Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Petitioner v. Melissa Cloer (569 U.S. 369)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided May 20, 2013 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 569 U.S. 369 · 133 S. Ct. 1886
- Decided
- May 20, 2013
- Term
- October Term 2012
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Sotomayor
- Issue area
- Attorneys
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice SOTOMAYOR delivered the opinion of the Court. The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 (NCVIA or Act), 100 Stat. 3756, 42 U.S.C. § 300aa-l et seq., provides that a court may award attorney’s fees and costs “incurred [by a claimant] in any proceeding on” an unsuccessful vaccine-injury “petition filed under section 300aa-ll,” if that petition “was brought in good faith and there was a reasonable basis for the claim for which the petition was brought.” § 300aa-15(e)(l). The Act’s limitations provision states that “no petition may be filed for compensation” more than 36 months after the claimant’s initial symptoms occur. § 300aa-16(a)(2). The question before us is whether an untimely petition can garner an award of attorney’s fees. We agree with a majority of the en banc Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that it can. I A The NCVIA “establishes a no-fault compensation program ‘designed to work faster and with greater ease than the civil tort system.’ ” Bruesewitz v. Wyeth LLC, 562 U.S.-,-, 131 S.Ct. 1068, 1073, 179 L.Ed.2d 1 (2011) (quoting Shalala v. Whitecotton, 514 U.S. 268, 269, 115 S.Ct. 1477, 131 L.Ed.2d 374 (1995)). Congress enacted the NCVIA to stabilize the vaccine market and expedite compensation to injured parties after complaints mounted regarding the inefficiencies and costs borne by both injured consumers and vaccine manufacturers under the…
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