[00:00:00] Speaker 04:
Our argument this morning is 24-1256, Haggard v. United States.

[00:00:05] Speaker 04:
Mr. Woodley, good morning.

[00:00:07] Speaker 04:
Please proceed.

[00:00:08] Speaker 03:
Good morning, Your Honor.

[00:00:14] Speaker 03:
May it please the Court, I'm Gordon Woodley, appearing for Judgment Creditor Denise Woodley.

[00:00:25] Speaker 03:
Back in 2016, this Court advised the government

[00:00:30] Speaker 03:
that it is the government, as opposed to a plaintiff like Mrs. Woodley, who bears the reasonable cost of the action, that the landowners get to retain the full compensation of the value of the property from the taking, and it is mandatory that the government assume the litigation expenses.

[00:00:56] Speaker 03:
So imagine we have three

[00:01:00] Speaker 03:
federal district court judgments that bear interest and are payable from the Judgment Fund.

[00:01:10] Speaker 03:
The first, for $497,000 in August of 2020, that was never paid by the government.

[00:01:22] Speaker 03:
And the interest on that, that ran for three months, was never paid.

[00:01:27] Speaker 03:
The second.

[00:01:29] Speaker 03:
Go finish your list.

[00:01:31] Speaker 03:
The second, that judgment was amended to be increased to $998,000.

[00:01:39] Speaker 03:
The government did pay that, but they paid it six months delay.

[00:01:45] Speaker 03:
So they did not pay any interest on that judgment.

[00:01:50] Speaker 02:
What was that judgment for?

[00:01:52] Speaker 02:
Harvey?

[00:01:53] Speaker 02:
What was that judgment for?

[00:01:54] Speaker 03:
It was for Trinities.

[00:01:57] Speaker 02:
And what's the provision that allows interest on attorney's fees?

[00:02:01] Speaker 03:
The position is that any federal court judgment bears interests mandatory.

[00:02:08] Speaker 02:
But that's inconsistent with the Supreme Court's decision in Shaw and our precedent in Marathon.

[00:02:15] Speaker 03:
Yeah, Shaw doesn't apply, Your Honor, with due respect.

[00:02:19] Speaker 03:
The Ninth Circuit case of Perkins

[00:02:24] Speaker 03:
versus standard oil is the applicable.

[00:02:29] Speaker 02:
What about our case of Marathon?

[00:02:31] Speaker 03:
Marathon really doesn't apply either.

[00:02:34] Speaker 03:
The waiver of sovereign immunity is, I think, what you're asking about.

[00:02:41] Speaker 03:
The waiver of sovereign immunity was clear.

[00:02:44] Speaker 03:
back in the quality tooling case where the government conceded that the waiver of sovereign immunity was waived for all claims under the Tucker Act.

[00:02:57] Speaker 03:
And since this is a Tucker Act.

[00:02:58] Speaker 02:
But the Tucker Act is a waiver of sovereign immunity, but it doesn't provide a cause of action.

[00:03:03] Speaker 02:
You have to have an independent statutory or contract for money.

[00:03:10] Speaker 02:
So what's your provision that allows interest to be paid on attorney's fees against the government?

[00:03:19] Speaker 02:
Are you saying it's a Tucker Act?

[00:03:23] Speaker 02:
Or of course it is.

[00:03:24] Speaker 02:
Well, that's just wrong.

[00:03:25] Speaker 02:
The Tucker Act waives sovereign immunity, but we've held over and over again that the Tucker Act just waives sovereign immunity.

[00:03:32] Speaker 02:
But you still have to have an independent basis for money, damages, or judgment.

[00:03:38] Speaker 02:
You can take your head at me all you want.

[00:03:40] Speaker 02:
I know the law here.

[00:03:41] Speaker 03:
I'm just trying to understand your position.

[00:03:44] Speaker 02:
It's not my position.

[00:03:45] Speaker 02:
It's the law.

[00:03:46] Speaker 02:
And it's been the law for I don't know how many decades that the Tucker Act is a waiver of sovereign immunity.

