Glass v. Secretary of Health and Human Services

• Decision Date: 24 June 1987
• Docket Number: No. 86-3339,86-3339
• Parties: , Unempl.Ins.Rep. CCH 17,405 Mary G. GLASS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 19

822 F.2d 19

18 Soc.Sec.Rep.Ser. 168, Unempl.Ins.Rep. CCH 17,405

Mary G. GLASS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 86-3339.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued Jan. 26, 1987.

Decided June 24, 1987.

Joseph Kane (argued), Asst. U.S. Atty., Columbus, Ohio, Donna J. Fuchsluger, Office of General Counsel, Dept. of HHS, Baltimore, Md., for defendant-appellee.

Philip Chris Corts (argued), Cincinnati, Ohio, for plaintiff-appellant.

Before RYAN and BOGGS, Circuit Judges, and BROWN, Senior Circuit Judge.

RYAN, Circuit Judge.

This case involves a challenge to attorney's fees awarded for successful litigation of a social security case. We are called upon to decide whether the district court abused its discretion in limiting counsel's application for fees to an amount well below twenty-five percent of the claimant's award, which is the statutory ceiling for such fees under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 406(b)(1). Because the district court did not exercise its discretion in the instant case, we cannot decide this issue. Therefore, we must remand the case for further proceedings.

The pertinent facts are few and largely uncontested. Following a favorable decision in which the claimant was awarded benefits, counsel identified forty-four hours spent working on the case and requested a fee of $6,029.80, which represented twenty-five percent of the award. Using a form-type opinion, the text of which has been employed in other cases, and in which only one change was made for this case--to reflect the amount requested in this case--the district court found that ordinarily social security cases require twenty to thirty hours of attorney work for which $100.00 per hour is a reasonable rate. The court rejected counsel's request and, instead, awarded $3,000.00.

We find no basis to fault the learned judge's articulation of a general rule to guide his analysis in awarding attorney's fees. Indeed, the experienced district judge is very likely correct that twenty to thirty hours may well be the norm for attorneys to handle most such cases, and $100.00 per hour may well be a reasonable rate of compensation. The relevant question, however, is not what is required in most social security cases, but what did this case require.

Congress set forth the guidelines for awarding attorney's fees in social security cases in 42 U.S.C. Sec. 406(b)(1), which provides:

"Whenever a court renders a judgment favorable to a claimant under this title who was represented before the court by an attorney, the court may determine and allow as part of its judgment a reasonable fee for such representation, not in excess of 25 percent of the total of the past-due benefits to which the claimant is entitled by reason of such judgment, and the Secretary may, notwithstanding the provisions of section 250(i), certify the amount of such fee for payment to such attorney out of, and not in addition to, the amount of such past-due benefits. In case of any judgment, no other fee may be payable or certified for payment for such representation except as provided in this paragraph."

By limiting attorney's fees to twenty-five percent of the claimant's award, Congress intended to prevent the recovery of "inordinately large fees." Sims v. Gardner, 378 F.2d 70, 72 (6th Cir.1967) (quoting 1965 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin. News 2062, 89th Cong., 1st Sess.). In this circuit, it is beyond dispute that the district court is required to exercise its discretion in awarding a reasonable fee.

Quite aside from the more important consideration that a boiler-plate formula for fixing attorney's fees in these cases does not comply with our requirement for individualized discretion, from an appellate standpoint, the problem with cases in which the district court has failed to exercise its discretion is that we are unable to do our duty to conduct "meaningful review" of the record. Bailey v. Heckler, 777 F.2d 1167, 1171 (6th Cir.1985). In Bailey, we emphasized that in every case the district court is obligated "to articulate on the record findings of fact or conclusions of law explaining the court's reasoning and calculations performed to arrive at the fee award." Id. We have expressed our disfavor with routine approval of requests for the statutory ceiling, because such approval does not consider the circumstances surrounding an individual case. Webb v. Richardson, 472 F.2d 529, 536 (6th Cir.1972). We find routine disapproval similarly unacceptable. In re Horenstein, 810 F.2d 73 (6th Cir.1986).

Fee shifting statutes are intended to encourage competent counsel to accept cases which perhaps otherwise they would not. By assuring the recovery of a reasonable fee, Sec. 406(b)(1) helps to accomplish...