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interest on EAJA fee award since no statutory provision expressly
authorizes such interest).
d. Test Case Status
One aspect of this litigation that is certainly “not of
broad and general application” (and therefore potentially
supports the finding of a special factor) is its test case
status. Undoubtedly, counsel’s efforts have beneficially
affected hundreds of nontest case petitioners. At least one
court, however, has explicitly rejected the notion that such
widespread benefit may be treated as a special factor under the
EAJA. See Pollgreen v. Morris, 911 F.2d 527 (11th Cir. 1990).
Pollgreen involved an EAJA fee award to plaintiffs who had
successfully challenged fines and property seizures stemming from
their participation in the “Freedom Flotilla” of Cuban refugees
in 1980. The District Court had doubled the statutory rate, in
part because the litigation benefited “not only * * * the
Plaintiffs herein but a class of people, including over 1,000
vessel owners.” Id. at 537; see also Lyden v. Howerton, 731 F.
Supp. 1545, 1556 (S.D. Fla. 1990) (same language in another
“Freedom Flotilla” case). The Court of Appeals concluded that
the District Court’s “consideration of the litigation’s benefit
to a broad class of people is foreclosed by Pierce’s prohibition
on considering ‘the results obtained’”. Pollgreen v. Morris,
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