Lead Opinion
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case concerns the proper timing of an application for attorney’s fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) in a Social Security case. Under 42 U. S. C. § 405(g), a claimant has the right to seek judicial review of a final
I
In 1986, respondent Richard Schaefer filed an application for disability benefits under Title II of the Social Security Act, 49 Stat. 622, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 401 et seq. (1988 ed. and Supp. III). He was denied benefits at the administrative level, and sought judicial review by filing suit against the Secretary as authorized by § 405(g). Schaefer and the Secretary filed cross-motions for summary judgment. On April 4,1989, the District Court held that the Secretary had committed three errors in ruling on Schaefer’s case and entered an order stating that “the Secretary’s decision denying disability insurance benefits to [Schaefer] is reversed, that the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment are denied, and that the case is remanded to the Secretary for further consideration in light of this Order.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 27a.
In accordance with this order, Schaefer’s application for benefits was reconsidered at the administrative level, and was granted. On July 18, 1990, Schaefer returned to the District Court and filed an application for attorney’s fees pursuant to EAJA. In response, the Secretary noted that Schaefer was required to file any application for EAJA fees “within thirty days of final judgment in the action,” 28 U. S. C. § 2412(d)(1)(B), and argued that the relevant “final judgment” in the case was the administrative decision on
Melkonyan was announced shortly thereafter, holding that a final administrative decision could not constitute a “final judgment” for purposes of § 2412(d)(1)(B). Id., at 96. In light of Melkonyan, the Secretary changed positions to argue that EAJA’s 30-day clock began running when the District Court’s April 4, 1989 order (not the administrative ruling on remand) became final, which would have occurred at the end of the 60 days for appeal provided under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a). Thus, the Secretary concluded, Schaefer’s time to file his EAJA application expired on July 3,1989, over a year before the application was filed. The District Court, however, found Schaefer’s EAJA application timely under the controlling Circuit precedent of Welter v. Sullivan,
The Secretary fared no better on appeal. The Eighth Circuit declined the Secretary’s suggestion for en banc reconsideration of Welter, and affirmed the District Court in an unpublished per curiam opinion. Judgt. order reported at
II
The first sentence of 28 U. S. C. § 2412(d)(1)(B) provides:
“A party seeking an award of fees and other expenses shall, within thirty days of final judgment in the action,*296 submit to the court an application for fees and other expenses which shows that the party is a prevailing party and is eligible to receive an award under this subsection, and the amount sought, including an itemized statement from any attorney or expert witness representing or appearing in behalf of the party stating the actual time expended and the rate at which fees and other expenses were computed.” (Emphasis added.)
In Melkonyan v. Sullivan, we held that the term “final judgment” in the highlighted phrase above “refers to judgments entered by a court of law, and does not encompass decisions rendered by an administrative agency.” See
In cases reviewing final agency decisions on Social Security benefits, the exclusive methods by which district courts may remand to the Secretary are set forth in sentence four and sentence six of § 405(g), which are set forth in the margin.
Nor is it possible to argue that the judgment authorized by sentence four, if it includes a remand, does not become a “final judgment” — as required by § 2412(d) — upon expiration of the time for appeal. If that were true, there would never be any final judgment in cases reversed and remanded for further agency proceedings (including those which suffer that fate after the Secretary has filed the results of a sentence-six remand). Sentence eight of § 405(g) states that “tt]he judgment of the court” — which must be a reference to a sentence-four judgment, since that is the only judgment authorized by § 405(g) — “shall be final except that it shall be
“In sentence four cases, the filing period begins after the final judgment (‘affirming, modifying, or reversing’) is entered by the court and the appeal period has run, so that the judgment is no longer appealable. ... In sentence six cases, the filing period does not begin until after the postremand proceedings are completed, the Secretary returns to court, the court enters a final judgment, and the appeal period runs.”501 U. S., at 102 .
Schaefer raises two arguments that merit further discussion. The first is based on our decision in Sullivan v. Hudson,
“We conclude that where a court orders a remand to the Secretary in a benefits litigation and retains continuing jurisdiction over the case pending a decision from the Secretary which will determine the claimant’s entitlement to benefits, the proceedings on remand are an integral part of the ‘civil action’ for judicial review, and thus attorney’s fees for representation on remand are available subject to the other limitations in the EAJA.”490 U. S., at 892 (emphasis added).
