Ragan Soriano v. Andrew Saul ( 2020 )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS DEC 21 2020
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
RAGAN YONELY SORIANO, No. 19-56171
Plaintiff-Appellant, D.C. No. 5:14-cv-02373-AS
v.
MEMORANDUM*
ANDREW M. SAUL, Commissioner of
Social Security,
Defendant-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of California
Alka Sagar, Magistrate Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted December 8, 2020
Pasadena, California
Before: KELLY,** GOULD, and R. NELSON, Circuit Judges.
Young Cho (“Cho”), attorney of Ragan Yonely Soriano (“Ragan”) and real
party in interest, appeals the district court’s order granting in part and denying in
part his request for attorneys’ fees under 42 U.S.C. § 406(b) of the Social Security
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
**
The Honorable Paul J. Kelly, Jr., United States Circuit Judge for the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, sitting by designation.
Act. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.
Soriano and Cho entered into a written contingency fee agreement, which
allowed Cho to recover 25 percent of awarded backpay for any work performed at
the federal court. Cho spent 13.1 hours and his paralegal spent 4.6 hours
representing Soriano before the district court. The Social Security Administration
(“SSA”) conceded error and voluntarily remanded to the agency. On remand, the
agency ultimately issued a decision finding Soriano disabled, resulting in a
retroactive benefits award of approximately $113,420.
Cho petitioned the district court for an award of fees pursuant to 42 U.S.C.
§ 406(b), under which a court reviews the reasonableness of contingency fee
agreements for representing Social Security benefits claimants. Gisbrecht v.
Barnhart, 535 U.S. 789, 807 (2002). Cho requested $20,000, amounting to 17.6
percent of the awarded backpay. The district court reduced the fee to $15,000.
We review the district court’s award of attorneys’ fees under 42 U.S.C.
§ 406(b)(1) for abuse of discretion. See Crawford v. Astrue, 586 F.3d 1142, 1146–
47 (9th Cir. 2009) (en banc). “The district court abuses its discretion if it does not
apply the correct legal standard or rests its decision on a clearly erroneous finding
of fact.” Clark v. Astrue, 529 F.3d 1211, 1214 (9th Cir. 2008).
We cannot say that the district court abused its discretion. The district court
appropriately started with the fee agreement and adjusted downward. Crawford,
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586 F.3d at 1147–51. The district court may reduce the award “for substandard
performance, delay, or benefits that are not in proportion to the time spent on the
case.” Id. at 1151 (citing Gisbrecht, 535 U.S. at 808). Here, the district court did
that, concluding that a fee award of $20,000 would be a “windfall” in light of the
small number of hours expended, a relatively simple legal issue and medical
record, and the fact that former counsel had produced a thorough analysis before
the SSA. Cho has not shown that these findings were “illogical, implausible, or
without support in inferences that may be drawn from facts in the record.” United
States v. Hinkson, 585 F.3d 1247, 1251 (9th Cir. 2009) (en banc).
Cho contends that the district court abused its discretion by applying the
lodestar method. Although the district court expressed the fee amount in terms of
an hourly rate for Cho’s time and the paralegal’s time, we see no abuse of
discretion here. Crawford prohibits a district court from beginning with a lodestar
method instead of the contingency fee agreement when performing its
reasonableness analysis on requested attorneys’ fees under 42 U.S.C. § 406(b)(1).
Crawford, 586 F.3d at 1148. However, Crawford does not prohibit the calculation
of a de facto hourly rate. See id. A district court can use the number of hours
counsel spent on the case before the district court and “counsel’s regular hourly
billing charge for noncontingent cases” as “an aid to the court’s assessment of the
reasonableness of the fee yielded by the fee agreement.” Id. (citing Gisbrecht, 535
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U.S. at 808). The district court started with the fee agreement, and nothing
indicates that the district court was using the hourly rate as anything more than an
aid to determine whether the amount requested was reasonable and whether a
downward adjustment was warranted.
AFFIRMED.
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