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Texas Judge Adds $700K in Attorney Fees in Age Bias Case

January 5, 2017 | Posted in : Fee Award, Prevailing Party Issues

A recent Texas Lawyer story, “Judge Adds $700K in Attorney Fees to $150K Award in Age Bias Case,” reports that a Texas judge in Houston has awarded $767,742 in attorney fees—an amount that dwarfed the $150,000 in actual damages awarded in the same case—to a paralegal who filed an age-discrimination and retaliation claim against her former employer, Houston-based energy company Apache Corp.

"This case signifies that even—in the Age of Trump—a Fortune 500 oil company can and will be held accountable for violating our nation's civil rights laws," said Scott Newar of the Newar Law Firm in Houston, who represented the paralegal, Cathryn "Cathy" Davis.

In his ruling for Davis, 152nd District Judge Robert Schaffer offered no explanation behind the attorney fee award of nearly five times the actual damages a jury issued after a four-week trial.

Still, the award may have Apache's lead defense counsel, John Zavitsanos of Houston's Ahmad, Zavitsanos, Anaipakos, Alavi & Mensing, rethinking an email sent to Newar before the trial in which Zavitsanos derided the case as "utterly frivolous and a joke."  That email and others were shared with Schaffer.

For his part, Zavitsanos noted that Davis failed to prevail on her discrimination claim and only won a fraction of the damages she was seeking on her retaliation claim.  Apache intends to appeal, Zavitsanos said.

As far as any unkind emails, Zavitsanos said the plaintiff's lawyers started it and, at one point, "tried to pick a fist fight.  "High attorney fees were tallied on both sides and that's not a good thing, Zavitsanos said.

Bottom line: The court's order awarding the plaintiff the attorney fees represents an error, Zavitsanos said.  "We are going to take it up upon appeal," he added.