We have since made clear, in Finkelstein, that that retention of jurisdiction, that failure to terminate the case, was error: Under § 405(g), “each final decision of the Secretary [is] reviewable by a separate piece of litigation,” and a sentence-four remand order “terminate[s] the civil action” seeking judicial review of the Secretary’s final decision.
Schaefer’s second argument is that a sentence-four remand order cannot be considered a “final judgment” for purposes of § 2412(d)(1)(B) because that provision requires the party seeking fees to submit an application “show[ing] that [he] is a prevailing party.” That showing, Schaefer contends, cannot be made until the proceedings on remand are complete, since a Social Security claimant does not “prevail” until he is awarded Social Security benefits. The premise of this argument is wrong. No holding of this Court has ever denied prevailing-party status (under § 2412(d)(1)(B)) to a plaintiff who won a remand order pursuant to sentence four of § 405(g). Dicta in Hudson stated that “a Social Security
Hudson’s dicta that remand does not generally confer prevailing-party status relied on three cases, none of which supports that proposition as applied to sentence-four remands. Hanrahan v. Hampton,
Ill
Finally, Schaefer argues that, even if the District Court should have entered judgment in connection with its April 4, 1989 order remanding the case to the Secretary, the fact remains that it did not. And since no judgment was entered, he contends, the 30-day time period for filing an application for EAJA fees cannot have run. We agree.
An EAJA application may be filed until 30 days after a judgment becomes “not appealable” — i. e., 30 days after the time for appeal has ended. See §§ 2412(d)(1)(B), (d)(2)(G); see also Melkonyan,
Since the District Court’s April 4 remand order was a final judgment, see supra, at 299, a “separate document” of judgment should have been entered. It is clear from the record that this was not done. The Secretary does not dispute that, but argues that a formal “separate document” of judgment is not needed for an order of a district court to become appealable. That is quite true, see 28 U. S. C. § 1291; Bankers Trust Co. v. Mallis,
He * *
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
Notes
Sentences four and six of 42 U. S. C. § 405(g) provide:
“[4] The [district] court shall have power to enter, upon the pleadings and transcript of the record, a judgment affirming, modifying, or reversing the decision of the Secretary, with or without remanding the cause for a rehearing. ... [6] The court may, on motion of the Secretary made for good cause shown before he files his answer, remand the case to the Secretary for further action by the Secretary, and it may at any time order additional evidence to be taken before the Secretary, but only upon a showing that there is new evidence which is material and that there is good cause for the failure to incorporate such evidence into the record in a prior proceeding; and the Secretary shall, after the case is remanded, and after hearing such additional evidence if so ordered, modify or affirm his findings of fact or his decision, or both, and shall file with the court any such additional and modified findings of fact and decision, and a tran*297 script of the additiohal record and testimony upon which his action in modifying or affirming was based.”
Sentence-six remands may be ordered in only two situations: where the Secretary requests a remand before answering the complaint, or where new, material evidence is adduced that was for good cause not presented before the agency. See § 405(g) (sentence six); Melkonyan v. Sullivan,
The Secretary not only failed to object to the District Court’s retention of jurisdiction, but affirmatively endorsed the practice as a means of accommodating the lower court cases holding that a § 405(g) plaintiff does not become a prevailing party until Social Security benefits are actually awarded. Reply Brief for Petitioner in Sullivan v. Hudson, O. T. 1988, No. 616, pp. 12-13. Those precedents were highly favorable to the Government, of course, because they relieved the Secretary of liability for EAJA fees in all cases where Social Security benefits were ultimately denied. But they were also at war with the view — expressed later in the
Justice Stevens says that our holding “overrul[es]” Sullivan v. Hudson,
As formulated in the Secretary’s petition, the question on which the Court granted certiorari in H-udson was: “Whether Social Security administrative proceedings conducted after a remand from the courts are ‘adversary adjudications’ for which attorney fees are available under the [EAJA].” Pet. for Cert. in Sullivan v. Hudson, O. T. 1988, No. 616, p. I.