[00:03:53] Speaker 02:
But you still have to identify a money-mandating source for an award of damages or interest or the like, either a statute, a contract, or some other money-mandating clause.

[00:04:10] Speaker 03:
I think the Pauli Tulling and the Mitchell case from the Supreme Court would say that you don't need a separate waiver on that.

[00:04:28] Speaker 02:
You don't need a separate waiver, but you need to identify a money-mandating statute that entitles you to interest.

[00:04:36] Speaker 02:
The Tucker Act doesn't say anything about interest.

[00:04:39] Speaker 03:
With all due respect, the interest is based as a matter of law.

[00:04:44] Speaker 03:
It accrues on federal district court judgments.

[00:04:49] Speaker 02:
Well, the Court of Federal Claims is not a district court, for one thing.

[00:04:53] Speaker 02:
Do you have a statute that says interest accrues on all judgments?

[00:05:00] Speaker 03:
Yes.

[00:05:00] Speaker 02:
What is it?

[00:05:01] Speaker 03:
1961, Your Honor, on both federal and Court of Claims.

[00:05:07] Speaker 02:
Did we hold a maricon that it doesn't?

[00:05:10] Speaker 02:
waive interest?

[00:05:15] Speaker 03:
The statute says that the judgment shall address marathon.

[00:05:18] Speaker 02:
I mean, marathon said it doesn't waive sovereign immunity, or that that's not a provision that gets around the no interest rule of Shaw.

[00:05:30] Speaker 03:
The no interest rule of Shaw, number one, doesn't apply to this case.

[00:05:35] Speaker 03:
It wasn't a Tucker Act case.

[00:05:37] Speaker 03:
It wasn't a Fifth Amendment compensation case.

[00:05:40] Speaker 02:
You got interest on the money damages for the Fifth Amendment violation, right?

[00:05:45] Speaker 02:
Yes.

[00:05:46] Speaker 02:
Because the Fifth Amendment is such a money-mandating constitutional provision.

[00:05:52] Speaker 02:
But the Fifth Amendment doesn't give you attorney's fees, right?

[00:05:56] Speaker 02:
You have to go to the URA for attorney's fees.

[00:05:59] Speaker 02:
And there is no interest provision

[00:06:09] Speaker 03:
Judgments under the URA have interest as a matter of law.

[00:06:16] Speaker 03:
What law?

[00:06:17] Speaker 03:
1961.

[00:06:20] Speaker 03:
What part of 1961?

[00:06:22] Speaker 03:
Well, I think it's up section C2.

[00:06:29] Speaker 03:
and for this court, subsection C3.

[00:06:32] Speaker 02:
Did you read Marathon?

[00:06:33] Speaker 02:
Marathon says that 1961 C2 is not a complete waiver of the no interest rule under Schott.

[00:06:46] Speaker 02:
It reads it in a very specific way.

[00:06:49] Speaker 02:
And it's not a way that covers your situation.

[00:06:51] Speaker 03:
The no interest rule is a pre-judgment interest rule, not a post-judgment interest rule.

[00:06:57] Speaker 03:
Entirely different.

[00:06:59] Speaker 03:
And even Shaw doesn't apply.

[00:07:03] Speaker 02:
So what language in 1961, C2, do you think gives you post-judgment interest, even if Marathon governed pre-judgment interest?

[00:07:14] Speaker 03:
What language?

[00:07:15] Speaker 02:
Never mind.

[00:07:15] Speaker 03:
No, just keep going.

[00:07:18] Speaker 04:
Just on the claim we're talking about, which is interest on attorney's fees, when did this come up?

[00:07:27] Speaker 03:
When did it come up?

[00:07:29] Speaker 04:
It came up.

[00:07:31] Speaker 04:
I mean, the last case that we did, which was this was a remand.

[00:07:36] Speaker 04:
Yes.

[00:07:37] Speaker 04:
Didn't we dispose of that, or was it even raised in that case?

[00:07:40] Speaker 03:
Yes.

[00:07:41] Speaker 03:
In your decision back in 2022, I think that's when you were referring to.

[00:07:47] Speaker 03:
OK.

