Mr. Masías v. HHS - Hepatitis B, arthritis (2012)

Mr. Masías filed a petition in the 1999 docket alleging that a hepatitis B vaccination caused him to develop arthritis.

His claim was resolved by agreement of the parties, and petitioner received compensation. The compensation amount is not available in the staging documents accessed for this summary.

Following resolution of the merits case, petitioner's attorney's fees were awarded on three occasions, with the most recent award in 2010. In each instance, the special master calculated fees using local Wyoming attorney rates rather than the higher District of Columbia (Laffey Matrix) rates.

Petitioner appealed this fee calculation to the Court of Federal Claims, the Federal Circuit, and the Supreme Court; all courts upheld the use of locality rates, and the Supreme Court denied certiorari. Petitioner then sought attorneys' fees for his unsuccessful fee appeal (so-called "fees on fees").

The special master denied this request, relying on Wagner v. Shinseki, 640 F.3d 1255 (Fed.

Cir. 2011), which holds that fees for an unsuccessful appeal are not available. On October 5, 2012, CFC Judge Hodges remanded the matter to the special master, holding that the special master had improperly applied a blanket success requirement for fees on fees without independent analysis, and that no such categorical prohibition appears in the vaccine statute.

The remand directed the special master to reconsider whether fees were appropriate under the statutory standard.