We disagree with Justice Stevens’ assertion that “the respondent has prevailed precisely because the District Court in this case did enter a remand order without entering a judgment.” Post, at 305, n. 2 (emphasis in original). By entering a sentence-four remand order, the District Court did enter a judgment; it just failed to comply with the formalities of Rule 58 in doing so. That was error but, as detailed in the text, the relevant rules and statutes impose the burden of that error on the party seeking to assert an untimeliness defense, here the Secretary. Thus, contrary to Justice Stevens’ suggestion, see ibid,., our ruling in favor of respondent is not at all inconsistent with the proposition that sentence four and sentence six provide the exclusive methods by which district courts may remand a § 405 case to the Secretary.
Concurrence Opinion
with whom
In Sullivan v. Hudson,
Two Terms later, in Melkonyan v. Sullivan,
The question presented in this case is how best to reconcile this tension in our cases. If we reject the Government’s rather bizarre proposal of requiring all Social Security claimants who achieve a sentence-four remand to file a protective EAJA application within 30 days of the remand order, and then update or amend their applications if they are successful on remand, see Brief for Petitioner 26-30, we are left with essentially two alternatives. We can overrule Hudson and endorse Melkonyan’s dicta that the 30-day clock under EAJA begins to run once the district court issues a sentence-four remand order. That is the path followed by the majority. Alternatively, we can repudiate the dicta in Melkonyan and reaffirm the understanding of EAJA that we had at the time we decided Hudson: that fees are avail
The major premise underlying the Court’s contrary decision today is that there is sharp distinction, for purposes of EAJA, between remands ordered pursuant to sentence four and sentence six of 42 U. S. C. § 405(g).
As explained above, our decision in Hudson was based in part on the premise that prevailing party status for purposes of EAJA could not be determined until after proceedings on remand were completed. I find unpersuasive the Court’s attempt to distinguish cases relied upon in Hudson that we previously characterized as “for all intents and purposes identical.” Id., at 886; see ante, at 301-302.
“We think the principles we found persuasive in [Pennsylvania v.] Delaware Valley [Citizens’ Council,478 U. S. 546 (1986),] and [New York Gaslight Club, Inc. v.] Carey[,447 U. S. 54 (1980),] are controlling here. As in Delaware Valley, the administrative proceedings on remand in this case were ‘crucial to the vindication of [respondent’s] rights.’ Delaware Valley, supra, at 561. ... [T]he services of an attorney may be necessary both to ensure compliance with the District Court’s order in the administrative proceedings themselves, and to prepare for any further proceedings before the District Court to verify such compliance. In addition, as we did in Carey, we must endeavor to interpret the fee statute in light of the statutory provisions it was designed to effectuate. Given the ‘mandatory’ nature of the administrative proceedings at issue here, and their*308 close relation in law and fact to the issues before the District Court on judicial review, we find it difficult to ascribe to Congress an intent to throw the Social Security claimant a lifeline that it knew was a foot short. Indeed, the incentive which such a system would create for attorneys to abandon claimants after judicial remand runs directly counter to long established ethical canons of the legal profession. See American Bar Association, Model Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 1.16, pp. 53-55 (1984). Given the anomalous nature of this result, and its frustration of the very purposes behind the EAJA itself, Congress cannot lightly be assumed to have intended it. See Christiansburg Garment Co. v. EEOC,434 U. S. 412 , 418-419 (1978). Since the judicial review provisions of the Social Security Act contemplate an ongoing civil action of which the remand proceedings are but a part, and the EAJA allows ‘any court having jurisdiction of that action’ to award fees, 28 U. S. C. § 2412(d)(1)(A), we think the statute, read in light of its purpose ‘to diminish the deterrent effect of seeking review of, or defending against, governmental action,’ 94 Stat. 2325, permits a court to award fees for services performed on remand before the Social Security Administration.”490 U. S., at 889-890 .
