Morales v. Commissioner of Social Security
- George Daniels
- 1:10-cv-08773
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 5
In Morales v. Commissioner, Judge Fox granted Morales’s $13,758 fee motion after finding 73.6 hours and the requested rates reasonable.
Miladys Morales’s request for attorney fees and the Commissioner of Social Security’s opposition were affected; the court awarded $13,758 in attorney fees.
What happened
In Morales v. Commissioner of Social Security, Miladys Morales asked for attorney fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act after an earlier remand based on errors in the administrative law judge’s decision.
The Commissioner opposed the amount, arguing that the attorneys spent too many hours and that the award should be limited to $6,571.25. Morales argued that the case required detailed review of a lengthy, handwritten record and that the requested work was reasonable.
Judge Kevin Nathaniel Fox granted Morales’s motion for $13,758 in attorney fees. He found that the 73.6 hours claimed were not excessive and that the hourly rates of $185.97 for 2011 and $189.56 for 2012 were reasonable.
The detailed version
- Morales v. Commissioner of Social Security · No. 1:10-cv-08773
- George Daniels
- May 3, 2021
Background
Miladys Morales moved for attorney fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act, a federal law that can require the United States to pay reasonable fees to a prevailing party in certain civil cases. She did not seek reimbursement for litigation costs.
In the earlier proceedings, the assigned district judge adopted a report and recommendation finding that the administrative law judge had failed to explain how Morales’s limitations affected her ability to work on a function-by-function basis. The court also found that testimony from a vocational expert directly conflicted with a Social Security Administration policy and that the administrative law judge failed to try to resolve that conflict. The court later directed the Clerk of Court to close the case without prejudice to reopening if additional proceedings were warranted.
The Parties’ Arguments
Morales sought $13,758 for 73.6 hours of attorney work. Her attorneys requested hourly rates of $185.97 for work performed in 2011 and $189.56 for work performed in 2012. The fee request included work reviewing the case and administrative transcript, preparing multiple drafts of a memorandum, responding to objections, and preparing the fee motion.
The Commissioner did not challenge the timeliness of the application, Morales’s status as a prevailing party, or whether the government’s position was substantially justified. The Commissioner challenged only the amount of time and the hourly rate, arguing that the award should be limited to 35 hours at an average rate of $187.75, for a total of no more than $6,571.25. Morales responded that the record was fact-specific, covered several years, and included handwritten treatment notes requiring careful review.
Court’s Analysis
The court rejected the Commissioner’s proposed average hourly rate as unsupported by authority. It also rejected the argument that the hours should be limited to 35 merely because courts had sometimes treated 20 to 40 hours as reasonable in an average Social Security disability case. The court explained that reliance on a decades-old benchmark, without more, did not establish that Morales’s attorneys’ work was excessive.
After reviewing the record and the attorneys’ itemized time, the court found that 73.6 hours was not excessive. It also found that the requested hourly rates were reasonable and appropriate.
Disposition
Judge Kevin Nathaniel Fox granted Morales’s motion for attorney fees in the amount of $13,758.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.