Marlene M. v. Berryhill
- Tony Leung
- 0:18-cv-00258
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 6
In Marlene M. v. Saul, Judge Leung denied Marlene M.’s attorney-fee request because it was late and equitable tolling did not apply.
Marlene M.’s request for attorney fees from the federal government was denied because the court found the request untimely and declined to extend the deadline.
What happened
In Marlene M. v. Saul, the court considered Marlene M.’s request for attorney fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act after an earlier order remanded her Social Security case for further proceedings.
The court determined that the deadline to request fees was June 27, 2019. Marlene M. first filed the request on June 25, but it was filed without notice to the Commissioner and was marked as filed in error. She correctly refiled it on July 1, after the deadline.
The court found no extraordinary circumstance that prevented a timely refiling and concluded that ordinary neglect was not enough to extend the deadline. Judge Tony N. Leung therefore denied the motion for attorney fees.
The detailed version
- Marlene M. v. Berryhill · No. 0:18-cv-00258
- Tony Leung
- Nov. 22, 2019
Background
Marlene M. moved for attorney fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act, a federal law that can require the government to pay certain litigation expenses. The request followed an earlier order in which the court granted Marlene M.’s motion for summary judgment in part and denied it in part, denied the Commissioner’s motion, and remanded the Social Security matter to the Commissioner for further proceedings under sentence four of 42 U.S.C. § 405(g). Judgment was entered on March 29, 2019.
Marlene M. initially filed the fee motion on June 25, two days before the deadline, but filed it without notice to the Commissioner. The filing was marked as filed in error after counsel was notified. Marlene M. refiled the motion correctly on July 1. The Commissioner argued that the motion was untimely and that the requested hourly rate was unsupported. The court’s ruling focused on timeliness.
Analysis
The Equal Access to Justice Act requires a fee application to be filed within 30 days after final judgment. Because the government was a party, the court calculated that the judgment became final after the 60-day appeal period expired. The court therefore concluded that Marlene M. had until June 27, 2019, to file the fee request.
The court considered equitable tolling, a doctrine that can extend a filing deadline in unusual circumstances. To obtain equitable tolling, a litigant must show diligence and an extraordinary circumstance beyond the litigant’s control that prevented timely filing. The court found that the second requirement was dispositive. Marlene M. provided no explanation for waiting several days to refile and identified no barrier that prevented a correct filing by June 27. The court concluded that, at most, the circumstances showed ordinary excusable neglect, which was insufficient for equitable tolling.
Disposition
The court held that equitable tolling could not save the untimely motion. In the order signed by Tony N. Leung, United States Magistrate Judge, the court denied Marlene M.’s Motion of Award of Attorney Fees Pursuant to the Equal Access to Justice Act.
Read the full 6-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.