A recent Daily Report story, “Legal Fee Award Tops Judgment in Disability Rights Case,” reports that a federal judge has awarded a metro Atlanta attorney more than $400,000 in legal fees for securing a $75,000 judgment in a disability discrimination suit the attorney said could have been settled if the defendant, Georgia State University, had not insisted on going to trial.

"We tried to settle the case very early," said attorney James Radford, who sued the Atlanta college after it ousted a student who revealed he was schizophrenic from university housing.  Radford said if university officials had simply allowed his client—identified in court papers only by the initials "R.W."—to continue living in his dorm, "They probably would have walked away from it without any legal fees."  Instead, GSU contested the case, filed in 2013, for three years, despite what Radford said were "numerous offers to settle."

After a four-day trial in October, a federal jury in Atlanta awarded Radford's client $75,000, finding that GSU had violated the federal Americans with Disabilities Act by discriminating against the student solely because he had disclosed his mental illness.  After that verdict, U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May rescinded both the student's ouster from his dorm and additional conditions GSU had put in place if R.W. ever reapplied for student housing accommodations.

In approving fees and expenses for Radford and co-counsel Regan Keebaugh, May noted the disparity between the jury's award and the fees and expenses she approved.  But, she said in her order, "The vindication of a constitutional right can, of itself, be a sufficiently significant result even when the plaintiff receives only a small amount of money."

May also dismissed GSU's contention that the lawyers' $385 hourly rate was excessive and rejected arguments that Radford and his team should not be paid for motions they lost, including one for summary judgment.  "The Supreme Court has established that in civil rights cases prevailing parties should be paid for all efforts reasonably expended toward the litigation, not just for successful efforts," she said.

May also rejected GSU's argument that R.W.'s lawyers should not be reimbursed for hours spent researching claims they didn't pursue.  May said this could discourage lawyers "from diligently investigating alternative avenues of relief" for their clients.  She also said the "timely abandonment" of those claims "likely spared both parties a considerable amount of time and effort."