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Keywords

attorneyappealmotionasylum
tortjurisdictionattorneyappealmotionasylumjudicial review

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Lorenzo v. Barr

Facts

Pablo Lorenzo filed an Application for Attorney Fees and Costs under the Equal Access to Justice Act after successfully petitioning for review of a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), which had denied his motion to reopen his application for asylum. The court previously overturned the BIA's decision, determining that it failed to properly evaluate Lorenzo's evidence and applied incorrect legal standards. Lorenzo's attorney sought $20,263.80 in fees and $500 in filing fees, but the court ultimately awarded $11,035.75.

Pablo Lorenzo has filed an Application for Attorney Fees and Costs under the Equal Access to Justice Act (the EAJA). Pablo Lorenzo's attorney seeks $20,263.80 in attorney fees and $500 in filing fees associated with Pablo Lorenzo's successful petition for review of a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals (the BIA). The BIA denied Pablo Lorenzo's motion to reopen his application for asylum. We overturned that decision on July 9, 2019, holding that the BIA failed to properly evaluate Pablo Lorenzo's evidence and that it applied the wrong legal standards to one of his claims.

Issue

Whether the BIA's position was substantially justified and whether Pablo Lorenzo was entitled to attorney fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act.

Whether the BIA's position was substantially justified and whether Pablo Lorenzo was entitled to attorney fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act.

Rule

Under the Equal Access to Justice Act, a court shall award fees to a prevailing party unless the government's position was substantially justified or special circumstances make an award unjust.

The EAJA provides in relevant part as follows: [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 (other than cases sounding in tort), including proceedings for judicial review of agency 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.

Analysis

The court found that the BIA's failure to properly evaluate Lorenzo's evidence and its application of incorrect legal standards were unreasonable and lacked substantial justification. The government failed to meet its burden of proving that its position was justified. Lorenzo's success in achieving the desired outcome, despite not prevailing on all claims, qualified him as a prevailing party for the entire fee request.

To the contrary, we concluded in our original decision that the BIA abused its discretion by failing to 'properly evaluate Pablo's evidence of changed country conditions' and by 'appl[ying] the wrong legal standards when evaluating Pablo's claim.' Pablo Lorenzo, 779 F. App'x at 373-74. 'The BIA was required to either 'explicitly find' that [Pablo's] reasonably specific facts were 'inherently unbelievable' or 'accept' Pablo's facts 'as true,' but it 'did neither.' Id. at 374 (quoting Trujillo Diaz v. Sessions, 880 F.3d 244, 253 (6th Cir. 2018)). And 'although Pablo submitted hundreds of pages of evidence in support of his motion to reopen based on changed country conditions, the BIA dismissed Pablo's evidence in a cursory three-paragraph decision that failed to meaningfully discuss the voluminous evidence that Pablo had presented.' Id. These failures were unreasonable and without substantial justification.

Conclusion

The court granted the motion in part, awarding a total of $11,035.75 in attorney fees and costs to Pablo Lorenzo.

The court granted the motion in part and awarded a total of $11,035.75 in attorney fees and costs.

Who won?

Pablo Lorenzo prevailed in the case because the court found that the BIA's actions were unreasonable and not substantially justified, thus entitling him to attorney fees.

The government concedes that Pablo Lorenzo is a prevailing party with respect to his changed-country-conditions claim (but not his ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim) and that he filed a timely EAJA motion.

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