[00:07:48] Speaker 03:
So Mrs. Woodley is asking for interest, expenses, and attorney's fees.

[00:07:57] Speaker 03:
for the judgments that were entered back in 2020.

[00:08:08] Speaker 04:
And we rejected that request in respect to everything other than it.

[00:08:12] Speaker 04:
Let me finish my question, and then you can answer it.

[00:08:14] Speaker 04:
We rejected that request for everything other than three expenses that was subject of the remand, right?

[00:08:21] Speaker 03:
I don't believe so.

[00:08:21] Speaker 03:
I think what you did was say that interest was appropriate.

[00:08:26] Speaker 03:
provided that she preserved her claim for post-judgment interest.

[00:08:32] Speaker 03:
And she did.

[00:08:33] Speaker 03:
And the government concedes in its papers that she did preserve her claim for post-judgment interest.

[00:08:43] Speaker 03:
So there's no difference whether it's interest on travel expenses

[00:08:53] Speaker 03:
or whether it's interest on attorney fees that are incurred on the same trip or the same matter, if there's a judgment for them and the government delays payment, then the post-judgment interest must be paid, or else the government gets to benefit from the delay.

[00:09:17] Speaker 03:
And they reward it for delaying.

[00:09:20] Speaker 03:
For example, on this.

[00:09:22] Speaker 03:
On the small judgment of $10,674, that has not been paid by the government for more than three years.

[00:09:36] Speaker 00:
Is that one in which they offered you the money, but you rejected it?

[00:09:40] Speaker 03:
They made an offer under Rule 68, but they didn't make it in accordance with the rule in a timely fashion, yes.

[00:09:55] Speaker 03:
Any other questions for the court?

[00:10:02] Speaker ?:
No.

[00:10:02] Speaker ?:
Thank you.

[00:10:02] Speaker 04:
Good morning.

[00:10:15] Speaker 01:
Good morning.

[00:10:16] Speaker 01:
May it please the court.

[00:10:17] Speaker 01:
My name is Alan Bramender and I represent the United States.

[00:10:20] Speaker 01:
In 2022, this court held that Mr. Woodley as a

[00:10:24] Speaker 01:
pro se litigant was not entitled to attorney's fees.

[00:10:27] Speaker 04:
And was the request for post-judgment interest on the initial award of attorney's fees to Kellogg, was that a subject in the 22?

[00:10:38] Speaker 01:
It was not.

[00:10:39] Speaker 01:
And so to be clear, Your Honor, there's two buckets of interest that are at issue.

[00:10:44] Speaker 01:
There is a smaller bucket of interest, about $3,000, on the pro se fees and expenses that was preserved.

[00:10:51] Speaker 04:
And it was the subject of the remand.

[00:10:52] Speaker 01:
and was subject to the remand.

[00:10:54] Speaker 01:
That's correct.

[00:10:54] Speaker 01:
And then there's a larger bucket of interest of about $75,000 to the Kellogg-Hanson law firm.

[00:11:00] Speaker 01:
That claim was not preserved.

[00:11:02] Speaker 01:
Kellogg-Hanson, the firm itself, never sought interest on its judgment.

[00:11:07] Speaker 04:
So it just appeared on the remand, as in on the remand.

[00:11:09] Speaker 01:
It just appeared on the remand.

[00:11:10] Speaker 01:
That is correct.

[00:11:11] Speaker 04:
OK.

[00:11:11] Speaker 04:
And what about the issue of Mr. Woodley's payment for his attorney's fees?

[00:11:18] Speaker 04:
Was that alive at remand?

[00:11:20] Speaker 01:
It was not, Your Honor.

[00:11:21] Speaker 01:
This court remanded.

[00:11:23] Speaker 01:
a determination of reasonableness on three specific expenses.

[00:11:27] Speaker 01:
That's the property appraisal cost, the filing fee, and a payment to a third party for legislative history.

[00:11:34] Speaker 01:
It was those three expenses, the reasonableness of those three expenses, that was remanded, along with any properly preserved claim for interest.

