Harrington v. Berryhill

After plaintiffs successfully prosecuted their cases, the Treasury Department determined that plaintiffs had outstanding debts to various government entities. However, plaintiffs had assigned to counsel any legal fees to which they might be entitled under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA). The Treasury Department, rather than paying out the fees directly, reduced plaintiffs' debts by equal amounts under the Treasury Offset Program and thus the attorneys received nothing.The Seventh Circuit held that it would be imprudent to entertain new administrative claims that were only minimally related to the judgments, and declined to exercise ancillary jurisdiction over plaintiffs' collateral challenges to the regulations. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district courts' judgments. In this case, the district courts properly granted attorney fees under the EAJA, and the government properly applied those fees to plaintiffs' outstanding debts. View "Harrington v. Berryhill" on Justia Law