LATTA-MATTHEWS
v.
COMMISSIONER OF SOCIAL SECURITY

M.D. Fla. | 2023-01-09
No. 8:22-cv-534
District Court, M.D. Florida (2023)

AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.

Holding

The court granted the plaintiff's petition for attorney's fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act.

Facts & Procedural History

Plaintiff, the prevailing party after a remand order in a Social Security case, sought attorney's fees under the EAJA. The Commissioner did not oppose…

The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.

Topics
Sentence Four Remand Equal Access To Justice Act Prevailing Party Attorney'S Fees

Explore caselaw by topic → Browse Sentence Four Remand cases and more on FLexlaw

Opinion of the Court

Before me is Plaintiff’s Petition for Attorney’s Fees Pursuant to the Equal Access to Justice Act (Doc. 30). By the motion, Plaintiff seeks attorney’s fees in the amount of $9,162 pursuant to the Equal Access to Justice Act (“EAJA”), 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d).1 On October 27, 2022, I entered an Order reversing and remanding the case to the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration for further administrative proceedings (Doc. 28). Thereafter, the Clerk entered judgment in favor of Plaintiff (Doc. 29).2 As the prevailing party, Plaintiff now requests an award of attorney’s fees. See 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d)(1)(A); cf. Shalala v. Schaefer, 509 U.S. 292, 300-02 (1993)

1. Petition for Attorney’s Fees Pursuant to the Equal Access to Justice Act (Doc. 30) is GRANTED. 2. Plaintiff is awarded fees in the amount of $9,162. Unless the Department of Treasury determines that Plaintiff owes a federal debt, the government must pay the fees to Plaintiff’s counsel in accordance with Plaintiff’s assignment of fees (Doc. 30,

Ex. A). DONE AND ORDERED tn Tampa, Florida on the 9th day of January, 2023.

Marr Le. Parry

MARK A, PIZZO

UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE cc: Counsel of Record

Footnotes
1 Attorneys Dax Lonetto, Sr. requests fees at the hourly rate of $229.05 for 40 hours of work performed in 2022 (Doc. 30, at 2-3, 5-6 & Ex. C). 2 The plaintiff in a social security case has 30 days beyond the 60-day appeal window to apply for fees and other expenses under the EAJA, for a total of 90 days after judgment. See 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d)(1)(B), (d)(2)(G); Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(1)(B); Gates v. Barnhart, 325 F. Supp. 2d 1342, 1343 (M.D. Fla. 2002). In this case, Plaintiff timely filed her application for fees on January 5, 2023 (Doc. 30). (concluding that a party who wins a sentence-four remand order under 42 U.S.C. § 405(g) is a prevailing party). In Reeves v. Astrue, 526 F. 3d 732 (11th Cir. 2008), the Eleventh Circuit held that an EAJA fee award is awarded to the “prevailing party,” not to counsel. In this case, Plaintiff has agreed to assign the EAJA award to her counsel (Doc. 30, Ex. A). The Commissioner does not oppose Plaintiff’s motion. After issuance of an order awarding EAJA fees, however, the United States Department of the Treasury will determine whether Plaintiff owes a debt to the government. If Plaintiff has no discernable federal debt, the government will accept Plaintiff’s assignment of EAJA fees and pay the fees directly to Plaintiff’s counsel. If she does, fees shall be made payable to Plaintiff and delivered to Plaintiff’s counsel to satisfy the debt. For the reasons set out in Plaintiff’s motion, therefore, it is hereby ORDERED:

Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus

Citator

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw