By: Derek Hawkins//October 23, 2018//
By: Derek Hawkins//October 23, 2018//
7th Circuit Court of Appeals
Case Name: Staci Harrington, et al. v. Nancy A. Berryhill
Case No.: 17-3179
Officials: KANNE, SYKES, and ST. EVE, Circuit Judges
Focus: Statutory Interpretation – Treasury Offset Program – Statutory Fee Awards
The Commissioner of Social Security separately denied benefits to Staci Harrington and Andrew Banks. Both individuals sought judicial review of those decisions. To that end, each separately engaged the services of The de la Torre Law Office LLC, which agreed to represent them in federal court. In exchange, the two plaintiffs assigned to counsel any legal fees to which they might be entitled under the Equal Access to Justice Act (“EAJA”), 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d). After successfully prosecuting their cases, the plaintiffs obtained the statutory fee awards.
But that was not the end of the story. The Treasury Department, which had the responsibility of processing the payments, determined that both litigants had outstanding debts to various government entities. Rather than paying out the fees directly, it reduced the litigants’ debts by equal amounts under the Treasury Offset Program, 31 C.F.R. § 285. The attorneys received nothing. In response, the parties brought these appeals, which we have consolidated because they pose the same legal questions. See Harrington v. Berryhill, 876 F.3d 889 (7th Cir. 2017). We believe it would be imprudent to entertain new administrative claims that are only minimally related to the judgments, so we decline to exercise ancillary jurisdiction over the plaintiffs’ collateral challenges to the regulations and instead affirm the district courts’ judgments.
Affirmed