[00:11:43] Speaker 01:
On remand, the United States didn't dispute the reasonableness of these three expenses, offered to pay those expenses, along with about a 50% premium to settle the case.

[00:11:53] Speaker 01:
These rejected that offer.

[00:11:55] Speaker 01:
And then filed claims for almost a half a million dollars, including almost $400,000 in fees, attorney's fees, which this court had already

[00:12:04] Speaker 01:
Mr. Relief is not eligible for, and then the forfeited claim for interest as well, which is forfeited and also is barred by the no interest rule.

[00:12:17] Speaker 02:
Do we have to even decide the issue that I had to colloquy with your opposing counsel about whether the no interest rule applies here?

[00:12:28] Speaker 02:
Because do we have to decide it with that small amount that you agreed on the cost?

[00:12:33] Speaker 02:
Is that why we have to decide it?

[00:12:34] Speaker 01:
I think that's right.

[00:12:35] Speaker 01:
I think this court doesn't have to decide.

[00:12:36] Speaker 02:
We don't have to decide.

[00:12:37] Speaker 02:
I mean, the attorney fee stuff, because it was

[00:12:39] Speaker 02:
not raised before you think is forfeit.

[00:12:43] Speaker 02:
Or we already decided.

[00:12:45] Speaker 02:
The interest on the Kellogg-Huber fees you think is forfeit, the pro se attorney fees we've already decided.

[00:12:51] Speaker 02:
So we don't have to decide interest on any of those, but because you agree that they're entitled to a small amount of costs,

[00:12:58] Speaker 02:
Do you think that they're entitled to interest on those costs or not?

[00:13:00] Speaker 01:
No.

[00:13:00] Speaker 01:
Because of the no interest rule, there is no.

[00:13:02] Speaker 02:
But that was what was actually adjudicated and should have been adjudicated on reading.

[00:13:06] Speaker 01:
And the CFC did adjudicate that issue and found that it was barred by the no interest rule.

[00:13:11] Speaker 01:
Because there is no waiver of sovereign immunity, the Tucker Act waiver is a waiver for damages.

[00:13:16] Speaker 01:
It is not a waiver for interest.

[00:13:18] Speaker 01:
As the Supreme Court explains in Shaw, damages and interest are two separate things.

[00:13:23] Speaker 01:
And so a waiver for damages in the Tucker Act simply is not enough.

[00:13:29] Speaker 01:
And if the court doesn't have any other questions, we'd ask that this EFC be affirmed.

[00:13:34] Speaker 04:
Thank you.

[00:13:35] Speaker 01:
Thank you.

[00:13:44] Speaker 03:
Council raised the, or talked about the attorney's fees issue.

[00:13:49] Speaker 03:
And the attorney's fees pro se impediment or barrier

[00:13:58] Speaker 03:
was lifted in 2020 by a disclaimer of any personal interest in the underlying recovery.

[00:14:08] Speaker 03:
And then it was a quick claim deed where the underlying property was quick claimed to Mrs. Woodley.

[00:14:18] Speaker 03:
In 2023, correct?

[00:14:21] Speaker 03:
Yeah, that was 2023.

[00:14:22] Speaker 04:
November.

[00:14:24] Speaker 03:
November.

[00:14:24] Speaker 03:
And the disclaimer was in November of 2020.

[00:14:29] Speaker 03:
So the pro se impediment that was lifted, and we are asking for attorney's fees in accordance with the URA provision that- So you have no financial interest whatsoever in your wife's estate or property or anything?

[00:14:50] Speaker 02:
I don't.

[00:14:51] Speaker 02:
That's right.

[00:14:51] Speaker 02:
So if she, for some reason, passed away, you don't get the money?

[00:14:58] Speaker 03:
It depends on what she says and her will.

[00:15:02] Speaker 03:
If you continue the pro se bar, then she could never hire an attorney that happened to be her husband.

[00:15:20] Speaker 03:
That's just not right.

[00:15:22] Speaker 03:
If her husband happens to be the best person for her in her judgment,

[00:15:27] Speaker 03:
then she has the right to hire him.

