TSH, 2018 WL 4616735 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 24, 2018) (awarding $49,584.96 in attorneys’ fees, 4 representing an effective hourly rate of $1,213.83 and 24.37% of the past-due benefits); Ainsworth 5 v. Berryhill, No. 16-cv-03933-BLF, 2020 WL 6149710, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 20, 2020) (finding an 6 effective hourly rate of $1,325.34 reasonable); Ciletti v. Berryhill, No. 17-cv-05646-EMC, 2019 7 WL 144584, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 9, 2019) (granting a fee request for $35,442.00, which constituted 8 23.47% of the past-due benefits awarded). 9 Finally, nothing in the record suggests that Siegfried provided substandard representation. 10 She achieved a substantial award of past-due benefits for her client. Plaintiff filed a declaration in 11 support of the current motion, indicating that she is satisfied with Siegfried’s representation and 12 agrees that Siegfried should receive the requested award. See Docket No. 27-5, Declaration of Mary Ann Young. 13 In light of the above considerations, the requested fee award is “not excessively large in 14 relation to the benefits achieved.” Crawford, 586 F.3d at 1151. 15 IV. CONCLUSION 16 For the reasons stated above, the motion for attorneys’ fees is granted. The court awards 17 fees in the amount of $38,673. Siegfried shall refund Plaintiff the $6,800 previously awarded under 18 EAJA. 19 20 21 IT IS SO ORDERED. 22 Dated: June 14, 2021 23 ______________________________________ 24 Donna M. Ryu 25 United States Magistrate Judge 26 27