Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY — Plaintiffs in Utah's same-sex marriage recognition case want the state to pay nearly $200,000 in attorneys fees and costs, according to motions filed recently in federal, district and appellate courts.
The Utah Attorney General's Office is calling the request "unreasonable."
The attorneys fees are connected to the work the plaintiffs' attorneys performed filing, defending and handling an appeal over a lawsuit demanding that the state extend marital benefits to about 1,300 gay and lesbian couples who were married after U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby struck down Utah's voter-approved gay marriage ban last winter.
Four same-sex couples sued the state when Utah Gov. Gary Herbert's office issued a directive against recognizing those marriages as valid.
In May, U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball ruled that Utah had to extend marital benefits to same-sex couples who married during December 2013 and January 2014 before the U.S. Supreme Court issued a stay in that case, Kitchen v. Herbert.
Meanwhile, the state appealed Kimball's decision on the marriage recognition case to the 10th Circuit Court, eventually obtaining a stay from the Supreme Court. A motion filed Monday in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals seeks $33,000 in fees and costs for the plaintiff attorneys’ appeals work.
A motion filed in Utah’s U.S. District Court on Friday seeks $164,943. The attorneys fees total $130,418 for 534 hours of legal work, but the plaintiffs also seek a 25 percent "augmentation" given the financial risk undertaken when they initially agreed to represent the plaintiffs at no charge at the expense of fee-paying work.
"Not only is such enhancement appropriate under the circumstances, but it is also necessary to attract skilled practitioners to important civil rights cases like this one," the motion states.
Not only is such enhancement appropriate under the circumstances, but it is also necessary to attract skilled practitioners to important civil rights cases like this one.
–Plaintiffs' Motion for Fees and Costs on Appeal
Missy Larsen, spokeswoman for the Utah Attorney General's Office, said state attorneys negotiated with the plaintiffs' attorneys over fees, but the talks broke down.
"Negotiations broke down because items presented included billing for multiple press conferences, multiple billings for several lawyers to do a single job, and even included a bill entry for over $200 for one attorney's 'crying and gnashing of teeth' in response to the U.S. Supreme Court granting a stay," a statement from the office said.
The plaintiffs then filed motions in the district and appellate courts.
"The attorney general's office finds these requests unreasonable and will address the discrepancies in court. We trust that the district court and 10th Circuit will make equitable determinations," Larsen said.
In October, same-sex marriage became legal in Utah after the Supreme Court declined to hear the state's appeal of a lower court ruling allowing gays and lesbians to marry. A day later, the state dropped its appeal of the federal court ruling in the marriage recognition case.
Initially, all counsel for the plaintiffs agreed to represent the couples without charging fees.
"They did so knowing that the demands on their time and skills would be rigorous and the risk they might never be compensated for their time was high. The demands on plaintiffs' attorneys' time over many months proved to be immense, as the case proceeded on an expedited track and resulted in over a thousand pages of legal filings in a short period of time," the motion to the 10th Circuit states.
Ultimately, the plaintiffs "successfully challenged the defendants' steadfast refusal to honor their vested marital rights," the document states.
The hourly fees sought range from $205 to $245 for ACLU of Utah staff attorneys; $250 to $300 for attorneys in the law firm Strindberg & Scholnick; and $350 for Joshua Block, staff attorney for the national ACLU LGBT Project. More than 63 hours of legal work were conducted by plaintiffs' attorneys on the appeal, according to the documents.
Because the state initially refused to recognize their marriages, the plaintiffs "were in uncharted legal territory."
"Because (Utah's) refusal to recognize their marriages inflicted daily, ongoing harms to their family integrity, their finances, their dignity and their psychological well being, plaintiffs needed to charge into that territory as quickly and effectively as possible, and do so with able counsel," the motion to the appellate court states.