[00:15:29] Speaker 03:
And under the URA, it doesn't say shall war attorneys fees except if the attorney is the spouse of a claimant.

[00:15:40] Speaker 04:
So haven't we already adjudicated this question?

[00:15:43] Speaker 03:
You did ask to attorneys fees between 2014 to 2020.

[00:15:53] Speaker 03:
He said, that was the time bar.

[00:15:55] Speaker 03:
Now, I don't agree with that decision, but that was your decision.

[00:16:01] Speaker 03:
But now, there is no reason to continue a pro se bar.

[00:16:07] Speaker 04:
So you thought that since, in your view, circumstances had changed, even though we had adjudicated the issue before us in 20 in our last opinion, that on the remand from that opinion that dealt exclusively with expenses, you could raise this

[00:16:23] Speaker 04:
issue a new based on new circumstances?

[00:16:26] Speaker 04:
Is that your position?

[00:16:27] Speaker 03:
Yes.

[00:16:29] Speaker 03:
And the statute's clear that she's entitled to recover her attorneys fees.

[00:16:35] Speaker 02:
Why isn't that foreclosed by the mandate rule?

[00:16:38] Speaker 02:
I'm sorry?

[00:16:38] Speaker 02:
Why isn't your argument foreclosed by the mandate rule?

[00:16:44] Speaker 03:
I don't understand the question.

[00:16:46] Speaker 03:
I'm sorry.

[00:16:46] Speaker 02:
Well, we only remanded for the limited purpose of determining costs.

[00:16:52] Speaker 02:
That's the mandate.

[00:16:53] Speaker 02:
Everything else isn't.

[00:16:55] Speaker 03:
We're here on appeal, where new fees are being, you didn't adjudicate fees that didn't exist yet.

[00:17:05] Speaker 03:
We're here on fees that were incurred after adjudication in the 2022.

[00:17:13] Speaker 04:
But don't you see that there's a problem, even if it's not on substance, on process, which is that the only issue that was adjudicated in this case was the subject of the remand from that decision?

[00:17:31] Speaker 04:
Right?

[00:17:32] Speaker 04:
Am I right about that?

[00:17:34] Speaker 04:
The subject of the remand.

[00:17:37] Speaker 04:
from our 22 case dealt exclusively with expenses and the potential for public judgment interest?

[00:17:44] Speaker 03:
On remand, we went back to talk about the availability to provide a judgment for attorney's fees for the appeal that resulted in your remand.

[00:18:00] Speaker 04:
And you don't think that's a problem?

[00:18:03] Speaker 04:
to introduce a new issue based on changed circumstances on a remand for an appeal where that issue was already decided?

[00:18:13] Speaker 03:
The attorney's fees continue to accrue as you represent a client.

[00:18:18] Speaker 03:
And when you go back on remand, you're accruing attorney's fees.

[00:18:25] Speaker 03:
I mean, when the statute clearly says that you get your expenses including attorney's fees,

[00:18:33] Speaker 03:
The URA provision provides for that.

[00:18:36] Speaker 03:
Your decision back in 2016 provides for that.

[00:18:43] Speaker 03:
And we do our best to present the case.

[00:18:50] Speaker 03:
And we incur attorney's fees to do the briefing and all the rest.

[00:18:54] Speaker 03:
And she's entitled to recover those attorney's fees from the government.

[00:18:59] Speaker 03:
The government's to bear those expenses.

[00:19:01] Speaker 03:
That's what we said back in 2016.

[00:19:03] Speaker 03:
That's in accordance with the URA.

[00:19:06] Speaker 03:
That's in accordance with the provision that she is not to be in a worse financial position economically than before the taking.

[00:19:17] Speaker 03:
And if she has to incur and eat the attorney's fees, she would leave.

[00:19:22] Speaker 03:
So I'm asking that.

[00:19:27] Speaker 03:
Rather, you look more to the substance of what's going on here, which is her right to be fully compensated for expenses under the URA.

[00:19:39] Speaker 04:
Thank you.

[00:19:39] Speaker 03:
Thank you.