A recent Law 360 by Daniel Connolly, “2nd Circ. Nixes Bid to Boost Fees in COVID-19 Worship Case,” reports that the Second Circuit rejected arguments from a group of Orthodox Jewish plaintiffs that they should have been awarded more than the $447,000 in attorney fees a lower court granted them after they successfully challenged pandemic-related limits on religious gatherings in New York State. The three-judge panel's ruling upheld a district judge's decision awarding about $369,000 to Troutman Pepper and $78,000 to the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.
While the plaintiffs had argued they deserved more, the panel said that the trial judge had properly decided not to award fees that could be attributed to time their attorneys had spent working on what ended up being a technically improper filing to the Second Circuit as they sought a preliminary injunction to block the COVID-19 measures.
"Here, the district court did not abuse its discretion by applying a 10 percent reduction to Troutman's fees to account for some of the hours spent on the motion for a preliminary injunction pending appeal in this court," U.S. Circuit Judge Debra Ann Livingston wrote for the panel. The lower court had decided that the plaintiffs didn't deserve the full fee for the work they did for the Second Circuit filing in October 2020 because they improperly filed their motion straight to the appeals court, rather than waiting for the district court.
Judge Livingston wrote the district court was also correct when it set lower hourly rates for plaintiffs' counsel than they wanted, and when the district court refused to apply an additional fee enhancement for case-specific reasons. Finally, the panel rejected their argument that they deserved a fee award related to the work they performed in preparing the current appeal to the Second Circuit.
The underlying case stemmed from an October 2020 lawsuit filed by Orthodox Jewish organizations who argued that the state's COVID-19 limits on gatherings would make it impossible for them to observe upcoming religious holidays. The plaintiffs won an injunction that stopped the state from enforcing pandemic-related capacity limits on houses of worship, according to Monday's decision.
Afterward, the plaintiffs moved for attorney fees, requesting about $922,000 plus costs, according to court records. In December 2021, the district court granted them about $447,000 in fees and no costs.