1 2 3 4 5 6 7 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 8 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 9 TERESA A CETRARO, 10 Case No. 20-cv-00916-RS Plaintiff, 11 v. ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND 12 DENYING IN PART MOTION FOR KILOLO KIJAKAZI, ATTORNEY FEES 13 Acting Commissioner of Social Security,

14 Defendant.

15 16 In this Social Security appeal, plaintiff Teresa A. Cetraro obtained a favorable ruling that 17 remanded her disability claim to the Social Security Administration for a reevaluation of her 18 Residual Functional Capacity and whether she should be found to be disabled. Cetraro now seeks 19 an award of attorney fees in the amount of $14,693.60 and costs in the amount of $400.00, to be 20 paid directly to her attorney, Barbara Arnold, under the Equal Access to Justice Act (“EAJA”). 21 Fee motions in Social Security actions have become increasingly rare. The Court 22 appreciates the efforts the Commissioner and the plaintiffs’ bar generally have made in these cases 23 to meet and confer in good faith regarding fees, as required by Civil Local Rule 54-5. In this 24 instance, plaintiff’s counsel has not made the showing required by Rule 54-5(b)(1) that such a 25 meet and confer conference took place, or that she made appropriate efforts to ensure that it did. 26 The Commissioner does not challenge Cetraro’s entitlement to fees, only the amount 27 claimed. Although Cetraro’s motion includes time records, neither her briefing nor the 1 in turn, has pointed to several instances in the billing records that she contends show the fee 2 || request includes duplicative and/or excessive time entries. The Commissioner proposes Cetraro be 3 awarded fees in amount just under 60 percent of the claim. 4 Although many of the Commissioner’s complaints about the time spent on various tasks 5 have merit, the reductions she proposes do not appear to take into account that the fee motion does 6 || not seek recovery of all the time set out in the billing records. Rather, counsel appears to have 7 || exercised billing judgment to deduct nearly 30 hours out of the just under 100 hours recorded. 8 Additionally, while the Commissioner correctly notes the general rule against raising new 9 arguments on reply, it does not follow time expended in doing is never recoverable. While the 10 result here did not ultimately turn on the new matter, Cetraro cannot be faulted for raising what 11 was potentially a jurisdictional issue on a then-unsettled and evolving question.' 12 All that said, Cetraro has not established the amount claimed to be reasonable under all the 5 13 circumstances, and a further 10 percent reduction will be applied. See Moreno vy. City of 14 || Sacramento,

(9th Cir. 2008). The Commissioner does not oppose Cetraro’s 3 15 || cost claim. Accordingly, Cetraro’s motion will be granted to the extent she is hereby awarded 16 attorney fees in the amount of $13,224.24 and costs in the amount of $400.00. Payment shall be 3 17 made directly to counsel, subject to prior evaluation under the Treasury Offset Program. 18 19 || ITISSO ORDERED. 20 21 Dated: January 24, 2022 22

73 RICHARD SEEBORG _ Chief United States District Judge 24 25 *6 ' Less defensible, however, was the choice to file response to the Commissioner’s proposed sur- 27 || reply prior to any order allowing that surreply. . CASE No. 20-cv-00916-RS