Jacobson v. Astrue
- Cathy Seibel
- 7:12-cv-08416
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Jacobson v. Astrue, Judge Seibel approved counsel’s $20,000 fee but ordered interest and an EAJA refund for delayed filing.
The order affects the claimant, who was entitled to a refund and interest, and the claimant’s counsel, whose $20,000 fee was approved but who was ordered to pay the refund and report steps for staying informed about legal developments.
What happened
In Jacobson v. Astrue, counsel asked the court to approve a $20,000 fee from the claimant’s Social Security benefits. Counsel filed the request under Section 406(b) on January 30, 2020, after learning about the related fee decision in September 2019.
Counsel explained that the delay involved a period for the claimant to object, waiting for a fee check, and not knowing about a relevant appellate decision. Counsel argued that approving the fee was justified because no party was harmed and lawyers’ work on Social Security cases benefits the public.
Judge Cathy Seibel approved the $20,000 fee but ordered counsel to refund the claimant’s $6,869.38 government fee award, with interest for the delay. She also required counsel to report steps taken to learn about legal developments in Social Security law.
The detailed version
- Jacobson v. Astrue · No. 7:12-cv-08416
- Cathy Seibel
- June 19, 2020
Background
This order supplements the court’s June 3, 2020 order. Counsel asked for approval of a $20,000 attorney fee under Section 406(b) of the Social Security Act. Counsel had been informed of the outcome of a related Section 406(a) fee application on September 12, 2019, and filed the Section 406(b) request on January 30, 2020.
Counsel attributed the delay to three factors: a 30-day period in which the client could object to the fee, counsel’s focus on receiving the Section 406(a) check, and counsel’s lack of knowledge of the relevant decision in Sinkler. Counsel acknowledged that approval of the fee was close to the boundary of what could be considered reasonable. Counsel also argued that no party had been harmed and that approving the fee would recognize the public benefits of lawyers taking Social Security cases on a contingency basis.
Court’s Analysis
The court criticized counsel for appearing to conceal the dates of the Notice of Award and notification of the Section 406(a) outcome, making the application appear more prompt than it was. The court also criticized counsel’s statement that he was unaware of the Sinkler decision despite apparently specializing in Social Security cases.
The court noted that counting the delay from the Section 406(a) award rather than the Notice of Award produced a four-month delay. The court said that four months was not categorically too long under Sinkler, which had found a six-month delay unreasonable. The court distinguished a prior related case in which denying fees had been considered inequitable partly because the fee request was filed before Sinkler was decided. The court found that counsel had done the work and obtained a good result for the client.
Ruling
Judge Cathy Seibel approved counsel’s request for a $20,000 Section 406(b) fee, while requiring counsel to compensate the claimant for financial harm caused by the delay. Counsel had previously been awarded $6,869.38 under the Equal Access to Justice Act, a law allowing certain government-paid attorney fees. Because the Section 406(b) fee exceeded that amount, the court ruled that the claimant was entitled to a refund of the $6,869.38 award.
The court ordered counsel, by July 3, 2020, to refund the $6,869.38 together with interest calculated at the statutory rate under 28 U.S.C. § 1961. Interest was to cover August 16, 2019, through January 30, 2020. The court also ordered counsel to submit a declaration by July 3 describing steps counsel and the firm had taken to receive prompt information about developments in their area of specialization, such as subscribing to a newsletter or listserv, joining a professional organization, or attending continuing legal education programs.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.