A recent Law 360 story by Christine Powell, “Tribal Co. Can Keep Atty Fees in $3M Gov’t Contract Row,” reports that the Tenth Circuit cemented an attorneys’ fee award given to one of the Fort Sill Apache Tribe's businesses and its leadership after escaping Team Systems International LLC’s lawsuit alleging that they breached an agreement for developing government contracts by failing to pay it nearly $3 million.

In a brief, unanimous ruling, a panel of three of the circuit court’s judges affirmed an Oklahoma district court’s award of $29,234 in attorneys’ fees to Fort Sill Apache Industries, its president and CEO Jeff Haozous and its board of directors as the prevailing party on TSI’s claims.

The attorneys’ fee award came after the Tenth Circuit last year separately affirmed the dismissal of TSI’s allegations that FSAI breached an agreement under which TSI supported FSAI’s work on government construction contracts by failing to fully pay it, concluding that TSI had failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted.

When appealing the attorneys’ fee award, TSI had argued that the lower court abused its discretion by conducting an in camera review of certain unredacted billing and time records because TSI could not meaningfully challenge the reasonableness of the fee bid, but the panel rejected that contention.

“This court has held that a court reviewing a fee request did not abuse its discretion in denying the responding party access to the itemized time records and conducting in camera review of those records,” the panel said.  “Here, TSI did not pursue other avenues of discovery or contend on appeal that alternative discovery would have been inadequate.  Moreover, TSI has not shown that the district court’s reasons for its ruling were inadequate.”

The case is Team Sys. International v. Haozous et al, case number 16-6277, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.