The U.S. Supreme Court will hear an appeal of an unpublished Fourth Circuit decision involving the payment of attorney’s fees in an ERISA long term disability case. The case is Hardt v. Reliance Standard Life Insurance. The issues:
(1) Whether ERISA § 502(g)(1) provides a district court with discretion to award reasonable attorney’s fees only to a prevailing party; and (2) whether a party is entitled to attorney’s fees pursuant to § 502(g)(1) when she persuades a district court that a violation of ERISA has occurred, successfully secures a judicially ordered remand requiring a redetermination of entitlement to benefits, and subsequently receives the benefits sought on remand.
The prevailing party issue is similar to the issue now before the Court in Astrue v. Ratliff, a Social Security disability case involving payment of attorney’s fees pursuant to the Equal Access to Justice Act (28 U.S.C. 2412(d)). The Court will hear oral argument in Ratliff on February 22, 2010. The issue in Ratliff: Whether an “award of fees and other expenses” under the EAJA is payable to the “prevailing party” rather than to the prevailing party’s attorney, and therefore is subject to an offset for a pre-existing debt owed by the prevailing party to the United States.
