Opinion
20-cv-06310-RMI
04-07-2022
CHRISTOPHER WERTS ROSEMAYER, Plaintiff, v. KILOLO KIJAKAZI, Defendant.
ORDER RE: MOTION FOR ATTORNEYS' FEES Re: Dkt. No. 31
ROBERT M. ILLMAN UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE
Plaintiff seeks an attorneys' fee award in the sum of $11,424.09. See Pl.'s Sur-Sur-Reply Br. (dkt. 37) at 4. Defendant submits that Plaintiff should be awarded “no more than $2,000 in EAJA fees.” See Def.'s Sur-Reply (dkt. 36) at 2. Much to the court's disappointment, counsel for the Parties have spent considerable time and effort in accusing one another of misconduct, intemperance, and unprofessionalism (see dkts. 23, 24, 25, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37). The disintegration of the professional relationship between the attorneys in this case is both lamentable and highly impractical from the court's perspective. But for the erosion of this relationship - this case could have, and indeed should have, been the subject of a stipulated remand for further proceedings as the court ultimately found (see Order of Remand (dkt. 29)).
For the reasons stated in the order remanding for further proceedings, the undersigned is not persuaded that Plaintiff had a substantial basis for seeking a remand for calculation and immediate payment of benefits - or, put another way, the record in this case was by no measure of estimation fully or properly developed such that further administrative proceedings would not have been required. Accordingly, Plaintiff would have been well-served accepting Defendant's invitation to execute a stipulated remand as doing so would have saved this court (and Plaintiff's counsel) considerable expenditures of time that (in retrospect) appear to have been largely wasted. In light of that, it should be clearly noted here and now that the undersigned is disinclined to award anywhere in the vicinity of $11,242.09 in attorneys' fees to Plaintiffs counsel. At the same time, it may be possible that Defendant's proposal (in the order of $2,000) could be - by a small measure - perhaps a bit too low to fully account for Plaintiffs counsel's review of the record that might have resulted in either a summary judgment motion that would more closely have resembled the court's analysis, or such that Plaintiffs counsel could intelligently accept Defendant's invitation for a stipulated remand for further proceedings.
Accordingly, counsel for the Parties are ORDERED to meet and confer forthwith in a good faith and sincere effort: (1) to repair the damage to their professional relationship such that they can work together productively and professionally on this case and on future cases as need be; and (2) to arrive at a negotiated stipulation for EAJA fees in this case in light of the totality of the circumstances involved - including, and especially, in light of the vast differences between Plaintiffs summary judgment motion and this court's remand order. Thus, Plaintiffs counsel is particularly encouraged to take those negotiations seriously. Therefore, no later than 12:00 noon on Thursday, April 14, 2022, the Parties are FURTHER ORDERED to either file a stipulated resolution to their EAJA fee dispute, or a jointly-filed notice stating that counsel met and conferred as described herein (including the date, time, and length of that conference) but failed to resolve the issue.
IT IS SO ORDERED.