Hudson was not based on a distinction between a remand ordered pursuant to sentence four and one ordered pursuant to sentence six of § 405(g), and it was not based solely on our understanding of “prevailing party” jurisprudence in other areas of the law. It was based also on the commonsense conclusion that allowing for the recovery of legal fees incurred on remand before the Agency was necessary to effectuate the purposes underlying EAJA, and that permitting the awarding of such fees accorded with Congress’ intent in passing that statute.
That sound and eminently reasonable conclusion was not undermined by our decision in Sullivan v. Finkelstein, 496
In Melkonyan, we changed course. The distinction that we had drawn between the question of appealability under § 1291 and eligibility for fees under EAJA was blurred; in Melkonyan, we imported wholecloth our analysis from Finkelstein, which, again, concerned § 1291, into our analysis of when the 30-day limitations period for filing an EAJA fee application began to run. It was in that case that we first crafted the rigid distinction between a sentence-four remand and a sentence-six remand for purposes of EAJA, and stated in dicta that the “final judgment in the action” referred to in § 2412(d)(1)(B) of EAJA was the judgment entered concomitantly with a sentence-four remand order.
In my opinion, we should abandon that dicta. While the distinction between a sentence-four and a sentence-six remand may have some force for purposes of appealability, it is a distinction without a difference when viewed, as it should be, “with reference to the purpose of the EAJA and
Claimants have 30 days from “final judgment in the action” to file an application for fees. 28 U. S. C. § 2412(d)(1)(B). In Hudson, the Government conceded that the “final judgment” referred to in § 2412(d)(1)(B) was a judgment entered in the district court after the proceedings on remand were completed. Hudson,
“[w]hen a judicial remand order in Social Security disability eases contemplates additional administrative proceedings that will determine the merits of the claimant’s application for benefits, and thus will determine whether the claimant is a prevailing party, the district court retains discretion to enter a final judgment for EAJA purposes after the proceedings on remand have been completed.” Hafner v. Sullivan,972 F. 2d 249 , 252 (CA8 1992).
Thus, while I agree with the Court’s judgment in this case, I respectfully disagree with its decision to overrule Sullivan v. Hudson.
See, e. g., Hafner v. Sullivan,
See ante, at 296-297, n. 1. The Court reasons that remands can be ordered only pursuant to sentence six or sentence four, and that Congress left no room for hybrids or for cases that did not fit neatly into either category. Thus, referring to “the plain language of sentence four,” ante, at 297, the Court assumes that the sentence “authorizes a district court to enter a judgment ‘with or without’ a remand order, not a remand order ‘with or without’ a judgment,” ibid. Ironically, when we come to the end of the Court’s opinion, we learn that the respondent has prevailed precisely because the District Court in this case did enter a remand order without entering a judgment.
The EAJA, 28 U. S. C. § 2412, provides in relevant part:
“(d)(1)(A) [A] court shall award to a prevailing party other than the United States fees and other expenses . . . incurred by that party in any civil action . . . brought by or against the United States in any court having jurisdiction of that action, unless the court finds that the position of the United States was substantially justified or that special circumstances make an award unjust.
“(B) A party seeking an award of fees and other expenses shall, within thirty days of final judgment in the action, submit to the court an application for fees and other expenses which shows that the party is a prevailing party and is eligible to receive an award under this subsection, and the amount sought.... The party shall also allege that the position of the United States was not substantially justified.”
As we explained in Hudson:
“[I]n a case such as this one, where a court’s remand to the agency for further administrative proceedings does not necessarily dictate the receipt of benefits, the claimant will not normally attain ‘prevailing party status within the meaning of § 2412(d)(1)(A) until after the result of the administrative proceedings is known. The situation is for all intents and pur-, poses identical to that we addressed in Hanrahan v. Hampton,446 U. S. 754 (1980). There we held that the reversal of a directed verdict for defendants on appeal did not render the plaintiffs in that action ‘prevailing parties’ such that an interim award of attorney’s fees would be justified under 42 U. S. C. § 1988. We found that such ‘procedural or evidentiary rulings’ were not themselves ‘matters on which a party could “prevail” for purposes of shifting his counsel fees to the opposing party under
See n. 1, supra.