Supreme Court of the United States · Official docket →
Michael W. Gahagan v. Citizenship & Immigration Services
Paid petition · United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, No. 17-30898, 17-30901, 17-30999 · judgment December 20, 2018
Before the decision, about 1.7× the 4.1% base rate. The model weighted this up for a Fifth Circuit decision below, a circuit split argued in the petition, and a dissent in the court below (flagged in the petition), and down for a business respondent.
Questions presented
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Does the Fifth Circuit’s rule that all federal fee-award laws must be read identically (i.e., absent express textual differences) contravene this Court’s decision in Fogerty v. Fantasy Inc., 510 U.S. 517 (1994)—and Seventh Circuit precedent implementing Fogerty—which call for individual analysis of federal fee-award laws based on each law’s respective text, structure, history, and purpose?
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Does Congress’s use of the word “incurred” in a fee-award law refer solely to a legal obligation to pay attorney fees, as the Fifth Circuit has ruled, or does “incurred” also refer to any expended lawyer time, as the Seventh Circuit has ruled, thus allowing a feeaward law to compensate the work of pro bono attorneys, in-house attorneys, government attorneys, and self-representing attorneys alike?
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Does a fair reading of the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and its fee-award provision, 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(E), allow attorney-fee awards in “any case” under FOIA where the “complainant” has substantially prevailed—including cases where the complainant is a self-representing attorney?
Counsel of record
For petitioner
Mahesha Padmanabhan Subbaraman
Subbaraman PLLC
For respondent
Noel John Francisco
Jones Day
Proceedings
- Oct 21 2019Petition DENIED.
- Oct 02 2019DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 10/18/2019.
- Sep 26 2019Reply of petitioner Michael Gahagan filed.
- Sep 13 2019Brief of respondents United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, et al. in opposition filed.
- Aug 14 2019Brief amicus curiae of Public Record Media filed.
- Aug 07 2019Motion to extend the time to file a response is granted and the time is extended to and including September 13, 2019.
- Aug 06 2019Motion to extend the time to file a response from August 14, 2019 to September 13, 2019, submitted to The Clerk.
- Jul 11 2019Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due August 14, 2019)
- May 22 2019Application (18A1209) granted by Justice Alito extending the time to file until July 11, 2019.
- May 16 2019Application (18A1209) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from May 27, 2019 to July 11, 2019, submitted to Justice Alito.