The report and online database use the key terms defined below. These key terms identify information about each reported EAJA award that the Office of the Chair requested and received from the agencies.
Name: This field displays the name of the case, no matter if the EAJA award comes from a court case or an adversary adjudication. This field typically includes the names of parties and federal agencies and their leaders. The Office of the Chair encouraged agencies to standardize case names when feasible.
Number: This field displays the associated case number. For awards in court cases, this is typically the associated federal-court docket number. For adversary adjudications, this may appear as an internal agency docket number.
Award Date: This field displays the date of the order or other court or adjudicative document making the EAJA award. During the data-collection process, these dates were standardized and appear in the online database formatted as “MM-DD-YYYY.”
Agency: Along with the next category, this field identifies the agency involved in the case. This field identifies (1) one of the 15 executive-branch departments (Department of Labor, for example) or (2) an “Other Agency” option for agencies that are not bureaus, components, subunits, or otherwise housed within one of the 15 executive-branch departments (Social Security Administration, for example).
Agency Subcomponent: Along with the previous category, this field identifies the specific agency involved in the case. This field includes the full name of the agency, as well as any commonly used abbreviation in parentheses to facilitate the database’s search and filter functions. If a department or agency appears in the database, the name of the department or agency will appear as an option in the filter function.
For example, the Social Security Administration is not housed in a larger agency or department, so it is listed as an “Other Agency” in the prior category and appears as “Social Security Administration (SSA)” in the Agency Subcomponent. For another example, the Federal Bureau of Investigation would appear as an Agency Subcomponent within the Department of Justice. For agencies that did not provide specific agency components, this field will be blank or appear as “Null” in the database.
Awardees: This field displays “[t]he name of each party to whom the award was made as such party is identified in the order or other court document making the award.” When possible, agencies identified a single individual or entity for each award. If there were multiple awardees in a single court case or order, agencies typically identified each awardee as a separate award on a separate row (when feasible).
Award Amount: This field displays the total dollar amount of the EAJA award.
Claims Description: This field displays a brief “description of the claims.” The responding agency provided a concise description for each award. Given the nature of these descriptions in some cases, the Office of the Chair urged agencies to be attentive to privileged, confidential, or otherwise protected information that should not be disclosed by law to the Office of the Chair or included in the publicly available online database.
Findings Basis: This field displays the basis for finding that the agency’s position was not substantially justified. As with the previous field, the Office of the Chair again flagged the potential issues regarding privileged, confidential, or otherwise protected information that should not be disclosed by law in these summaries or included in the publicly available online database.
Type of Case (court case or adjudication): This field displays whether the award was made in an adversary adjudication or in a court case.
Hyperlink: This field displays a hyperlink to the case, if one is available. Some hyperlinks may direct to documents behind paywalls or other websites requiring a paid subscription. The Office of the Chair encouraged agencies to provide hyperlinks to free websites that are not behind a paywall, if available (for example, the agency’s website). Common sources of hyperlinks from agencies included the agency’s website, Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER), federal court dockets or other court websites, and online databases such as LexisNexis and Westlaw.